Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Can the minister confirm that his department told him in March that the impact of the Bald Hills wind farm on threatened and migratory species was ‘negligible’, and ‘acceptable’, and that ‘there does not appear to be direct evidence of any impact’? Is it true that on the basis of this advice the department recommended that the wind farm should be approved? Can the minister now explain why he subsequently claimed that he had blocked the project because of orange-bellied parrots? Was the department’s advice not clear enough for the minister, where it said that there was no evidence that the wind farm would have anything other than a ‘negligible’ impact on the parrots? What possible grounds could the minister have had for rejecting that scientifically based advice?

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

I think these issues have been well canvassed, but just for the benefit of Senator Wortley, who is clearly interested in threatened species, the department not only advised on the impacts on orange-bellied parrots; it also gave what I thought was very wise advice by saying that it would be sensible and diligent to look at the cumulative impact of wind farm developments along that coast.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over 1,000 years, perhaps!

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

Senator Carr would be a tremendous source of power for any wind turbine placed in front of his mouth. Senator Wortley’s question is a very important one. The department did in fact advise that we do this cumulative impact assessment. The reason for that is that the coalition government brought into law a thing called the mandatory renewable energy target, which has seen the number of wind turbines, which was roughly 20 under the previous Labor federal regime, increase to 600 under this government. The Victorian government made a decision to ensure that you could not develop wind farms to the west of Port Phillip Bay along the Great Ocean Road, which forces wind farm developments into a relatively small stretch of coast in Gippsland. There have been a number of developments there. One wind farm may have negligible impacts on any species, but we know from Victorian government reports and from Australian government reports—and I make the point that the Victorian government’s own reports on the impacts on orange-bellied parrots have been kept secret to this day, and that Rob Hulls, the state minister, refuses to release the report; I have got a report that fell off the back of a truck that gives Mr Hulls the same advice that I received—that the cumulative impact of wind farms along that coast could be catastrophic for orange-bellied parrots. He not only chose to ignore that report; he chose to hide it for the last couple of years. I have written to Mr Hulls, asking him to make that report public.

Senator Wortley would understand that the orange-bellied parrot is not the only threatened species in this area. All of the reports say that the species flies through this area regularly, on an annual basis. The bird flies through this area at a height where the blades can destroy it. Tasmanian senators will know that birdstrike, although it is a relatively new phenomenon for most Australians, occurs very rapidly.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One in 1,000 years is not rapid!

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr, I will warn you in a moment.

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

Senator Carr says ‘one in 1,000 years’; I refer him to the Sunday newspapers in Tasmania that show strikes at the Woolnorth wind farm on the very endangered wedge-tailed eagle in northern Tasmania—originally predicted at one per year—are occurring at the rate of one per month. This is a species that is less threatened than the orange-bellied parrot. There are 130 breeding pairs versus 50. So my department, to conclude—I am sure a supplementary question will come up—did give us advice on cumulative impacts. The advice on cumulative impacts said quite clearly that the orange-bellied parrot is in such low numbers and at such risk of extinction that any further threats to it could hasten its extinction. That is the advice I relied on, and it is sound and thorough advice.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. What does the minister’s decision to abuse his legal powers on the basis of local politics rather than scientific evidence mean for other developers? Through his grossly political actions, hasn’t the minister totally undermined the integrity of the very laws that he is supposed to uphold?

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

You could only describe as hypocritical someone who supports the decision of Mr Hulls to stop a wind farm development in Ballan, less than 200 kilometres north of Bald Hills, but then criticises me for stopping one when the impacts on wedge-tailed eagles are almost identical. Mr Hulls looked at the impacts on wedge-tailed eagles of a wind farm in Ballan and decided to stop it; he looked at the same report in relation to Bald Hills and said it should go ahead. He is very inconsistent. I would be interested to know whether Senator Wortley supported this decision, by one who only a few months ago approved the biggest greenhouse gas emitting facility in the Southern Hemisphere—445 million tonnes of carbon per year. Victorian Labor are people who profess to care about the climate and climate change, but totally ignore—(Time expired)