John Madigan (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the interim report of the Select Committee on Wind Turbines, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the reports be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

It is my pleasure, as chair of the Select Committee on Wind Turbines to present to the Senate our interim report. To date, we have received 464 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders. These have come from wind farm opponents and proponents, environmental and community groups and those in the private sector. Submissions have come from individuals who host turbines and those who have fled their homes to escape them. The committee has received written and verbal evidence from state governments, local councils, various federal government agencies, wind farm operators and manufacturers, country fire authorities, acousticians, medical authorities and representatives from various associations and institutions. In addition, many private citizens have had the opportunity to voice their opinions with the planning, consultation, approval, development and operation of wind farms in Australia. We have conducted public hearings in Portland in south-west Victoria, in Cairns, in Canberra, in Melbourne and in Adelaide, and further public hearings are planned for Canberra and Sydney.

I have been following the wind farm issue for nine years now, and that includes the five years before I was elected to this place. I have toured wind farm facilities, I have visited countless numbers of wind farm homes. I have hosted public meetings. I have met with wind farm developers and operators. I have engaged with both pro-wind-farm and anti-wind-farm groups. Am I obsessed with this issue? Some accuse me of this, but I would deny that.

My interest began and continues for one simple reason, and that is people. We stand on the edge of a new energy future for Australia. Today, and over recent months, many of us have been involved in detailed discussions on the renewable energy target. The RET essentially favours wind, but there are a host of other eligible renewable energy technologies that we should also be supporting. Both manufacturing and jobs in the emerging clean energy sector are intimately intertwined with this. Our future as a country rests in a strong manufacturing sector. Our jobs, and the jobs of our children and our grandchildren, depend on this. Jobs are the DNA for social, environmental and economic stability and growth. Effective, efficient, secure and safe power generation is integral to this.

The welfare of our people, particularly those who are most vulnerable, depends on an efficient supply of low-cost, readily available and secure energy. As I said yesterday in this place, in my home state of Victoria 34,000 homes were disconnected from the electricity grid because they can longer afford to pay their power bills. Rocketing power bills are of deep concern, and the link between this trend and wind farms is both serious and significant. As debate continues in this place on the renewable energy target we, as parliamentarians, must put to rest the continuing controversy around wind farms. We must answer the questions that continue to linger and we must address the rising tide of anger and concern.

This issue is a complex one. It involves a diverse range of disciplines. Some of these are: acoustics; the engineering complexity of power generation and supply; legislative parameters governing such areas as planning and local government; the operation of bodies such as the Clean Energy Regulator and the National Health and Medical Research Council; the effectiveness of monitoring the compliance of wind farms; the impact on flora and aerial operations in their vicinity; firefighting; and crop management.

But in the middle of all this data and complexity there is one simple element, and that is people. On one side of this debate we have some of Australia's largest companies and some very large multinationals operating wind farms. On the other hand, we have people. We have forceful and exceptionally well-funded environmental lobby groups with sophisticated digital media and campaigning skills, and on the other side we have people. Many of the people most impacted by wind farms live in isolated areas and often in rather humble circumstances. They are not experienced or sophisticated in the ways of lobbying or campaigning and they lack deep pockets and the ability to fight strong forces.

I do not believe people like this simply move out of their homes for no reason. For almost a decade now I have been hearing stories about the negative impact of wind turbines on nearby residents. I have heard stories about people driven to ill health, and to the brink of suicide, by industrial wind power generation plants erected near their homes. I have heard stories about how wind farm developers operate without integrity and how they divide communities and bend the rules in pursuit of profits. I have heard stories about compliant state government planning departments bowing to wind farm company pressure, and local councils are ill equipped to deal with the tsunami of issues that always follows. I have seen an ongoing campaign of 'blame the victim', with those who make claims about adverse health impacts being vilified and smeared.

This issue is not going away. Despite the shrill denials from wind farm companies and environmental groups, Australians are suffering in their homes. In short, all these issues must be addressed. I am sure the wind industry would welcome this as a way of clearing the runway, if you like. I am sure the environmental lobby groups and Greens, with their expressed concern for the welfare of people, would welcome this.

As such, our interim report contained seven key recommendations. We would like to see the creation of an independent expert scientific committee on industrial sound, as well as the creation of a national environment protection and low-frequency noise measure. This measure would be integral to the ongoing accreditation of all wind turbine facilities. We urgently need new wind farm national guidelines so each Australian state and territory has a clear road map for future development. We recommend that the eligibility of renewable energy certificates, a source of huge profit for wind farm operators and one of the drivers behind the spike in power prices, be linked to compliance with the aforementioned guidelines. We would like to see the establishment of a national wind farm ombudsman to handle wind farm complaints. We propose a levy on operators who receive RECs, to fund the costs of the independent expert scientific committee on wind turbines. Lastly, the industry need more transparency. The old excuse of commercial-in-confidence does not cut it. Data such as wind speed and basic operation statistics, including operating hours and noise monitoring, should be made freely available under conditions monitored by the independent expert scientific committee. This industry needs transparency. We, as a country, need it. If—as the wind industry keeps telling us—it has nothing to hide, then it has nothing to fear. We are all in this together. We all have a shared interest in and responsibility for getting to the truth. Now is the time.

I would like to thank Senator Leyonhjelm for his initiative in calling for this inquiry. I thank Senator Day for his valuable support as deputy chair. I thank my other fellow committee members, Senators Back, Canavan, and Urquhart for their assistance and patience with me as chair, and for their enthusiasm and thoroughness. I thank Senator Xenophon for his valuable input as a participating member, as well a Senator Marshall. I thank the committee secretariat, Jeanette Radcliffe, Richard Grant, Carol Stewart and Cate Gauthier, for their exceptional assistance, support and guidance.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the interim report of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines. The first thing I would like to note is that there is absolutely no need for this interim report. The scheduled reporting date of 3 August allowed ample time for the committee to properly scrutinise the evidence and make considered recommendations. It is clear that, in releasing this interim report, the majority committee members have determined to use committee processes to influence political outcomes, with the broader goal of undermining and destabilising Australia's wind energy industry. This report is not an attempt to share the results of a legitimate inquiry; it is a political stitch-up designed to bring the wind industry to its knees. Clearly, this is nothing but an unashamed attempt to manipulate renewable energy target outcomes, with the explicit goal of targeting the wind industry.

The committee has received no new compelling evidence that would suggest that the multiple reviews, inquiries and studies into this matter have been wrong. But, of course, the report is not about the evidence—and the report is not about the truth. The report is about the opportunity to do a dirty deal with the government to shackle the wind industry with layers of unnecessary red tape in return for supporting the terrible biomass inclusions in the RET. The majority members found a willing ally in our Prime Minister. This is a man who has spent his life in politics blissfully unshackled by any imperative to tell the truth and supremely unapologetic when it is revealed that his comments stand in total contrast to the evidence.

This was the report that it was always going to be, because this committee has never been about a legitimate inquiry but rather about how to shackle, undermine and ultimately destroy the wind industry. Before the inquiry even started, the game was rigged. Before a single submission was received, the outcome was determined. You just need to look at the terms of reference, which read like a poorly articulated list of longstanding furphies about wind energy that have been debunked again and again. However, what is more telling about the terms of reference is not what is in them but what isn't, and I encourage senators to take a look at those terms of reference. If you do, you will see no mention of the environmental benefits of wind energy, despite the fact that wind power reduces carbon dioxide emissions by millions of tonnes each year in Australia. You will see no room for consideration of the significant benefits of wind energy to regional economies, where an individual wind farm can generate hundreds of jobs in construction and inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy. And you will not see anything that allows for scrutiny of the health, planning and environmental impacts of existing fossil-fuel-powered energy sources. Any consideration of wind's place in our energy mix that completely ignores every other form of energy is little more than a stunt. Labor believes that any serious consideration of wind energy must consider the role it might play in Australia's broader energy mix now and into the future. This is especially important in light of AGL's recent statement that about 75 per cent of Australia's existing thermal plant 'is already beyond its useful life'.

The recommendations in this report are brazen, they are not well considered and they are unsubstantiated. Most of them are based on the implicit assumption that wind farms are dangerous to human health. This is not what the evidence says. In fact, in 25 reviews that have been undertaken into this matter across the globe, not one has found a credible causal link between wind turbines and health. For the record, I will go through some of the findings of these reviews. The NHRMC review in 2014 said:

There is no consistent evidence that noise from wind turbines―whether estimated in models or using distance as a proxy―is associated with self-reported human health effects. Isolated associations may be due to confounding, bias or chance.

This mirrors the words of the organisation in 2010, which were:

There are no direct pathological effects from wind farms and that any potential impact on humans can be minimised by following existing planning guidelines.

In 2009, the Colby review said:

The Massachusetts review said:

There is insufficient evidence that the noise from wind turbines is directly … causing health problems or disease.

The Knopper and Ollson review said:

To date, no peer reviewed scientific journal articles demonstrate a causal link between people living in proximity to modern wind turbines, the noise (audible, low frequency noise, or infrasound) they emit and resulting physiological health effects.

And on it goes: 25 reviews and no credible evidence of health impacts. In fact, the committee is yet to hear from one national medical or scientific organisation, one national health regulator or one acoustics body that holds the position that infrasound from wind farms is dangerous to human health. But the senators on this committee, who are neither medically nor acoustically trained, seem to think they have discovered something that the AMA, the NHMRC, the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants, and researchers across the globe have missed!

While the majority report recognises 'the importance of research that has a rigorous methodology, a level of independence and the outcomes of which are peer reviewed', it is outrageous that this same report ignores that very research in favour of the subjective testimony by individuals. The majority report asks:

Why are there so many people who live in close proximity to wind turbines complaining of similar physiological and psychological symptoms?

Labor senators note that there is actually enormous variance in recorded claims. In fact, ongoing research by Simon Chapman, Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney, has found 244 symptoms that individuals have attributed to wind farms. These include asthma, arthritis, autism, bee extinction, brain tumours, bronchitis, cataracts, diabetes, dolphins beaching themselves, epilepsy, haemorrhoids, leukaemia, lung cancer, multiple sclerosis and parasitic skin infections.

The majority report suggests that health impacts from wind turbines occur through the low-frequency infrasound. Again, the evidence is not on their side. In its Position statement on wind farms, peak industry body the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants states:

Investigations have found that infrasound levels around wind farms are no higher than levels measured at other locations where people live, work and sleep. Those investigations conclude that infrasound levels adjacent to wind farms are below the threshold of perception and below currently accepted limits set for infrasound.

This is echoed by the findings of an Environmental Protection Authority of South Australia study which looked at infrasound at houses in rural and urban areas, both adjacent to a wind farm and away from turbines, when the wind farms were operating as well as when they were switched off. The study concluded that the level of infrasound at houses near the wind turbines assessed is no greater than that experienced in other urban and rural environments and that the contribution of wind turbines to the measured infrasound levels is insignificant in comparison with the background level of infrasound within the environment. The report also noted that the lowest levels of infrasound were recorded at one of the houses closest to the wind farm, and that some of the highest levels of infrasound were found in the EPA's own urban office building.

This report and the dirty RET deal that has been done are shameful. Labor will be responding to the recommendations made in the final report of the committee at the scheduled reporting date in August. In the meantime, I urge the government not to make rash commitments or legislative changes based on the poorly informed and unsubstantiated recommendations of this committee.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is disappointing, having had Senator Urquhart sitting beside me for some period of time during the hearings of this inquiry into wind turbines, that she would present the summary we have just listened to. I do certainly intend to come back to it, but I just want to place on the record, as I did the other night, that I am certainly a supporter of renewable energy. I have spoken on large-scale solar, hydroelectricity, wave energy, tidal, hot rocks et cetera in this place before, but each of those share one common parameter: not one of them has ever been shown to cause, nor has it even been suggested that they cause, any ill effects on human beings.

The question before us, as has been indicated in the interim report presented by the chair, Senator Madigan, and commented on already by Senator Urquhart, is whether or not there are any health ill-effects. I first became interested in the question in 1988, when I was the chief executive officer of Rottnest Island, in Western Australia, where the first wind turbines were placed. I spoke on this issue in August 2011, expressing my concerns, and again in August 2012. I refer to the 2011 report of the Community Affairs References Committee, chaired by Senator Siewert, looking at the social and economic impacts of rural wind farms. It is interesting that several of the recommendations of that report in 2011 are mirrored in those of the report brought down by Senator Madigan this afternoon. The first recommendation, about noise standards adopted by states and territories for planning and operation, are mirrored by recommendation 3 today. For recommendation 2, back in 2011, recommending that responsible authorities should ensure that complaints are dealt with expeditiously and that the processes should involve an independent arbiter, we can go to recommendation 5 today, recommending a national wind farm ombudsman. The third recommendation from 2011 was for further consideration of the development of policy on separation criteria between residences and wind farm facilities. Senator Urquhart knows, as the rest of us do, that when the Australian acousticians met before us and assured us that the all planning for each of the states was very reputable and we asked them, 'How do you then reconcile the fact that it is a two-kilometre setback in Queensland, a 1½-kilometre setback in New South Wales and only a one-kilometre setback in South Australia and Victoria,' they could not answer that particular point.

I was not going to refer to Professor Simon Chapman, a sociologist and an epidemiologist, I understand, from the University of Sydney, but Senator Urquhart told us that Professor Chapman has undertaken ongoing research into a whole stack of clinical signs or indications of adverse health. I will be very interested to learn of the scientific papers upon which Professor Chapman undertook that ongoing research that she mentioned. I will be particularly interested in that. Professor Chapman's contribution has been to give reference to a term called the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect basically is that you assume something wrong is going to happen and it does as a result. That is Professor Chapman's conclusion on the long list of maladies that Senator Urquhart read out to us. That is about as useful as Professor Chapman's contribution. The committee only last week in Adelaide received evidence from a Mr and Mrs Gare. Let me put to rest the nocebo effect, if I may—I quote Mrs Gare before the committee:

Thank you for letting me speak to the committee today. I would like to open my statement with the following: developers and construction. In the beginning, I was excited about the wind farm and of course the financial security for our property and family. The process began with high-pressure consultations …

No nocebo; no expectation of some ill effect, but a hope and expectation of a technology that brings that family $200,000 a year because they have 19 turbines on their farm. When Mr Gare was asked by Senator Xenophon whether he would do it again, he said, 'No. We can't bear it. We just want them to go away.' This is a host and his wife who earn $200,000 a year from industrial wind turbines. I do not know where the nocebo is in that case, Professor Chapman.

We have also had evidence from a Mr and Mrs David Mortimer, he a retired military person with expertise in wave technology. They were the first people earning income from industrial wind turbines to put their hands up and say 'We cannot survive.' It is disappointing to hear what Senator Urquhart has said, because I do not really want to make this comment, and it probably will be met with some derision: I could only hope—and I say this genuinely, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Cameron and Senator Urquhart—that if the people who were affected as they say they have been affected were members of the MUA or the CFMEU, members of unions, I can assure you there would have been loud complaint and allegations—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are a dope.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not a dope. This is because these people are on their own. They are defenceless. They have nothing other than their own message. I have often thought to myself it is because they do not have any level of representation. You only have to ask yourself: why would someone whose family have owned a farming property for five generations, as we saw at Cape Bridgewater, willingly make up a story to leave their property? We all heard evidence the other day—Senators Day, Madigan, Urquhart and I heard the evidence—from a woman who came to the Barossa Valley with her husband in the hope of a beautiful retirement. She said: 'Look at what is happening to our community. It's being destroyed. It's being turned away. We're having to leave.' I ask the question of people: if they are suffering nothing, if there is only some psychosomatic event, why do they want to walk away from their lifestyle?

In terms of the effects, I did ask the Chief Medical Officer of South Australia in Adelaide the other day whether or not stress or annoyance is an adverse medical condition. He said to me, 'Senator Back, yes, it is.' I said, 'If in turn it leads to sleeplessness, to depression and to an inability to function, is that an adverse medical condition?' He said, 'Yes, it is.' The other day in Melbourne, Dr David Iser gave us evidence of the fact that one of his patients in the room at the time was suffering from a condition. A person writing to me today talks of sleeplessness and severe pain in the ears. Other effects are nasal pressure, tachycardia, burning in the chest, nausea, exhaustion of a morning as a result of the inability to sleep.

Certainly one of the things I am pleased to be able to report is that, as a result of recommendation 4 of the Siewert inquiry in 2011, the Commonwealth government is in fact initiating, for the first time anywhere in the world, genuine independent medical research to see whether there are adverse health effects. It will be coordinated through the NHMRC. Advertisements have opened and closed. The government has committed $2½ million. As Dr Tonin, a member of the Acoustic Group, said, 'If $2½ million is not enough then let us make sure that there is sufficient funding.'

Senator Urquhart was unable to attend the hearing in Cairns, but in Cairns a witness told us that when they did their 2012-13 so-called literature review, these were the keywords that the NHMRC left out of their review: stress, annoyance, heart disease, misophonia, headache, nausea, dizziness, vertigo, sleep disturbance, sleep deprivation. And they also ignored anything that was not in the English language! If one of my undergraduate students ever presented me with a literature review as poor as that one, I would have sent it back to them.

I recommend the interim report to the Senate and I look forward to making further comment.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to reassure anyone who might be listening who is perhaps feeling unwell because they are told that wind farms make them sick that they need not worry; there is no evidence anywhere on the globe that wind farms are damaging to human health—not by the NHMRC, not anywhere in the world. In fact, what we do know is that there is harm because people are told they should be worried about wind farms. This is the problem. We have a government that cuts funding to actual scientists, including the CSIRO and the NHMRC, slashes public servants who are meant to be looking after these sorts of things and now is being asked by the crossbench to establish a whole lot of new quack bodies to look into fake science. What an absolute tragedy. But the government, of course, will be loving this. Its objective, as we know, is to slash clean energy, and unfortunately it has done that by roping in the Labor Party to agree to a deal to cut the clean energy target.

And, as was revealed today in correspondence between the minister and the crossbench that linked in to recommendations of this particular wind farms inquiry, they now have a deal with the crossbench to undermine wind farms and wind energy, and to burn native forest. The government will be laughing all the way to the dirty coal bank on this one. They have succeeded in undermining clean energy. They have succeeded in burning native forest and throwing that lifeline to the native forest logging industry, which the rest of the world had walked away from, given that no-one wants woodchips from habitat. And now, of course, they are succeeding in undermining what little investor confidence there was left in wind—in clean energy generated from wind.

Of course, the huge irony here is that this government purport to be on a red-tape reduction program; yet today, in that draft correspondence on Minister Hunt's letterhead, they have agreed with the list of crossbench requirements for additional red tape on wind—baseless and completely unneeded, nonetheless red tape, to use their language—the irony that some red tape is good and some red tape is bad. Of course, the other irony is that this government want to give away environmental approval responsibilities under our actual environmental laws down to state governments. Here, thanks to the pressure from the crossbench to do the deal so that they can burn forests, they are wanting to take a state responsibility and intervene in wind farm regulation in town planning. This government know no bounds in terms of hypocrisy.

If it was genuinely concerned about the health impacts of energy generation, the government would look at the health impacts of coal. For heaven's sake, we had the Morwell fires where actual damage was done to people's health. We have coal dust with those tiny particulates that cause all sorts of respiratory problems for people. We know that coal is incredibly damaging for people's health—heart disease rates are increased, cancer rates are increased. We know that coal is worsening and, in fact, driving climate change with all of its associated health impacts. So if you are really worried about the health impacts of energy generation, where is the coalmine commissioner? Why do we have a wind farm commissioner rather than a coalmine commissioner to look at the health impacts of what is genuinely a damaging fossil fuel, damaging not only to human health but also to the environment? Unfortunately, this is just more of what can be expected from the government's tinfoil hat brigade. They do not understand climate science, they do not really like science at all and they are desperate to fall over themselves to do any deal they can that will see clean energy production in this nation. There is not a single other nation that is going backwards on climate ambition, yet this parliament has cut the carbon price and it is now seeking to cut the renewable energy target.

It is doing so because it has got a dirty deal with the crossbench, who are really concerned about wind. They need not be. I feel for them and I am sorry that they have been duped by the fake science, but there is no need for people to be concerned. Wind power is not damaging to health. It is part of the climate solution. It is in fact an industry that has the potential to generate thousands of jobs and billions of investment dollars. This is part of the clean energy mix of the future. It is not some bogeyman. If you are concerned about health impacts, look at coal.

This government has succeeded from low to go to create the uncertainty that it always wanted to create. It opened the door to negotiations with the Labor Party. Unfortunately, the Labor Party came to the table and let them cloak it in some legitimacy. Now, we hear that the Prime Minister is not happy just to cut the renewable energy target down to 33 gigawatt hours. He wants to go further. He has admitted that he wished there was never a renewable energy target in the first place, he wished that John Howard had never done that and he wanted to reduce it even further but it was all he could get through the Senate.

We are seeing what he can get through the crossbench today with this junk science that is scaring people about the impacts of wind power. We absolutely condemn this interim report.

Bob Day (SA, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just astounded. Senator Waters says that this committee and members of the inquiry have been duped by fake science. I can assure Senator Waters that we have not been duped by fake science. We have been persuaded by the dozens and dozens of people who, unlike Senator Waters, actually live near wind farms. We have heard from dozens of witnesses. There have been hundreds of submissions. We have heard from dozens of qualified researchers. We have seen admissions by health bodies that more research is needed. I did not have much of an interest in wind farms when this inquiry was first established, but a few things appealed to me: firstly, I have a science background; secondly, it is because it is to do with sound, as I am in musician and so I am interested in sound; and, thirdly, I was a pilot and I have heard quite a bit of evidence from pilots.

The basic tenet of science and one of the founding principles of science is not that you have to prove that something is true; the onus is on science to prove that something is false. For people to say that science has not proven that there has been or that there is a link between wind turbines and health is not the issue at all. One could go back in history and find many examples of new research and groundbreaking scientists—going back as far as Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein and Newton—who came up with theories. In fact, there is a great story of Albert Einstein from when he came up with his theory of relativity. His colleagues said, 'It's not true. We have a letter here from 100 of your colleagues to say that it's not true.' He responded, 'Why did you bring 100? You only need one. You only needed one scientist to prove that my theory of relativity is not true.'

This report has been absolutely fascinating. The inquiry has gone across the land. This report tabled by its chair, Senator Madigan, records the committee's concerns with, in particular, the issue of infrasound. I had not heard much about infrasound. We all know about audible levels of sound and we know about dog whistles. I hear that term 'dog whistling', which is an inaudible sound at the very high frequency end of the sound spectrum and only dogs can hear it. That is why it is called a dog whistle. It turns out that there is sound at the other end of the sound spectrum. I do not know what particular animal you might summon with a whistle if one could be designed that emitted very, very low frequencies! It is this very low frequency area that has fascinated scientists and acousticians. Apparently, there is very strong evidence from dozens and dozens of people who testify that they have had serious health effects from this.

We have a very basic principle in our court system where a person stands in the dock or stands in the witness box and they give testimony. It is a basic principle that they can say, 'I saw this with my own eyes and this happened to me.' It is not hearsay. It is firsthand evidence. I am persuaded, as groups like the NHMRC are also persuaded, that more research is needed in this area. I have also seen a report from the early 1980s, going back 30 years, making a link between low frequency infrasound and health.

The committee believes that the recommendations in this report are crucial in putting in place regulatory structures and guidance that will set clear, consistent and robust parameters for future wind farm developments. Quite frankly, at the moment, it is a free for all. They are a law unto themselves. We heard evidence from local shire councils who are way out of their depth in attempting to regulate and enforce compliance with planning regulations. We heard from state governments, who also are struggling with having to enforce compliance on wind farms. For the federal government to adopt and establish regulatory structures to set clear, consistent and robust parameters can only be a good thing. These recommendations are intended for implementation federally, but they will direct and guide state and territory governments in their planning approval processes. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.