Subjects: Election results, wind turbines between Binalong and Bowning
E&OE
STARTS: 8.10am
ENDS: 8.29am
GEOFF FROST
Great to hear from you again. That’s two weeks in a row, that’s got to be some kind of record. But there’s a lot that’s happened this week.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, there’s plenty going on.
GEOFF FROST
I’m sure there is. You’ve been to Canberra and back and I guess, you know, from the, from your party’s point of view, perhaps not too bad, but from the Coalition point of view, probably a little bit of a disaster the Saturday before and you’re sorting out the pieces, I guess.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, certainly so. And David Littleproud was re-elected The Nationals’ Leader earlier this week, and he will be supported in that role by Deputy Leader Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie has been re-elected the Senate Leader. Of course, the Liberals met on Tuesday, the day after we did our leader
ballots and Sussan Ley became the first Liberal Leader, a woman, to have that role. Certainly, Sussan is going to play an important part as, not only the first woman Leader of the Liberal Party, but the first woman Opposition Leader, and noting that the Liberal Party started in 1944 in Albury and she represents Albury, being the Member for Farrer. She took over that seat in 2001 from Tim Fischer, who of course was the Leader of the National Party many, many years ago, and former Deputy Prime Minister. So, Sussan’s got a lot on her plate. She’s going to be supported in that role, indeed, by Ted O’Brien, the Member for Fairfax in Queensland, and look, they’ve got a big, big responsibility to indeed regroup the Liberal Party and get the Coalition back to where we need to be. The National Party retained all our seats, all 15 House of Representatives electorates in the recent election, but the Liberal Party was quite a wipeout, and they do need to do better, not get bitter, Geoffrey, but need to do better, to listen to people, to review policies and come back bigger and stronger.
GEOFF FROST
- And I guess you’d know, Sussan pretty well. You have joining electorates and have been for a good while.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, look indeed, and look she went up against Angus Taylor, and look, they are both neighbouring electorates of mine. Angus, of course in Hume and Sussan in Farrer. I’ve known them very, very well since, you know, I first entered Parliament in 2010. Sussan and I’ve sat on Cabinet together. We sat on Joint Select Committees together. You know, as I have with Angus, and Angus will still continue to play an important role in the Coalition going forward. It’s important now that we stop talking about ourselves. Stop thinking about ourselves and indeed turn to the people of the electorate, and certainly rural and regional people. It’s good that Sussan, being a regional member, is in that role because she is the first regional member since Malcolm Fraser to lead the Liberal Party. So that’s got to have some advantage for rural and regional people.
GEOFF FROST
That’s right. I mean, I think other than the Labor Party, we’ve pretty much got all the regional leaders right around it.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Indeed, that’s the case, and you know, I think it does make a bit of a difference because rural and
regional Australia is where we get our food and fibre from, it’s where the resources are mined and it’s, I’ve got to say it’s how the lights are kept on in our nation, it’s how the economy keeps ticking. Without rural and regional Australia, it’d be sad state of affairs. I get a little bit grumpy at times when I see how rural and regional Australia sometimes gets treated in the in the Houses of democracy, both in Macquarie Street and in Canberra, but that is why we need good, strong regional people, leading those parties as voices for their electorates. I’ve certainly always put, of course, the people who send me to Canberra first and will continue to do.
GEOFF FROST
OK, and because you’re going through arrangements for your new electorate because it’s very different and we are now part of that. And I was talking to you Sunday afternoon and there’s a suggestion you might end up with an office in Yass. Can you confirm that or is that still up …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
It’s very much on the drawing board, Geoff. And I’m very much looking at a main street frontage, Comur Street for a second electorate office. I think it would be a good thing to have that office in Yass, just looking around for some premises at the moment. Obviously, it’s got to get the tick-off from the powers that be, but I think that would send a good signal to the people of Yass that they will certainly be always in front of mind when it comes to what I do as the Member for Riverina, of course, Upper Lachlan, Yass Valley, Snowy Valleys and the eastern end of Hilltops Council all came into the electorate during the October redistribution last year, when it was confirmed that the Riverina boundaries were changing. And, look, I’m really looking forward to the prospect. I went up to Crookwell this week for the meeting that they had there about potential wind factories. We can’t call them farms, they’re not producing anything, they’re not producing what normal traditional farms produce, but the prospect of getting more wind towers there is not palatable for the community, and nor should it be. And of course, there’s a meeting next Wednesday with Wind Prospect undertaking feasibility studies at the moment for the development of a massive wind farm located about 20 kilometres north west of Yass between the townships of Bowning and Binalong and I know that’s going to be met with a fair bit of opposition too, given the fact that those wind towers are going to be taller than the Trump Manhattan Tower, they are going to reach the sky and seriously 90 turbines and the incorporation of the battery energy storage system. The project proponents are saying it’s going to be located on agricultural land primarily used for cattle and sheep grazing. But you know it’s what it sends as the signal to those people in Bowning and Binalong is that their lives are going to be very much changed and their Vista, their view, their whole amenity of their community is going to be very much not the peaceful little villages they’ve been, the sleepy little townships that they’ve enjoyed for all of time and all of a sudden they’re going to have 90 huge wind turbines plonked right in their backyards.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, and you’re attending a meeting about that on Wednesday night in Bowning?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, Andrew Henderson of the Progress Association there have a meeting, and I would urge and encourage people to endeavour if they can get along with that meeting because it’s going to be an important meeting to see where this project might go, what can be done in relation to the project. It’s at Bowning Hall, it’s between 6.30 and 8 o’clock and I would urge and encourage people to support the Bowning and District Progress Association and Andrew Henderson and those others who are the locals who are very concerned about this prospect of, well, it’s a bad word to use the Wind Prospect Project.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, and you’re going to be there, which is great, and Wendy Tuckerman will also be there, the local State Member which is good.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
That’s the problem with a lot of these projects, Geoff, and as locals would well know is that they get what’s called State Significant Development Status and the State Government can then just allow these projects to go ahead irrespective of whatever local concerns they have. Irrespective of whatever local council Development Applications and Development Control Plans and the
Local Environmental Plans, it runs roughshod over all of that and what we then end up with is these massive, massive projects right on people’s back doors and we know that people, you know, they moved to these towns or they’ve been there all their lives and they like what the town provides. It provides, you know, a relaxed atmosphere, the prospect yes, of cheaper housing and affordable housing. And then all of a sudden, their land, their actual house prices are devalued because nobody then wants to move into town and buy them when the people decide to move. The other day Cheryl O’Donnell gave a very good presentation at the Crookwell meeting, where she talked about the wind tower that she lives in the shadow of, just giving this constant reverberation and constant noise, a “shoosh, shoosh” type of noise, and, I mean, she was describing how it’s just doing her head in and I get that. I understand that when you’ve got a tower that you know upwards of 250 metres right next door, it must just send you mad.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, surely would, and I think what’s interesting about that Bowning meeting is that you will be there from the Federal Government, we’ll have Wendy there from the State Government, Jasmin Jones is going to be there, the Mayor from Local Government and some of the staff, some of the senior staff from Yass Valley Council, but the people who have pulled out and going the other direction haven’t originally called meeting are Wind Prospect, who apparently are running in the other direction.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I don’t think they’re very happy that that it was a public meeting. But as Andrew Henderson from the Progress Association told me the other day, well, all their meetings are public meetings, and as you’d expect them to be. Now, you know, this is a progress association meeting, these are community members who come together on a regular basis to talk about what’s going to happen in their town and around their district. And if they can’t meet with the proponents of this, and if the proponents can’t describe what is actually going to go ahead with this Bendenine wind project, then seriously, who can? And as Andrew only said to me the other day: “Chris Bowen may have a mandate to roll out renewables, but he does not have a mandate to destroy regional communities in the process.” And look, we’re all, well most of us are in favour of renewables, we realise that’s how the energy system is transforming we understand that the energy grid needs power. But is it and should it be at the devaluing of people’s property? Is it, or should it be at the devaluing of people’s lives and liveability, and should it, or must it be, you know, the very real and genuine undertaking of these communities and the way they’ve lived their lives all the time? And you know their communities are just going to be destroyed and that’s what they fear, and I think they’re very genuine fears.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, I would say they are. And for a place like Yass, which you know, we live on the fringe of the ACT, and we’ve had a sort of long-term development plan for a long time about developing more and more people that we’re going to live in this area that’s …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
… And they’re great plans. They’re great plans …
GEOFF FROST
Yeah and that strategy is going to be turned right on its head because of the interests of one speculative wind farm.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Indeed, and you know the ENGIE project, you had Kylie Davies on your show just the other day, that has been shelved and good on the company for doing that. They realised that it was all too much a huge solar factory with those Sun mirrors right on the edge of town which was going to be bigger than Yass itself. Now, you know, these companies often need multinational, international conglomerates who are doing nothing more than supporting the superannuation needs of people in Canada or you know, goodness knows where. You know the fact remains that they’re coming into Australia, they are setting up these massive factories, right on the edge of town, right in the view of everybody. And what happens then when they, when these factories, when these wind or solar factories get then decommissioned, when these turbines are no longer in use? What happens, does the farmer have to recycle and fix up the environmental landscape? You know, are all these things being written into the contracts and you know, how? Who can know what’s going to happen in 10, 15, 20 years’ time when these projects are being decommissioned and you know, even with the solar, only 17 per cent of them, can be recycled at the moment and many councils are not taking them for landfill. They just refuse to take them because of the prospect of how it’s going to contaminate the soil. So, there are many questions that need to be answered. It is very much up to wind Prospect, the company to come to that meeting at Bowning Hall, next Wednesday and meet the locals and I think they’ll find them a reasonably understanding and, well, a friendly lot. But they need to know, they need to need to show what they’re actually doing and what they’re, you know, they’re not. People that can’t be understanding if they if they don’t know what’s going to be put in front of them.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, and can I say how great it is that we’ve got a local member who’s going to turn up to this, I think it’s just fantastic and congratulations for taking the time because I’m sure you, I doubt you happened to be passing through at the time …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh no, I made a special trip but that’s what I do. And that’s what people, I mean, I went to Crookwell the other night and back to Wagga Wagga, and I’ll tell you what, that was a long trip home and got home just before midnight. But you know this is what you should do, and this look I respect the fact that people have elected me as their member and I’ll always fight hard for them. I’ll always listen to their concerns. And take that fight to Canberra. I think it’s up to Wind Prospect to listen to the concerns of people at Bowning Hall next Wednesday night and certainly listen, take heed of what they’re saying and have some empathy and sympathy for the situation at hand.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, and certainly, they need to put out more than the one piece of paper that describes the project.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, this is often the case Geoff, they come there with their community liaison officer, they’re always different people, every six weeks or six months, when they knock on your doorstep and you know they’re articulate, they’ve a silver tongue, there’s no question about that, they have this glossy little brochure. But what they do is, unfortunately, they set neighbours against one another. They get people to sign something, what I would urge and encourage people is not to sign anything at all and just wait before you, you know, until you get all the facts. What they also do is they divide families, people who are straddling a road or a creek or whatever, they’ve got a farm which has been split up there, brother and sister or brother and brother, whatever the case might be, and you know and known and loved each other all their lives and all of a sudden one has signed up to a deal with a, an energy renewable energy company and the other one hasn’t. And then all of a sudden, the family gets divided asunder and they’re not talking. And you know this, this is not the way Australia should be and certainly not the way regional Australia should be. And why should we continue to carry and do the heavy lift for and on behalf of city electorates and city people when they’re not doing it? I don’t see many of these people who are often voting teals or Greens, I don’t see them doing the heavy lift. They’re all quick to tell us how to live our lives and what we should be doing as far as renewables are concerned. They think that they can just go to the supermarket and that’s where their milk and fresh fruit and vegetables and meat comes from, they have no concept about regional living, no concept about what country people did during COVID when they were all under their doonas and pulling them up and, so that they thought that, you know, that their life would continue on around them, whilst we rolled up our sleeves and did the hard yakka and that’s the unfortunate thing and we’ve done it all the way through and we carry this nation and we should be very much appreciated and respected for the roles that we play.
GEOFF FROST
I couldn’t agree with you more. And I’d say the if they want to put some more wind farms in its time they put some in Sydney because I think, I don’t know how many electorates are there, but I don’t know of one wind turbine sitting in Sydney and, you know, put a couple of 260-metre ones they they’d get some idea of the sort of havoc that they cause. You know if they put some put some on North Head perhaps there’s some land there, there’s Commonwealth land maybe they ought to try on some of that.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Indeed.
GEOFF FROST
I mean, just so that people understand, because I don’t think they do, I think they look and say aren’t they pretty in the sunset? As somebody said to me the other day though, they like looking at them in the sunset because they think they’re pretty, they are from that sort of distance.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
So are trees if you really want to get an Instagram photo — take one of those. Take a picture of that with the Sun setting behind them.
GEOFF FROST
Yeah, but I do think our major cities have got no idea of the havoc that they cause with their preferences, you know, and I don’t mean voting preferences. I just went with their preference for this this sort of energy.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well that too, Geoff!
GEOFF FROST
Michael, thank you very much for that.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
That’s a pleasure anytime at all, Geoff
GEOFF FROST
And we’ll, and I think a lot of people will be out at Bowning on Wednesday night to see you there. And thank you for coming.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, the meeting will only go for an hour, an hour-and-a-half. So please turn up, have a listen, have your say. And, you know, we’ll do it in a respectful way, as country people always do. But the company needs to know exactly what’s being proposed, exactly what they’re proposing, and they need to listen to local people and take in their concerns.
GEOFF FROST
And the great thing is that on that particular night anyway, at a local level, we’ll solve the problem of the Feds always saying it’s a State problem and the State saying it’s a Fed problem and Local Governments saying, well, it’s both their problems and keeping passing it back, you’ll all be there and you can we can talk to you all at the same time, which will be great.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
That’ll be good having Jasmin and Wendy there. They’re good local listeners, as am I, and I look forward to meeting as many people as I can right.
GEOFF FROST
Thanks for talking to Yass FM.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thank you. Anytime at all. Thanks.