E&OE
STARTS 8.58am
Barnaby JOYCE
Well, first of all, thank you very much for being here today and I’m sorry I’m a little bit croaky. This is not about leadership, this is not about trying to create some sort of discord note, this is actually not about having an attack on the Labor Party. This is about a great threat to our nation and one of the most divisive issues in regional Australia and one of the most crushing issues for pensioners and for small business that our nation has ever participated in, which is net zero. It’s not really even about climate change. It’s about a disastrous policy and I pose this question to you: pro bono, who benefits? Well, it’s not the environment. We’re chopping down trees and chopping up birds, destroying the place, littering it with wind towers, littering it with solar panels, which become future obsolescence and landfill. It’s not about pensioners, they’ve been crucified. I actually do know about pensioners being put in their cars, they just can’t afford to live. It’s certainly is about the cost of living because the cost of living is being smashed. People are becoming poorer, there’s no virtue in that. There’s no virtue in making people poorer. It’s not about … manufacturing’s being crushed. We have Talisman Saber at the moment, 35,000 troops, 19 countries, yet we’re decimating our economic base. And you know what? It’s not even about the climate because net zero, because of the lack of participation in authentic way by the globe, will have no effect. Wherever you believe it is, you’ve got to agree with their science without people participating, it has no effect, because China is not authentically participating in it. They might use the rhetorical idea at some stage in the future. India’s not in, Indonesia’s, not in United States of America is not in, Canada is getting out, New Zealand’s out, South East Asia basically doesn’t participate, and Africa and the Middle East basically don’t participate away from rhetoric. And they might say Brazil, but Brazil’s got hydroelectric power, once you move away from Brazil, Argentina’s out. So, what conceit do we carry that we think somehow, by ourselves, on this Grand Crusade, which is decimating our own nation, covering us with transmission lines, dividing up communities? What are we, what’s this about? We bono, who benefits? Billionaires benefit. Billionaires benefit with a government underwritten guarantee and capacity investment schemes, which is done with borrowed money. Multinationals, foreign multinationals benefit, and that that’s about it! That’s about it! That’s where it stops now. Now, that’s my bit. I’m going to go to Cole, who is seconding it then, then Michael, and Matt will go through some of the technicalities, and then anybody else wants to say g’day. Imagine Garth I imagine Garth will
Colin BOYCE
Yeah, well, good morning, everybody. So, this is all about jobs for me. I represent one of the big industrial heartlands in Australia, the Greater Gladstone area in Central Queensland. We’ve got the 4th largest coal terminal in the world and the CSG gas industry at Curtis Island. There are literally thousands of jobs at stake here. If we continue down this road of net zero, what we’re actually saying is we’re overseeing the demise of these energy resource industries, 160 billion to the Australian economy, that’s what coal and gas is worth. And if we continue down this road, what is the future prosperity of people that have those jobs in those industries? How much will this cost the Australian economy to achieve 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and, indeed, 100 per cent by 2050, 43 per cent emissions targets, and indeed 100 per cent by 2050? It is absolute nonsense. If you look at what’s happening in the rest of the world, in Germany, for an example, they are facing the biggest economic crisis that they have had since the Second World War. And the same thing will happen here in Australia if we continue on this road. This pious and virtuous green ideology, green dream.
Michael McCORMACK
Thanks, Barnaby, thanks, Cole. Well, thanks for turning up today. This is an important day for Australia, it’s certainly an important day for my electorate of the Riverina. In the last redistribution, I inherited Yass Valley, Snowy Valleys and Upper Lachlan Shires. In those areas, there are so many proposals, proposals being put forward, at the moment, by people who’ve got very deep pockets and no conscience. They are dividing families. I spoke to a number of people on the way to Canberra this weekend whose families been ripped asunder because these people, these shysters, have gone in, they’ve signed one family member up and not another, they’ve signed one neighbour up and not another. They’ve divided and conquered the communities which I now represent. And when you consider that they want to put in just between Binalong and Bowning, 90 towers, 90 wind turbines,= almost as high as Barangaroo in Sydney, which is 271.3 metres high, but they want to put 260 metre towers, they want to litter the countryside with them and this is dividing the community. Why should the people who’ve gone there for an idyllic, peaceful lifestyle, why should the people who’ve lived there for generations have to put up with this sort of nonsense, these sorts of wind towers? But it’s not just wind towers, it’s solar factories, it’s Battery Energy Storage Systems, which, if you ask the people of Gregadoo, if you ask the people of Maxwell, which is further West in my electorate, the Rural Fire Service, has already said that they won’t be going out and putting out the fires. These are volunteers and they’re worried about the toxicity of the flames. They’re worried about these Battery Energy Storage Systems, which are going to be plonked all over the place. The shysters come in and they say, “well, we’re just gonna put in one that’s going to be as large as a 20-foot container.” And then when the plans come out, there’s 140 of them, 140 equivalents of a 20-foot container. They tell one person one thing and another, another. This is what they’re doing to my communities. What they’re doing is they’re dividing and conquering. I’ve had enough but so have my communities, they are not gonna put up with it any longer and they don’t want to be the victims of net zero because that’s in fact what they’re going to be.
Matt CANAVAN
Yes, I wanted to give credit to Michael there as well, Michael has come a long way on this journey and I’ve always welcomed a debate on net zero. I’ve had a very firm view on it for a while, but the simple thing we should do now, three years after the country signed up to net zero, is just judge how it’s going, judge a tree by its fruits. And the simple fact is net zero is not working. We were promised three years ago that net zero would deliver cheaper energy. Instead, electricity prices are up 30 percent, gas prices are up 40 per cent. We were promised when we signed up to net zero that we would have heaps more jobs, including in the hydrogen industry, we’d be a green energy superpower. Well, we’ve seen over the last few weeks that almost all of those hydrogen dreams have turned into nightmares, just adding debt onto our public purse without producing anything tangible whatsoever. We were also promised that the rest of the world would be acting with us and that if we didn’t sign up to net zero, we’d be locked out of capital and trade markets. Again, that has not happened. The US has pulled out, obviously countries in our region are never taking it seriously. Net zero is just not working, so I give credit to Barnaby for bringing on this debate. Perhaps it’s a debate we should have had three years ago, but better late than never. And look on the technical details, all this Bill does is simply remove the legislator targets, net zero targets in law, it removes the new Vehicle Efficiency Standard Scheme, a ridiculous scheme that’s just going to increase the cost of a new car to Australian families, but no environmental benefit, and it removes the parts of the Future Made in Australia Act, which are about providing even more incentives to hydrogen, which is not working, and renewable energy, which just Michael spoke about how divisive that is, and all of those things I’ve mentioned, all of them are things that the former Coalition, the Coalition Opposition Party in the last Parliament were against. The Coalition were against legislated net zero targets. The Coalition were against the new Vehicle Efficiency Standard Scheme and the Coalition were against handing out billions of more dollars to renewable energy under the guise of a Future Made in Australia, which is clearly not happening. So, this is a debate we should have had years ago, but the best time to plant a tree might have been 20 years ago, the second-best time is today. We need to get on with it. We need to get back to prioritising Australian interests, Australian jobs and cheaper energy for all Australians.
Garth HAMILTON
Thank you everybody. As the only member of the Liberal Party here today, I want to thank my good friends from The National Party for raising this. They’re not the only ones who care about this issue, I’ve been talking about this for three years. I’ve stood against this since 2021, all the way through. I’ve held this position, I’m very grateful that The Nat’s are continuing on this conversation. A couple of points I want to make. Firstly, it’s OK for us to discuss the impact on the economy that net zero is having, that’s OK. There’s not some moral rubicon that we’re crossing by doing this. This is the conversation that’s going on in modern Australia right now. And I use those words, this is what people are talking about in regions like mine, in regions like these guys. But the second one I want to raise too, we need to be able to separate the technology of renewable energy from the policies of net zero. Those are two very different things. We’re mature enough now to have this conversation. I know plenty of farmers who use solar pumps to move a bit of water around their properties, they do it because it can work for them. That’s fantastic. This conversation we’re having is about the settings that the Government has put in place, that are hurting everyday Australians. The last point I want to make on this one, there’s a lot of very good people, who’ve had very good intentions in supporting net zero, and there’s some noble intentions about looking after this wonderful country of ours. But what matters in politics is consequences, not intentions. That’s what we’re here for. We’re not here for good intentions, for good show, for virtue seeking. What we’re doing here is talking about the consequences of a policy that has hurt Australians. It’s time we talked about it.
Michael McCORMACK
We’ve got a Mayor who’s just joined us, Jasmine Jones, who is the Mayor of Yass Valley, and she is living this. This is the lived experience, and I think when you hear from Jasmine, you’ll know exactly what I spoke about earlier. Jasmine, thank you.
Jasmin JONES
G’day everyone. I seem to have got the Monica, the “Bush Mayor”. So, I guess from the regions perspective, We’ve never been against renewables, we’re against the consequences of rolling it out without any thought for our communities. There’s no thought for the cumulative impact of these projects and we’re here to say you need to decide for Australia when is enough enough. The pendulum needs to swing on net zero to a more practical approach, otherwise, we’re going to lose everything we value about this beautiful country that we call our home, Australia. And for people in Yass Valley, we’re talking about the land of Banjo Patterson, of rolling hills and beautiful Bush. Don’t decimate it on this insane quest of virtue signalling, when we’re doing all the heavy lifting in the regions for our metro mates, we’re already keeping the lights on, we’re already doing our heavy lifting, but there’s things that we need to look out for, and those things include how do we fight bushfires in Yass Valley surrounded by 1000 turbines? That’s what’s proposed. We’re already doing our heavy lifting for our metro mates, please consider how we put two farmers, one who has 90 turbines on their property, making a lot of money and their neighbour with no benefit in the same RFS truck and get them to go and fight a fire, that probably is also including an area with BESS storage, lithium batteries, and send them home to their families safe. Enough is enough for our regions. We need a practical approach. This is an area that grows your food and fibre and now we’re learning that farmers, when they’re producing their beef and lamb, have to tick a box to say, did you actually produce it in an area close to turbine? So, there’s microplastics being shed from these turbines and we’re being greenwashed to think that this is this is all OK, it’s not OK. We need some real practical approach, and I commend the motion from Barnaby and support Michael McCormack, our Federal Member in this. Thank God, somebody is listening to the people in regional Australia.
Llew O’BRIEN
Well, thanks everyone and thanks Barnaby for bringing this absolutely common-sense Bill forward to the Parliament. I also thank Colin Boyce, the Member for Flynn, for seconding it, and my friend Michael McCormack for also standing up on this. My area of Wide Bay is subject to quite a few renewable energy projects that have been devastating to the local community. We’ve had solar panels, carpeting beautiful agricultural land. We’ve got a project that’s proposed called Forest Wind that is taking up some plantation forestry ground, that is one of our great sustainable industries and now it’s competing with this madness. We have the pumped hydro madness at , Borumba, $18 billion of debt that the previous Labor Government was going to hand on to future generations for two gigawatts of energy. This is the sort of madness that we’re dealing with in the regions. It’s destroying our economies, but it’s also destroying the wellbeing of our local residents. As Garth Hamilton said, I understand how people have gone along and been somewhat convinced that this was initially the path to go down, but it is falling over so quickly. Just look at the Prime Minister’s second reading speech on his Climate Change Bill, that toxic Bill that’s imbedded this madness into so much of our government. He was speaking about projects like Sun Cable, he was proposing, he was saying that this would provide over 20 gigawatts of power to Singapore. Well, that’s, since he made that speech, that’s gone into temporary administration and has now been downscaled to something that’s just going to feed some electricity to Darwin. You know, we’ve got Solar Shot, every economic person with any common sense is tearing that down, saying that it’s absolutely the most ridiculous approach and will never be viable. So, look, it is what it appears, it’s a con job. It’s based on Repu Tex modelling. The Prime Minister won’t even say the word Repu Tex. I think he might be trying to get the number 275 taken out of the national curriculum, you try and get him to say 275! This is what we’ve come to. It’s an embarrassment! It’s a joke! We’ve got to stop it before we destroy our country.
Barnaby JOYCE
We’re going to take questions, but we’re going to share them around.
INTERVIEWER
Mr Joyce …
Barnaby JOYCE
… OK, were going to go one, two.
INTERVIEWER
The Opposition Leader has spoken about waiting until after the review, the post-election review, has been completed before arriving in policy decisions. Why not wait for that?
Barnaby JOYCE
Because, OK, there’s two reasons. There is absolutely nothing written that says you can’t have Private Member’s Bill on a review. It will not be the first time an issue of the Parliament, that we’ve had both. In fact, a lot of times legislation is introduced and goes straight to review in the Senate, that’s what the Senate does. The next thing is none of us can go back to our people and say, well, what did you get? Well, I got a review, and they’ll say to us “what are you reviewing? Are you reviewing the transmission lines over my place? Are you reviewing the swindle factories? Go have a look at them, they’re right there! You’re reviewing the fact that there’s no, you know, decommissioning rehabilitation of this.” When they’re finished, they just let stand in obsolescence then fall over. No one will have the money to pull them down. There’s no money put aside. Are you going to review the fact that the Government, if they believe it’s so virtuous, why don’t they under write the rehabilitation, they won’t, they won’t touch it because it costs so much. This thing is a swindle. It’s his biggest swindle since Gregor McGregor, selling off 8,000,000 acres of the Mosquito Coast and calling himself whatever, you know, the marquee or whatever it was, because, or bazaars or something. It’s just a swindle and it works and almost like all swindles, it finds the virtue in people, who want to do the right thing and then just start ripping them offline and that’s what’s happening to us. So, I’m happy for people to have a review, but we’re acting right now.
INTERVIEWER
Barnaby, your Bill is very clear about what you want to repeal and what you don’t want to support. Would you also lay out an alternative pathway and, for example, would that include greater government intervention to prevent the closure of coal fired power stations, many of which are closing in the next few years?
Barnaby JOYCE
I think we have to be realistic, and I know that Matt and Garth are very, very confident on this. You know that China is building coal fired power stations about two gigawatts per week, so equivalent of about two. You realise that India is building them flat out. Look, we are not making any difference, so if we have to use coal, we should be using coal. You know what people want now, look, even today, look at today, maybe we’ve done it, maybe we’ve fixed climate change, I don’t know. But I tell you what, there are pensioners out there who can’t turn on their power, there are pensioners today in our nation who are cold. We did it to them. We have done that to them. And you’re going to go to them and say “listen, it is righteous that you are cold. It is a noble thing that you are miserable. You know, you have to live with your misery in your bed, because we the virtuous ones have decided to inflict this on you.” And if we have to get coal fired power to make them warm, that’s precisely what we do. If we need nuclear to make them warm, that is precisely what we do. But our success is not in some ridiculous idea that we, in Australia, in that building, that magic House, are going to change the climate. Our success is when we return those people to the condition that we actually had them formally in, with some of the cheapest power in the world, and now we’ve given them the dearest power in the world.
INTERVIEWER
Just on jobs, industry has been calling out for certainty in this space for quite a while, so they can plan for the future, does bringing this back up for debate again just undermine their ability to plan?
Barnaby JOYCE
Certainly, I’ll tell you with certainty, at the moment they’re going broke. Your plastics industry has gone. Your plastics industry has gone, your fertiliser industry has gone. Your heavy glass industry is gone. You’ve got time ago, they’ll only hang around if you’re if you’re paying billions of dollars to them, that’s a certainty you’ve given. You’re shutting the nation down. And Matt …
Matt CANAVAN
… Just on that, I mean, the, as I said earlier, we were promised more jobs from net zero. What we’ve got is 10,000 jobs lost in the nickel industry last year. We’ve got another 6000 direct jobs across 10 smelters on the cusp right now because net zero is pushing the cost of energy up for everybody. And that means that if you’re going to produce high intensity manufacturing goods like metals, you’re at risk of going broke right now. That’s what’s happening. It looks like that this Government is going to have to bail out the aluminium industry, the steel industry, the copper industry, even the lithium industry, are all going to have to be bailed out by the look of this, this ridiculous policy of net zero emissions. So, on the one hand, this is how absurd this whole agenda is, most of those smelts, as I mentioned, are currently playing a carbon tax under the so-called safeguard mechanism. They face something like a $6 to $10 billion bill in the next generation to reach this, this idea of net zero emissions, and then we’re going to come along and tax them that $6 or $10 billion and then on the other hand, give them billions of dollars of subsidies just to keep them open. I mean, how absurd is this? And all of these other jobs that you say we were promised, where are they? On the weekend I went out to the water pipeline that was meant to send water to the hydrogen factory in Gladstone, it’s just West of Rockhampton on the Fitzroy River, we’re going to send 30,000 megalitres of fresh water from the world’s driest continent, burn it, turn it into hydrogen, and then send it to North Asia. That sounded pretty ridiculous to me. Thankfully, it’s not happening, but we’ve spent all of this money on this stuff, and it’s all gone by the way so, it’s all over, all money out the door that we’re all going to have to pay for. So, isn’t it about time we just stop this ridiculousness and focus on what we’re good at in this country, which has always been producing cheap energy, being one of the most innovative metals manufacturing countries in the world. Focus on that. Sure, do research into hydrogen, sure, do research on these things. But don’t spend billions on stuff that is not ready for prime time.
INTERVIEWER
Mr Joyce …
Matt CANAVAN
… This is important. Sorry. Let’s talk about the reality of uncertainty in the mining industry right now. In my electorate, there’s a wonderful coal mine, New Acland Coal Mine. We’ve just opened stage 3. As it is now, the current settings, we went through 14 years fighting through the courts, under the cover of net zero policies trying to stop that coal mine 14 years. That’s the uncertainty today. That’s what we’re trying to overturn. That’s what we’re trying to get rid of. That’s how long it took for us to get this mine up and running. Now that we succeeded, thankfully, we’ve succeeded, there’s the best part of 200 great mining jobs, located around the little town of Oakey, it’s keeping that town alive. That’s what a mine can do. But it took us 14 years. That’s the uncertainty we’re fighting with, with net zero at the moment. That’s the status quo that we seek to change.
INTERVIEWER
Mr Joyce, the review we’re talking about is not just any old review, it’s a post-election review that Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien are undertaking, how is this process, through a Private Members Bill, straight up in Parliament, not undermining the effort of that review and undermining Sussan Ley herself.
Barnaby JOYCE
Well, it’s, we’re going back to the policy that we actually supported. There is not anything in this Bill that the Coalition didn’t have the same position when it was voted for. So, if you want to have a review, you should include in that, why have we got a different position to what the Coalition actually had. And you know, once more this is the thing where we say, “Oh well, I have to worry, I mean, we all of us, right, I acknowledge we’re on a good wicket, $200, $400 thousand, and we’re saying, “oh, we’ve got, so we don’t offend that person I’ve got to persecute that lady, I’ve got to throw her under a bus.” And I’m thinking precisely of a person who’s living in their car and say, “oh, we’re gonna do that because, so, you’ve just got to wait a little while.” No, no, she doesn’t wait any longer. That’s over. She’s been waiting long enough. Her waiting is stopping and if you want to do, we should get rid this and then decide how you can actually do it, so you don’t hurt her. That would be a better process.
INTERVIEWER
Michael why don’t you say something.
Michael McCORMACK
Well, and I know we’re not in Government, I get that too, but Chris Bowen, last week, made a joke of all of this. He thought he was pretty funny in Question Time, but Chris Bowen might have a mandate to govern Australia along with Labor, but they don’t have a mandate to ruin regional Australia, and I will always stick up for the people of regional Australia, who send me here to do a job. Now, I appreciate that back in late 2021, when The Nationals’ agreed to this proposal, it was based on the fact that we were worried about our trade, based on the fact that China was indeed playing hard with our trade arrangements and we were trying to make arrangements with the European countries to diversify our interests, and at the time, many of those European countries had arrangements in place where we had to have, as part of our suite of policies, a net zero proposal. But the world has changed, it absolutely has. And when you see what’s happening in America and the other countries that Barnaby mentioned earlier, and you see what’s happening, moreover, in regional Australia, the electorates we represent, the people who send us here to do a job, and I can hardly go out to Yass Valley to Talbingo in the Snowy Valleys, to Crookwell in Upper Lachlan Shire and look those people in the eye and say “Oh, well, I just decided to wait. I just decided to go along with the whole thing.” No, the time is now.
INTERVIEWER
Mr McCormack quickly …
Barnaby JOYCE
… I might just … I might just get one and then we’ll close then because we’ve gone for half an hour now and I’ll get the Mayor …
Michael McCORMACK
… Jasmin …
Barnaby JOYCE
… Jasmin …
Jasmin JONES
… I’ve got plenty to say about why we need the review now.
INTERVIEWER
Mr Joyce, in order to win a majority government, the Coalition is going to have to win a number of seats back in the cities as well. How do you, how does the Coalition land on a climate policy that works for both their regional and for their metro counterpart, because you can’t …
Barnaby JOYCE
OK, well, I’ll, go from three parts. You know there are certain things that, for people, let’s take Sydney and the inner suburbs of Sydney, which are logical but would never do because we don’t want to hurt them, because we’re trying to be reasonable, there’s absolutely no reason Mascot Airport can’t work 24/7, absolutely none. We would probably have to build a battery screen. But we understand that people don’t want planes flying over themselves in the middle of the night, even though they are doing it in Western Sydney, by the way. But we don’t want transmission lines over our head either. We don’t want wind towels either. So, there’s got to be a form of quid pro quo. And you’ve got to say to people in affluent suburbs, “are you prepared to hurt the poor? Are you prepared to hurt them?” And if and, I don’t think if you really explain the issue that people do want to hurt them. This is the other thing is once more we’ve gone back to the point of for the sake of political nuance and for the sake of you know, your political target, you’re still willing to throw her under a bus. And you go back to the same thing, if that person is poor, if that person can’t afford their power bill, and remember, this goes through the groceries, it goes through everything, everything they do. They can’t afford to live. Is that the justification that a person, to be quite frank, in a very affluent suburb, says “I feel virtuous.” You know you don’t feel virtuous if you’re hurting people, and if you even have, like … even the solar panels, you know, have we actually had a real inquiry about where these solar panels are coming from? Have we promised that no solar panels that come from slave labour will ever be incorporated in Australia?
Have we ever done? No. So, in this, in this realm of virtuousness, you’re quite happy in many areas to use it, to use capital that’s come from slave labour, or have you made absolutely certain the cobalt never came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo from child labour? Are you absolutely certain about that? No, you’re not, and in other countries have had inquiries into that. Why don’t you have a review into that?
INTERVIEWER
Barnaby can i just get one more before you go, do you think …
Barnaby JOYCE
… And then I am going to go to Jasmin …
INTERVIEWER
Do you think a right-wing party in Australia can be viable if it retains a net zero target and just another one on that …
Barnaby JOYCE
OK, well, let’s, let’s go through that. The opposition in England is going out of net zero. That’s their policy. The United States went out of net zero and they said it before the election. They went quite well. I don’t know, now you might argue about how they’re going now, but they went quite well, in fact. Every demographic voted for them. Even in Germany right now, talking about right wing, guess who’s protesting against net zero? The union movement, the union movement is protesting against net zero. So, yes, I do, I do believe. And I think that is yet another argument that says well, to help billionaires become multiple billionaires and overseas companies to become even richer, we’re gonna come up with a whole range of excuses because they are the only people benefiting Paul. And you know the fourth estate, you people, you really have a job too look under the bottom of this, don’t be sucked into the thing there, if you look under the bonnet they go. “Oh, you’re a denier. You don’t believe in climate change therefore don’t ask me that question” You get under the bonnet and say “no, it’s got nothing to do with whether I believe in climate change or not. I want to know exactly what you’re making and how you’re making it.” Why is your capacity investment scheme secret?
INTERVIEWER
Barnaby, just …
Barnaby JOYCE
… Why are we paying you 90 per cent of your energy, even if you don’t produce it, why can’t I see these in the budget papers? Why? Why? Why? Why is this so secret?
INTERVIEWER
What I wanted to tack on to the end of that question, sorry, was do you see yourself, given the Liberal Party’s towards the centre, that that’s the Sussan Ley strategy, do you see you and the group behind you actually representing that true right wing position given the increased space and the right …
Barnaby JOYCE
No, I don’t. I think this is an argument that’s premised on logic against something that’s totally, utterly illogical, and this is the final thing I’ve heard. Net zero in Australia will have zero effect on the climate, zero effect, none. The only thing it’s effecting is our nation’s capacity to defend itself, our manufacturing’s capacity to continue on and the dignity of the lives of people who can’t afford the cost of living.
Jasmin JONES
Somebody asked a question about why not wait for the review. So, I guess my response is regional Australia is at the second to midnight on this issue. We’re really where it’s crunching hard and I applaud this as a ‘Top Gun Maverick’ kind of Bill to pull us up out from that hard deck of going out of control on this issue for regional Australia. We have at least five companies trying to get in right now in early scoping phase. Once they’re in the chute as a State Significant Project, it’s like a runaway freight train. The voices of regional Australia don’t seem to matter. We’ve got Bondo trying to put 170 turbines all the way from Yass Valley across the vulnerable bush flank of the ACT, and I’ve had to alert the ACT Government, “Are you aware that this is going to impact your ability to fight bushfires right on the edge of the ACT?” We’ve got the communities of Binalong and Browning, with 90 turbines proposed, more for Wee Jasper, and more for Bookham, more for Binalong on the other side. This is a tsunami of turbines coming at us and we’ve already done four State Significant turbine projects, another two State Significant solar projects. There is no line in the sand. This is a freight train out of control that needs to be pulled up. We have amazing, nationally significant things happening in Yass Valley, Remount, which services veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, come to Yass Valley to remount, to get back on their feet to reconnect with country. This service saves lives. This will be destroyed by the impact on our environment out there. We have the space sector anchored in Yass Valley, which relies on our dark skies and our low electromagnetic interference. Stick 90 turbines 260-metres tall with flashing lights on top of that and that’s gone. There are so many precious things, our cool climate wine region, we’ve sunk millions of dollars into promoting it and supporting it and the farmers and the vignerons, they’ve done the same thing too. What are we going to be known for? The nations beautiful cool climate, wine, food and fibre and the home of Banjo Patterson? Or turbines and solar panels as far as the eye can see, no one will want to live in the regions anymore. And yet the world’s population is growing, and we have a role to play as a nation, and what more noble role than providing food for the world. And that’s going to be done in the regions. We can’t do that if nobody wants to live there, because the place is an industrial junkyard.
INTERVEIWERS
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.