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

This is Labor’s policy. This is the policy supported by the Labor leadership. It has not been repealed, as far as I know. It says that it would repeal the section of the renewable energy act, a law of this parliament, and require that a power station, to be eligible for accreditation—that is, to receive the $3 billion worth of subsidies to the wind energy industry that Christian Zahra refers to—would need to meet a couple of conditions. One of the conditions is that, if a local power station were to be eligible to receive renewable energy credits, it would have to—and I quote from clause 1(2)(c) of the Labor Party’s legislation—receive approval of ‘the relevant local council or councils’. The relevant local council or councils did not approve this development, nor do any of the councils in the area. If the Labor Party’s policy had been in place, they would have stopped the Bald Hills wind farm. It was actually Christian Zahra’s policy, Mark Latham’s policy and, we presume, Kim Beazley’s policy to stop the Bald Hills wind farm.

What is the accusation against me? I assessed the proposal under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, I made a determination that it would have an impact on a threatened species under the relevant section of the act and I said, ‘No, the development should not go ahead.’ The Labor Party were not going to go through an existing law; they were going to come in here, if Mr Latham had become Prime Minister—we presume that they would do that if Mr Beazley were to become Prime Minister—and bring into being the Local Community Input into Renewable Energy Developments Bill. They would have brought a whole new law into place. They would not have used an existing law and gone through a proper and correct legal process. They would have actually changed the law and effectively brought in retrospective legislation to stop the Bald Hills wind farm. You cannot really see greater hypocrisy than that.

The other point that needs to be made is that there is a substantial issue in Australia that does need to be addressed. Christian Zahra was right and the Australian Wind Energy Association is right. There are going to be more and more wind developments around Australia. We do have a substantial issue with climate change to address. It needs to be managed well. Wind energy does have a part to play. This government has, in fact, supported the construction of 600 wind turbines across Australia, and by and large they make a great contribution to a cleaner and more secure energy future for Australia.

The government have a comprehensive policy to address climate change. We do want to ensure that solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, geosequestration, capture and storage of carbon from coal—all of the prerequisites to a comprehensive climate change management program—are put in place. And wind will be a part of that strategy; it needs to be a part of that strategy. With the Labor Party we see this sort of crass politicisation of wind energy that is taking place. You have the Australian Labor Party down in Victoria saying, ‘We can’t have a wind farm in a Labor electorate. We cannot have a wind farm at Ballan, we cannot have one at Port Fairy, but we want one at Bald Hills.’ There is no science, no justification for it. They just say, ‘We’ll stop it if it’s in a Labor electorate and we’ll approve it if it’s in a Liberal electorate.’ It is pure politics—no interest in the environment, no interest in sensible and rational climate change policy, just pure politics and hypocrisy from the Labor Party.

The coalition government’s credentials on preserving habitat and putting in place recovery programs for a range of species are now substantial. I think it was a very fair question today from Senator Wong when she asked: ‘What are you doing to address other issues? Are you in fact being selective and just saying, “We’ll stop a wind farm”?’ In fact, the coalition’s record is clear on its investment to seek to ensure that the orange-bellied parrot has some chance of survival. I remind the Senate that this is a species that is down to 50 breeding pairs. Before this debate hotted up and became controversial, most Australians probably would not have been aware of the impact that wind turbines have on migratory birds. It is in fact the case that wind turbines of the size of the Bald Hills ones will kill around 100 birds a year. That is one every few days. We have recently seen an assessment done of the Woolnorth wind farm in Tasmania. It was assessed that that wind farm would kill one wedge-tailed eagle a year, and it has killed one a month in the last three months. The wedge-tailed eagle is a highly threatened species, with only 130 breeding pairs left. So that is a massive impact on that species.

We have had a comprehensive policy put in place to ensure the recovery and viability of the orange-bellied parrot population. This has involved in total around $1 million of investment from the Commonwealth government. There is $80,000 a year for orange-bellied parrot recovery programs and $492,800 over three years to find and conserve key mainland habitat for the orange-bellied parrot. Further comprehensive work is being done on the King Island multispecies recovery plan to assist the orange-bellied parrot and there is a $29,000 program to bring cats under control on King Island. There are also orange-bellied parrot captive breeding programs. There is a range of programs adding up to over $1 million. So this is not a government that has just taken a recent interest in the orange-bellied parrot, unlike the Labor Party, who have chosen to make cheap politics out of it.