Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some in Tasmania popping the champagne corks over Minister Watt's approval of the Robbins Island wind farm proposal. I am not one of them. Firstly, it is in the wrong place, and, secondly, it has no community support. I have been talking about the problems with this wind farm proposal for years now. It not only impacts the only disease-free Tasmanian devils in Tasmania but also screws up a key squid fishery because the wind farm has to build a 500-metre wharf right on top of the squid breeding ground.

The really crazy thing is that there is a much better proposal for a wind farm a few clicks down the road at Whaleback Ridge. In stark contrast to the Robbins Island proposal, the Whaleback Ridge proposal has broad community support and doesn't have to rip up farmland, because there is an existing powerline. It doesn't impact the forest, because it's all on button grass, and—this is crucial—it has broad community support. And it's owned by a Tasmanian company. The owners of the Robbins Island wind farm are a Filipino company—nothing wrong with that—but you'd think as a country we'd be prioritising Australian companies first.

Despite bird experts saying this will directly impact 20 critically endangered shorebirds, potentially chop up our swift parrots and our eagles and screw up a productive squid and fish breeding ground, none of that mattered to Minister Watt. The Minister for the Environment and Water was obviously oblivious to any science presented to him and ticked it off anyway.

I am not against the development of renewable energy projects. We need them. They lower our emissions and provide jobs, but these things need to end up in the right place, and, once again, you need to take the community along with you. When you have a bigger, better proposal that has community support, I just don't understand why you haven't done that in the first place. I would love to know exactly why you picked this proposal over the other one, which had offers to train its people at the Burnie TAFE. Why have you done what you have done? It beggars belief.