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

I thought I was coming in here to briefly speak on the animal protection bill, but of course I am delighted to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. Indeed, I make the point that all of us in public life, and certainly those of us in the Australian parliament are no exception, do aim to do good. But more than anything else, we certainly have an obligation to ensure that we do no harm. I fear there are elements within the context of what we are discussing this afternoon and that is that they are doing harm or they have the potential to be doing harm. I speak of adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines.

I do refer through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Walters, who spoke before me on this matter—

Senator Waters interjecting—

I am terribly sorry; I do apologise, Senator Waters. I apologise for not mentioning your name correctly. I now do correct that. But I particularly refer to the dismissal by Senator Waters of any possible adverse health effects on people affected by industrial wind turbines. Indeed, the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines is currently underway on this very matter and, to me, it is disappointing that the Greens Party elected not to have a person participating in this inquiry.

I am also pleased to acknowledge to the Senate a commitment by the coalition coming into government now being honoured, with which I had some association—that is, a commitment to the expenditure of some $2.5 million to undertake independent medical research to establish whether there are adverse health effects from wind turbines. This is the first time, anywhere in the world, that that research will be undertaken. The NHMRC have responsibility for advertising for parties competent to undertake the medical research and they have done that. They have closed applications. I eagerly look forward to the appointment of an independent panel.

Again, if I could just draw attention to the comments of others who have asserted that NHMRC have already undertaken research and have reported that there are no adverse health effects. That indeed is not the case. There have been a couple of literature reviews, the most recent of which included only one acoustician and three epidemiologists but nobody with actual expertise in this field. So therefore one would be hard put to actually claim that no adverse health effects could be stated.

In fact, the CEO of NHMRC himself has indeed said that the outcome of that literature review was not to come up with that conclusion. I have been critical on a number of counts, particularly as to the number of papers that were rejected as part of the literature review. They are in fact not in the English language, including Japanese and Polish. Others were also excluded.

Indeed, whilst it is not my position to comment at all on outcomes of the Senate select committee and I do not intend to do so, I certainly can make my own observations about medical doctors who have agreed—acousticians on both sides of this argument—only in the last few days, in hearings in Melbourne and Adelaide, and have actually stated quite strongly that there are, at least, stress and annoyances. The chief medical officer of South Australia concurred with me the other day: if stress and annoyance lead to sleeplessness, which leads to depression, indeed that of itself is an aetiological cause of adverse health. People of course speak of whether it is audible sound or subaudible infrasound. In a sense, as the point was made the other day: noise is just unwanted sound. I hope that the independent medical research will in fact undertake research and come up with some results in that space.

I was very interested in the comments only last week of a well-regarded neuroscientist Professor Simon Carlile, from the University of Sydney. He said, 'There is a growing body of evidence, pointing to low-frequency infrasound directly affecting the human nervous system.' Carlile is internationally regarded in this space. He of course speaks in terms of physiology—the fact that the nervous system responds to low frequency. As to noise, the evidence, he says, is 'Yes, the nervous system can be activated at these frequencies.' But he said, 'Not in the traditional way of one interpreting hearing, but in fact the vestibular system within the ear involving itself in balance.'

We quite often hear the analogy used whereby if a group of people go out onto the ocean, two or three get seasick and the rest of them do not. It is not all that conducive to good relations for those who did not get seasick to turn around and say to the others, 'You're actually not suffering seasickness; there is nothing wrong with you.' It is what some people facetiously refer to as a 'nocebo' effect—in other words, you think you are going to get seasick, therefore you get seasick and therefore you were not seasick. In fact, Carlile does not speak of it as an analogy at all; Carlile actually says, 'Physiologically, they may be very, very similar.' That is, the vestibular system being affected, suffering seasickness. 'They get seasick,' he said, 'because of the stimulation of the vestibular system and there seem to be quite significant variations of susceptibility to vestibular-induced nausea.' So I think, again, it is not helpful for people to make those comments.

I speak also of the impact of this bill. When it comes to renewable energy, there are many sources. We know that small-scale solar power will be unaffected by this legislation, and I think there is unanimous support within Parliament House for that. We know that the emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries will be protected by this legislation. But my concern, as we move to the target of 33,000 gigawatt hours, is that other forms of renewables—and, I hasten to add, other forms of renewables that have no, and can have no, adverse health effects—are largely being ignored in this debate. One is large-scale solar power. I would have pleaded for some allocation, within the decrease to 33,000 gigawatt hours, for large-scale solar power. The other one, of course, is hydroelectricity. I hasten to add as a Western Australian that this is an area in which WA have no interest because we have no hydro in the south; we do, of course, in the Ord River near Kununurra in the north. People say, 'There is no capacity for an increase in the construction of dams et cetera.' But I am not talking about that; I am talking about using new software, new technologies, to upgrade existing hydroelectricity schemes, including the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme in New South Wales and Hydro Tasmania—