Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I join this debate on the urgency motion about Senator Ian Campbell and the process he used in assessing the environmental impact of the Bald Hills wind farm in Victoria. Since the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was established on 16 July 2000, 2,745 proposals have been referred to the minister—not this minister but the ministers before him. But only four applications—that is, less than 0.015 per cent—have ever been rejected.

A significant number of the 2,745 projects involved threatened species. But it is painfully clear to us on this side of the chamber at least that this minister, like those who have gone before him, has been very reluctant indeed to use the EPBC Act to prevent projects from going ahead and has opted instead to utilise the option in the legislation of approving projects with conditions. It came as an enormous surprise to the wind industry and environment groups that the minister overturned the Victorian state decision and knocked back the Bald Hills wind farm. The minister’s decision was made even more surprising when it was revealed last week that he had ignored departmental advice to allow that wind farm to proceed.

A government report entitled Wind farm collision risk for birds: cumulative risks for threatened and migratory species stated that wind farms, not specifically the Bald Hills wind farm, are not likely to have a major impact on the species in question—that is, the orange-bellied parrot, the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, the swift parrot and the white-bellied sea eagle. Specifically on the orange-bellied parrot, the report says:

The current and proposed levels of wind farms within its habitat do not significantly affect the chance of survival ...

                 …         …         …

... the species has a very high probability of going extinct within 50 years in the absence of any mortality due to wind turbine collisions.

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... such action—

preventing wind turbines, that is—

will have extremely limited beneficial value to conservation of the parrot without addressing very much greater adverse effects that are currently operating ...

Those threats include the fragmentation and degradation of overwinter habitat by grazing, agriculture and urban development; competition with other seed-eating birds; foxes and feral cats; disease; and disorientation during migration caused by brightly lit fishing boats. Ironically, the orange-bellied parrot is also on the list of birds threatened because of climate change.

The Bald Hills wind farm would significantly reduce greenhouse emissions—some 435,000 tonnes a year. There are far greater threats to the orange-bellied parrot than turbines, including global warming. A better outcome for the orange-bellied parrot, the Democrats say, would have been to approve the project with conditions. These could have included that the wind farm be required to minimise impact on habitat and that a percentage of the revenue from the wind farm or a specified dollar amount be put into creating more winter feeding habitats—which is a big problem for the bird—and securing current habitats. The CEO of the proposal is quoted as saying:

We’d be more than happy to do whatever we could to make sure we didn’t have a negative impact on these parrots.

As we have already heard today, the minister has conveniently used the EPBC Act to fulfil his pledge during the 2004 federal election campaign to stop the project, which is now located in the Liberal seat of McMillan. It is not hard to be cynical when we have the Treasurer and Prime Minister in waiting, Peter Costello, defending Senator Ian Campbell’s decision by saying that wind farms ‘look ugly’. Federal agriculture minister Peter McGauran argued that wind power is a fraud and would devalue farming land. The minister even said that the information about wind farms on the AGO’s website should be removed.

Given that only 0.015 per cent of applications have been knocked back by the minister since 2000, given that the department advised the minister to allow the wind farm to go ahead and given that the minister could easily have approved the project, like so many others, with conditions that would have been a win for the parrot, we can only conclude that the minister has set out to undermine the legitimacy of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. (Time expired)