Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I must admit to some disappointment that we are today debating a bill about wind farm noise. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Excessive Noise from Windfarms) Bill has its origins in concerns about the supposed health effects of living next to wind farms. As Senator Milne noted in her contribution to the debate, an enormous variety of symptoms have been attributed to wind turbines. The list starts with headaches, nausea, loss of sleep and fatigue, and goes as far as things like terminal cancer. Indeed, allegations have been made that animals keel over dead as a result of wind turbines. As a doctor, many of these symptoms are familiar to me, and they do have much in common with many other conditions that are associated with modern life. I do not doubt for a moment that these symptoms are real, but the cause is much more complicated than the substance of this bill implies.

What we are debating today are matters of scientific fact—are wind farms noisy, how much acoustic energy do they introduce into the environment, does that energy have a direct impact on the human body that can lead to health problems. These are not political questions; they are questions of empirical fact. I will come back to the facts of the health impacts of wind farms in a moment, but I do need to emphasise the importance of science in this debate. Science is the pursuit of truth; the pursuit of knowledge. As a scientist by training I have always respected, indeed have been in awe of, the scientific method and what it has achieved for the human race. The results are all around us. In a few generations, in the blink of history's eye, we have seen air travel, electric power and instantaneous global communication all move from the miraculous to the routine.

My medical training instilled a deep respect for the scientific method as a way of sifting truth from falsehood. Nowhere are the benefits more plain than in medicine. There is a deep respect for this method amongst medical practitioners and researchers. After all, it is not that long ago that medicine concerned itself with balancing the humours and bloodletting. Nowadays a fairly routine trip to the hospital might involve a trip, for example, to a PET scanner. For a PET scan, unstable atomic nuclei are introduced into the body so we can build up a three-dimensional image based on the gamma rays that are emitted. It is just incredible. Few of us would probably stop to consider the centuries of painstaking work that made this possible, but it is reflected in the longer, healthier lives that we lead here today. Many or even most of us would not be alive were it not for the scientific advances of previous decades and centuries.

In other words, science works. Its fruits are on display and cannot be denied. Indeed, we take them for granted. We cannot come up with cogent explanations for the workings of the mobile phone. I use an aeroplane frequently, and I will fly home tomorrow. I trust the phone and the aeroplane, and many other things, because they are built on sound and well tested scientific principles. Science deals with facts in a way that is fundamentally different from politics. Science is not about going into bat for a particular position, about finding some evidence to tailor some predetermined desired outcome. Science is a process; it takes into account the biases inherent in human nature and systematically eliminates them from the final result. Science is not a journey to some predetermined outcome but a commitment to follow the evidence wherever it leads. That is quite foreign to the way public policy is generally made in this place.

It is paradoxical that our lives have become more dependent on science and technology while, at the same time, the status of science in the public debate is eroding. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. It was not that long ago that the polio vaccine, penicillin and even the atom bomb were branded as new reminders of how science is changing everyday lives and the future of our world. As constant scientific and technological innovation has become a part of background life, the significance of science has faded. As a result, scientists now occupy just another voice in the public debate. On a good day they are given equal billing with another lobby group or vested interest, and this is a dangerous thing when we are debating a matter of scientific fact such as whether wind farms are harmful to human health.

Scientists are not always the best people to participate in policy debates—they are often inexperienced and not skilled in the media, and they can be drowned out or outfoxed by those who are much better equipped for these tasks. Cashed-up lobby groups have the skills and resources to distort debates, and it can be difficult for scientific experts to overcome this. We have seen before the dangers inherent in this way of doing things. The tobacco lobby were extraordinarily successful in muddying the waters around science. They did not need to prove that tobacco was safe, that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer—all they had to do was instil in the public mind the idea that the question was not yet settled and then let inertia and commercial interests do the rest. The same thing is happening with climate change—think tanks, pet academics, fake grassroots groups; they have long been sowing doubt about the seemingly undeniable reality of climate change. They are not struggling for cash or access to the megaphone. Powerful and wealthy industries have a commercial imperative to delay action on climate change, and it is frightening to see how successful they have been.

This bill, which I contend is largely the product of such mischief by vested interests, is one small example of the phenomenon that is now playing out all over the world—and critically here in Australia.