Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Everything has been tabled in the court. Everything is out there. Senator Sherry says, ‘Table the advice.’ All of these documents are entirely before the Australian public. The only other document—if we go back to the capital ‘h’ hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this—is the advice to the Labor Party government in Victoria which said exactly the same thing about the cumulative impact on migratory birds of wind turbines on the Gippsland coast. That is a report from the Department of Sustainability and Environment in Victoria. It remains a secret report and it comes to the same conclusion that the Biosis report does, and that is that orange-bellied parrots transit through this location, that the turbines would be a substantial threat to the survival of that species and that a conservative approach needs to be taken to the development. That is the advice that the Labor Party are very embarrassed to see. We know that Mr Hulls will not release it. We know that the Labor Party’s hypocrisy on this knows no bounds.

The other point that needs to be made, when you have the Labor Party windbagging on about this issue, is that Christian Zahra’s bill remains, I presume, the Australian Labor Party policy. I think it would be in the interests of full disclosure of all the events for me to table the Local Community Input into Renewable Energy Developments Bill 2003. I will do so. I am sure that the Clerk of the Senate is wondering whether or not it is appropriate to table a House of Representatives bill that may have expired.