Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

We are debating today a motion which reflects on the shameful behaviour of this minister, based purely on the politics of a marginal seat, in exercising his powers as a minister of the Crown under an act of this parliament. This is the minister who, through his Liberal Party candidate for McMillan, promised a small group of wind farm opponents that a vote for the Liberals in the last election would result in the wind farm being blocked. That is the reality. That is on the public record. This was a matter which involved a political promise by the candidate and this was a minister who was involved in delivering on that promise, come what may.

The minister spent 450 days casting around for an excuse, any excuse, to set aside this project—any vague or flimsy reason that he could come up with to deliver on a promise made to a small number of constituents in the seat of McMillan. All the advice from his own department told him that he had no grounds to block the proposal. This was reported in an article in the Age quite recently. The article talks about a briefing paper which was delivered to Senator Ian Campbell, dated 20 March this year, from the Department of the Environment and Heritage, signed off by first assistant secretary Gerard Early—so it was at a very high level in the department. The paper recommended that the wind farm be approved with standard conditions to minimise risks to endangered birds. In other words, it recommended the sorts of conditions which were imposed on other wind farms approved by this government and, indeed, by this very minister.

Mr Early advised the minister that more drastic measures, such as vetoing the development, would be inconsistent with previous government decisions and ‘would have ramifications for all coastal development in western Tasmania—your state, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett—in Victoria, in southern New South Wales and in south-eastern South Australia’. I will touch on those very serious ramifications in this contribution. This minister knew better than very senior officers in his department, and he rejected their very sensible advice. He had commissioned advice from Biosis, and from Biosis he got something that he thought approached what he wanted. He jumped on it, without much thought, it would appear, because the rest is history. Windpower took the matter to the Federal Court, as you would expect in these very shabby circumstances, and the minister’s house of cards collapsed.

The minister continued his inane commentary on the matter, in opposition to the court case, and, when his own department’s advice was revealed, what did he say? The Age quotes him as saying:

I get advice from my department on all issues on a daily basis, I don’t always accept it. The bottom line is, if you want a ‘Yes Minister’ in action I’m the wrong guy to be your minister … It was a very good decision, I stand by it and I’d make it again tomorrow.

That reminded me not of Yes, Minister but Michael Palin of Monty Python fame. Who could forget that famous and very relevant sketch where John Cleese complained about a dead parrot. What did Michael Palin say: ‘Norwegian Blue—beautiful plumage!’ That is akin to this mantra about the orange-bellied parrot, which frankly was not endangered at all.