Why won’t Labor talk about the damage renewables do to the environment?
Labor and the Greens refuse to hold a Senate inquiry into the impact of renewables on the environment.
What are they afraid of? The truth of course which is that renewables are bad for the environment.
Chamber: Senate on 14/06/2023
COMMITTEES – Environment and Communications References Committee – Reference
Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (17:50): The protection of flora and fauna, with particular emphasis on threatened species and habitat corridors. Yet again this is the crux of the issue about protecting the environment. There’s this notion that somehow renewables are going to save the environment. They will not do that. It doesn’t matter how many renewals you build they are not going to save the environment. If anything, they are a threat to the environment. This is interesting. I’m currently following a page on social media about the wind farms they’re building off of New Jersey. A lot of whales are being washed up on the beaches there. There are more than normal. It’s very difficult to prove that that is from the construction of the wind turbines. Yet again it raises the question: are we actually looking at what will happen if you go ahead and build lots of offshore wind farms in the Bass Strait and off the New South Wales coastline later on? These are legitimate concerns that should be addressed.
The Senate is a house of review. The role of the Senate is to ask questions. Yet again I put to Labor and the Greens: why are you opposing this inquiry? Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would deliver transparency, yet you don’t want to go into the detail here of all of these renewables. You can’t even explain how you are going to pay the cost of getting to 82 per cent renewals by 2030. Probably even more important than the cost is the actual social and environmental impacts—the impacts on both the environment and our communities.
Once the transmission lines are built and the solar panels are built they will be there for a long time. Once they have reached their use-by date, how do we get the big wind turbines transported off the land? Who’s responsible for that? Is it going to be the responsibility of the farmer or is it going to be the responsibility of the energy producer? How are they going to get these massive concrete blocks out of the ground? You don’t want concrete blocks sprinkled around your farmland for ever and a day, and they will be if they’re not removed at the time. Good luck trying to get rid of them.
It’s the same with solar panels. These things are ugly. I’m sorry, but I think these things are ugly. You might get away with it on top of the roof of a residential house, but out on the farmlands it’s just disgusting. It breaks my heart to think that we’re going to be littering the countryside and the environment with these things under the notion that somehow this is the way forward.
I think this is a fantastic motion. I think this inquiry is desperately needed. I’m incredibly disappointed in Labor and the Greens, because, if they genuinely cared about the environment, if they genuinely cared about regional communities, they would agree to this motion because there are legitimate concerns here that need to be addressed. I think regional Australia has every right to expect these issues to be addressed before we go ahead with this transition to 82 per cent renewables by 2030—ha, ha, ha! But that’s what you guys signed up for, so show that you actually care about regional Australia, show that you actually care about the environment and actually approve this motion.
Vote for this motion, and actually put your voting power where your mouth is when you say you care about the environment, because, if you don’t vote for this, this is going up on social media. I’d love to telegraph to the world, but that’s all I’ve got. I’m going to call you out on your hypocrisy, because that’s what this is. If you do not support this motion, if you do not support this inquiry, it is blatant hypocrisy on environmental concerns, on community concerns and on accountability and transparency concerns.
