Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I think Senator Boswell mentioned a politician up that way. I am not sure if he is a politician—you never see him in parliament. You never see him voting on important issues. I never take much notice of what the current member for Kennedy says. I do recall, Senator Boswell, that for years he has been talking about development of the north and some water storage facilities on the Flinders and other rivers up that way. When a leaked draft coalition discussion paper on these things hit the newsstands—I do emphasise it is not coalition policy at this stage—all Mr Katter could do was oppose the proposals that I thought he had been calling upon and supporting for a long period of time. But it is always difficult to understand what Mr Katter's view is on anything.

There was a proposal for a power grid in the north. I do not want to go into that; it has fallen on tough times. But part of that proposal was for a wind farm in the plains to the west of Townsville, around Hughenden.

One would think that, if there are to be wind farms, somewhere like that might be a good place—assuming the wind patterns are appropriate there. It is, to a degree, away from population bases, so the sorts of health difficulties which Senator Madigan referred to in his bill would be obviated.

We believe there should be research which, as I said, includes full monitoring and full laboratory and epidemiological studies. It should be research which ensures that the views of industry and community are heard so that areas of concern can be studied and addressed. It should look at audible noise, low-frequency noise—infrasound—electromagnetic radiation and vibration arising from or associated with wind farms, including wind turbines. It should look at transmission lines, substations, telecommunications towers and other structures associated with industrial wind electricity generation. That is why we are moving this motion.

Wind farms and wind power generation are important in achieving the 20 per cent renewable energy target set by the Commonwealth—by the Howard government. As time has moved on, however, more and more questions have been raised about whether that 20 per cent renewable energy target is appropriate for Australia at the present time. I assume Senator Boswell will speak a lot more about that in his contribution to the debate on this bill. Suffice it for me to say that I do think there is a change in community perception and I think that is something the current government and any future government might have to look at very carefully.

In the limited time left to me I will just raise a couple of things. I am a great believer in hydro power. Very often you will hear people from Tasmania—and the Greens political party, for some reason, seem to have a greater following in that state than anywhere else—