Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Campbell. Will the minister explain to the Senate how science underscores decision making on the environment, particularly decision making on wind farms?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

Order! Senators on my left, I cannot hear the question and I am sure the minister cannot. Would you come to order. Senator Ian Campbell.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order. I do not think the senator has finished her question.

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

I am sorry, Senator Adams.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am enjoying it so much.

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

Perhaps you could ask your colleagues to keep quiet so she can finish her question, Senator.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the minister explain to the Senate how science underscores decision making on the environment, particularly decision making on wind farms? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

Thank you to Senator Adams, who takes a very close interest in environmental issues in my home state of Western Australia and across the country. It is incredibly important, when you put in place the sort of world-leading federal environmental law that this government has through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, that it is based on good science, based on due process and delivers.

Australia should be proud of the fact that since July 2000 over 2,000 proposals have been passed through that process. We have achieved a tremendously important outcome—not only good environmental outcomes, world-class environmental outcomes, but also a strong economy. We always seek to balance sound economic outcomes to secure jobs with good outcomes for our environment. That is very much the process we seek to follow. It is the law that this parliament has passed. It is very much the policy of this government.

We have seen in relation to wind farms in Victoria—following opposition senators bleating last week about a proposal for a wind farm at Bald Hills and me having taken 450 days to approve it—revelations over the weekend, which will be very embarrassing to people like Senator Chris Evans and Senator Robert Ray, that their comrade in Victoria Mr Rob Hulls has actually had a proposal for a 48-turbine wind farm just down the road at Leongatha, known as the Dollar Wind Farm, sitting on his desk—for how long? For 450-plus days. That is only surpassed by how long he has had a report from his panel sitting in his bottom drawer telling him that the threat to the orange-bellied parrot is in fact dire.

If science is to be the guide in relation to environmental approvals then Mr Hulls has a problem. Mr Hulls went into hiding over the weekend. He sent a spokeswoman out and she—God bless her—said, ‘These problems are very complex.’ They are very complex indeed. And it has got a little bit more complex since last week because this minister, with the full support of his federal comrades, federal Labor, has knocked back a wind farm at Ballan because of a threat to 2.7 eagles a year. And that is the mainland eagle, Senator Brown, of which there are over 100,000; they are not even on any list, as opposed the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, of which there are only about 150 left.

At Ballan Mr Hulls closes down a wind farm proposal because of the perceived risk, although his expert panel said there was no risk. He absolutely ignored that advice, with the full support of his federal Labor comrades, and closed down the wind farm at Ballan. Down at Bald Hills, he said, ‘Let’s wave it through,’ even though the same number of wedge-tailed eagles will be killed. Of course he has got a complex problem: the prediction sitting on his desk for Dollar Wind Farm just down the road—to use a Senator Robert Ray-ism—is that at least three wedge-tailed eagles will be killed every 450 days. Labor are totally hypocritical on this. They are a bunch of charlatans on this issue and they should come clean and apologise.