Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) 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 the Biosis report, on which he relied to block the Bald Hills wind farm, estimated that on average one theoretical orange-bellied parrot might be killed at the site every thousand years? Did the report conclude that theoretically only 15 parrots would even fly through the site each year? Isn’t it true that the report also noted that it had intentionally overestimated the risk posed by wind farms therefore overstating the likelihood of collisions? Doesn’t the Biosis report conclude that the very small combined impact of the 23 wind farms it studied should be offset by conservation measures? Why didn’t the minister heed that advice?

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

Firstly, I thank Senator O’Brien for the question because it gives me the opportunity to, again, put to bed another myth that has been taken out of bed by Mr Hulls and his propaganda unit down in the Victorian government. We have the Victorian Labor Party, Senator Carr’s comrades, going around trying to convince people that they care about the environment, care about heritage, in the lead up to the Victorian election. The hypocrisy is really mind blowing. Here is a minister who received a report—this is the Victorian government Department of Sustainability and Environment report—that said that there was a significant risk to the extinction of this species. It said that they fly through the site.

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

Mr President, on a point of order: my question was about the actions of this minister in this parliament, not a minister in another parliament about another project. I ask you to draw the minister’s attention to the question. He is not being relevant to the question which was asked. He is therefore not answering the question as he is supposed to be doing under the standing orders.

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

I remind the minister he has nearly three minutes left to complete his answer, and I remind him of the question.

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

Thank you for the reminder, Mr President. What Senator O’Brien is clearly ignorant of is that, as part of the approvals process, we rely on an enormous number of reports. One of them was the Biosis report. Let us put the myth to bed. Senator O’Brien is obviously very keen to know the truth about this. The Biosis report did not say that at all. The Biosis report came to one conclusion. It said that if you build this wind farm it will have an impact on orange-bellied parrots. It will have an impact on wedge-tailed eagles, white-bellied sea eagles and swift parrots but, in relation to orange-bellied parrots, it would hasten their extinction. That is what the report said. Nowhere in that report did it say that the potential risk was one in 1,000. That is a statement that was put out by Mr Hulls. That was a statement put out by Senator Carr’s Labor Party comrade for political purposes. It is untrue, it is not based on that report and the people who wrote the report have said so.

All we do know is that Labor has no cohesive climate change policy except that they have hung onto Senator Faulkner’s idea from back in 1995. Faced with what we now know was a significant challenge to the global and Australian environment from climate change, what was the one idea Senator Faulkner came up with as environment minister? His response to climate change was to bring in a carbon tax. Ten years later, 10 years in opposition, probably half-a-dozen shadow ministers for the environment since, what is Mr Beazley’s policy? A new carbon tax. The Labor Party has not moved from there, whereas the coalition has brought in a comprehensive environmental protection regime, a comprehensive climate change action program and billions of dollars of investment to support solar, wind power, geothermal and the sequestration of carbon, the capture of carbon. We have a comprehensive climate change program and also the most comprehensive protection regime under a very strong environment law which is aimed not only to protect threatened species—like parrots, like wedge-tailed eagles—but also to invest in their recovery. Over $1 million has been spent just on the orange-bellied parrot in the last 10 years, protecting its habitat and trying to build its resilience. What Labor would tell you is that you can continue to build five wind turbines for every two we build down in Gippsland and hang the impact on the environment. You should be able to do both. That is what we are trying to do.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I note the minister did not attempt to answer the substance of the question. Can the minister confirm that Bald Hills was one of 14 wind farms that were identified by Biosis as potentially being on the migration path of the orange-bellied parrot? Is it true that some of these wind farms were approved without conditions, even though they posed a greater risk to the orange-bellied parrot than Bald Hills? Can the minister also explain why he has approved without conditions 800 other wind turbines since becoming minister but blocked the Bald Hills proposal? Why was Bald Hills blocked and the other 800 turbines approved?

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

If he wants to be consistent, that is a question that Senator O’Brien should ask his comrade in Victoria Mr Hulls. He should say, ‘Why is it, Mr Hulls, that the Victorian Labor Party, on the basis of a report that said 2.7 wedge--tailed eagles will get killed a year, stopped a wind farm in a Labor electorate but approved one 200 miles away?’ The hypocrisy of Labor on this is absolutely palpable. They are totally inconsistent. They do not have a climate change policy. They do not have a threatened species policy. After 10 years in opposition, the only thing they have left is John Faulkner’s old idea of a carbon tax—to put up the price of fuel on Australian motorists, to put up energy prices in their homes. They should actually go back to the drawing board and stop playing politics with these important issues.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.