Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I read with some surprise the latest spin from the minister for energy on Labor's reckless energy rollout. From the government that brought the notion of green hydrogen and green steel, now we have 'green noise' thanks to the minister for energy—no, not the noise from wind turbines but 'green noise' from opponents of energy projects. The minister claims opponents of wind and solar projects live 'hundreds of kilometres from developments' and are 'driven by climate denial', and the minister claims to take community consultation very seriously. Well, it is serious, because police have been out in my electorate today as the government owned Transmission Company Victoria uses the powers the Victorian parliament gave them on Thursday to impose $8,000 fines if farmers don't open their gates willingly for VNI West to be built. Those farmers weren't taken seriously. They weren't listened to. They have been told, with the strong arm of the law, that they are being ignored and that the government is coming through.

Going back to the energy project opponents who Minister Bowen claims are some distance from energy projects, I thought I'd share the perspective of one of my constituents, young Rupanyup farmer Matthew Weidemann. Matt writes:

We personally are very close to the turbines in Wimmera Victoria, with them being built around us as neighbours will have infrastructure. As well as powerlines, this increases the dangers for my kids learning to farm it also is very unclear about how changes in the weather and the ability for autonomous machinery to operate.

With reports of debris and toxins becoming major issues to neighbours from the turbine infrastructure this is also very worrying to think we have to have exclusion zones from our own boundary fences—this limits food production again.

I can't understand how they think it's 'green' when today in the Weekly Times the headline—

is—

127 ha—

hectares—

of native vegetation—

is—

to be scrubbed for 102 wind turbines from the area—remembering that this is removing breakdown of CO2. It's very hypocritical and they seem to be adding to net zero not reducing it.

Matt provided other thoughts I don't have time to share here today, but he calls out the logical inconsistencies of Labor's position on energy. Matt's views are similar to those of many in regional Australia and similar to the views of those who turned out in force with Matt, whom I was proud to stand with in protesting at the Bush Summit in Ballarat on Friday.

See this speech in context