Federal Member for Riverina Michael McCormack says the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs to do more than announce hollow promises regarding renewable projects when he visits regional Australia.
Attending the Bush Summit at Dubbo today, Mr Albanese was met with howls of protest and scorn when asked about his Government’s renewables rollout in country areas.
When questioned about a concerned woman whose rural property was being “sandwiched” between five-metre-high solar panels on three sides, the Prime Minister admitted his government needed to “do better”.
Mr McCormack said greater community consultation and engagement on all of these issues is needed.
“Mr Albanese cannot make his annual trip to the Bush Summit and say things he doesn’t mean to people who have come to have their say,” Mr McCormack said.
“Regional people have been enduring the consequences of Labor’s reckless renewables folly for too long and they can see right through the shallow and empty words of the Prime Minister.
“All too often, we have seen these renewable projects, heavily subsidised by the Federal Labor Government using taxpayers’ money and being propped up by foreign companies, turning our prime farmland into what Yass Valley Mayor Jasmin Jones rightly describes as ‘an industrial junkyard’. This has to stop.
“State Governments cannot keep using the State Significant Development priority status to ride roughshod over local communities’ and local councils’ objections to projects which are destroying the amenity of our agricultural land and beautiful country districts and villages.”
Mr McCormack said these developments include wind turbines reaching heights comparable to some of Sydney’s tallest skyscrapers, vast solar installations stretching across the landscape and Battery Energy Storage Systems which local volunteer firefighters have warned could pose significant fire risks in the future.
“Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and his policies are destroying the idyllic nature of many areas in and around the Riverina, particularly places such as Binalong, Bookham and Bowning which are the epicentre of Labor’s renewable madness.
“I will keep fighting for those who are affected and pushing this idiocy to end.