Transcript of public forum on Robbins Island Wind Farm and Marinus Link project, Hobart Town Hall, 22 April 2021. The event was organised by Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network and moderated by Leanne Minshull.
Nala Mansell.
Nala Mansell
I pay my respects to the present and future generations of Tasmanian Aborigines, who have and who will continue to fight for legitimate rights as the true owners of this land. For 1000s upon 1000s of years, Tasmanian Aboriginal people have had a deep physical, spiritual and emotional connection to the lands, skies and waters of lutruwita, more recently referred to as Tasmania. Our connection to our land dates back to the beginning of time and continues to this day. Aboriginal middens, tools crafted of stone depressions of our homes, land formations, and art engravings help to tell the ancient, historical and important stories of our ancestors, our elders and our communities today.
Robbins Island or pulitika, as it is known to our people, was the birthplace, living place and resting face for countless generations of Aborigines from the northwest and host to visitors from the north and far south on many occasions. It played an important role in navigation, communication, food resources and spiritual connections. Pulitika was home to the group of the Northwest tribe who was sustained there for 1000s of years. They were part of a larger group with rights to use the resources of the northwest and west coast south to Port Davey and inland. The oceans surrounding Robbins Island provided an abundance of seafood, including seals and crayfish, which the women would dive down up to eight metres to retrieve, and the rocky shores provided shellfish such as werriners, periwinkles, mussels and more. The marshes and lagoons provided birds and eggs, and the coastal areas provided marine vegetables, bull kelp for water carrier making and various reeds and grasses for making baskets and ropes. Pulitika or Robbins Island also provided us with tiny little marionette shells of which our women would gather to string traditional shell necklaces. And large groups of Aboriginal families continue the ancient cultural practice of mutton birding, which our old people would have done on Robbins Island for at least 60,000 years.
The Northwest people were the last of our people to be rounded up and exiled to Flinders Island. They live on through those of us such as myself, who are descendants from Bekamini and Tanganatura. The northwest region was home to so many of our ancestors, whose life stories make up a large part of our collective history. The people of pulitika were part of the group of Aborigines who fell victim to the Cape Grim massacre, where our people were run off the cliffs to their death. William Lanny was part of this Northwest group, whose lives took them from the islands off the northwest coast south to Port Davey and beyond. He’s better known in death than in life, as the statue of the man who mutilated his body after his death stands just up here in Franklin Square. It is an absolute absolute shame that the white people who commit committed these atrocities are still glorified in this state. Another local man of the Robbins Island area was Peebay or Tanaminaway, who is now better known in Victoria, where he was the first person to be hanged for murder of a white man of course. It’s unfortunate but many of my people of today have not yet stepped foot on pulitika, as it has since become freehold land owned by white entrepreneurs. And it’s now being sold off to further destroy the natural amenity of the island through the construction of huge wind turbines. It’s inconceivable that this latest intrusion will further destroy the remnants of our ancient, tangible heritage on the northwest coast.
The infamy of our treatment in the region was capped off when on the day of the Tasmanian election was called a few weeks ago, the Liberal government announced the dual names that they had accepted for landmarks in that area. None of these names are correct. All of them were perversions of our history, seemingly designed to get more votes for the Liberal Party from the people of Braddon. It certainly wasn’t part of any journey of truth telling or reconciliation. It is part of the same journey as this disgraceful wind farm proposal, which will destroy our history and heritage in the interests of so-called progress that will leave us without a soul, without a history, and without sustainable environments. There are better ways to get energy into the future. Think solar, think tidal. Think of the future we want to leave for our children and all those who will come after us. As Aboriginal people, we have a duty to protect our ancient ancestral lands from the destruction of proposals such as this wind farm, and we vow to do so. We each further destruction of the signs of our ancient life in the area, we will lose our ability to relive our past and tell the stories of our ancestors to our own people, and to all those who live on our stolen lands and now seek reconciliation with us. Thank you. (unable to transcribe phrases in palawa kani made during this speech).
Leanne Minshull
Thanks very much Nala. Up in the northwest, this issue has a lot of resonance, a lot more actually than it’s gotten in the south. Part of today and going on into the future will be to try and get more interest in the south of Tasmania to what’s happening up in the northwest. And next speaker’s from the northwest, in white terms his family has been around for a few generations, I think fourth or fifth generation northwest Tasmania, farmers, and heavily involved in the Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network. So I’d like to introduce Bevan and thank you.
Bevan Anderson.
Bevan Anderson
Thank you, and welcome here today, everyone, and thank you through for all coming and being interested people. My name is Bevan Anderson, and I’ve travelled down from Montagu to talk to you today, along with my wife, Kim. We hope to perhaps inform you mainly about a worrying proposal to build a wind farm and the weapons on Robbins Island near Smithton. To be honest with you, my wife and I find it difficult sometimes to comprehend how we both had to become activists to try and save the world class environment so close to our hearts. The Robbins Island wind farm proposal will drastically change a significant area for shorebirds. Robbins Island passage, Boullanger Bay wetlands have been identified as the most important area for shorebirds in Tasmania. The significant shorebird roosts, the 1000s of birds that frequent the island and passage.
Robbins Passage Boullanger Bay was nominated by Bird Life Tasmania in 2001 for RAMSAR. But a small group, including the proponents of the wind farm development, opposed it … how ironic is that. I’m not a greenie, but at some stage you have to stand up for what you believe in, especially when the proposal is going to affect a pristine environment and change the social well being of a whole community. You might think that this is another NIMBY, not in my backyard which has truth in it. However, it’s about saving a pristine environment within an important and beautiful part of Tasmania. I had never before thought of my wife and me as an activist, but this cause to save a beautiful land in the northwest, with so much history, and a wetland so untouched, enjoyed by community, is something we cannot stand by without fighting for. The flight path of the wedge-tailed eagle can potentially be fatal. How can the majestic eagle know where to fly. Regardless of any mitigating devices they choose to apply. The high nesting sites for birds surely pale into insignificance compared to the proposal to build up to 163 wind turbines, scaling the skies at about 270 metres in height. Not seen on land before with, no audiometric baseline studies or infrasound studies as well to determine its effect on you, on nearby communities.
Like SOLVE and previous No-Wind Action Group, we have to deal with 170 kilometres of transmission line ripping through prime agricultural land and the our native forest impacting not only just our farmers, but they are tourism operators and their operations. The Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network has been tracking this proposal. There is now is a groundswell amongst the community with many people against this proposal. Don’t get me wrong. Our group is not against wind farms. We are just against the placement of a wind farm here, in one of the most fragile, untouched, beautiful regions within Australia. The passage where people relax, enjoy time with family and friends, and have done so for many generations will be drastically changed. There is a proposal to build a causeway / bridge through the beautiful passage from Montagu to Robbins Island. There is no other wetland in Australia that has an ingress-egress of water from east or west dependent on wind and tidal factors. Any construction that has the potential to alter the most important tidal movements could end up being catastrophic for the area. Gone will be the great beauty of the waterway in a pristine environment, spoilt by corporate greed. Sorry. This environment should be there for all our children and future generations. This is an environment so unique. It can be squandered, or it can be treasured. People power must try and save this region. And governments of the day must not allow the proposal to proceed. This once unrecognised region where wildlife and nature abounds is a true national treasure.
Thank you very much to all the speakers who’ve come today. And we thank you all everyone here for coming. But the latest rumour whipping around is that this project is a done deal. This is simply not true. But the proponents of this industrial scale wind farm hoping that if people in this community think it’s a done deal, they will stop asking questions. I think we’ll go away, but we won’t. The way this project has been marketed is to gloss over the impacts on our community. Over-promised many of the so called stakeholders benefits. You’ll hear UPC representatives say this project is essential for pumped hydro and Marinus Link. But you have to ask yourselves is the Marinus Link going to benefit Tasmanians? If they tell you that it is, they are fabricating the truth. Marinus is about selling power to the mainland; it assumes that the mainland wants the power. But there is no guarantee of that either. Remember when the Basslink cable went in? Our electricity prices went up. The bottom line is that the proposal is about making money and lining the back pockets of people with vested interests, private interests. The more important concept of our culture, and our environment, have been completely overlooked. You wouldn’t put wind turbines in the middle of Hobart. So why would you place them in a beautiful place, a beautiful and spectacular area. We need you and we need your voice and support. We can’t win this alone. It’s time to unite as Tasmanians. So please, like us, and join our Circular Head group to help win this battle. Thank you.
Leanne Minshull
Thanks a lot Bevan and I think the feeling in that speech really, for me, shows how much courage that you’ve got in the northwest and how hard it quite often is to feel like you’re in a fight by yourself, but you’re not. The next speaker that we’re going to hear from is Eric Woehler, he’s an Adjunct Researcher at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, and he’s also the convener of Birdlife Australia, and talk about shorebirds and the impact on them from the proposed Robbins Island wind farm.
Eric Woehler.
Eric Woehler
Thank you. I’m the convener of Birdlife Tasmania. I don’t think the CEO appreciate me taking his job. Thank you all for coming along. My name is Eric Woehler. I’m the convener of Birdlife Tasmania, I’m here wearing the Birdlife Tasmania hat today. Birdlife Tasmania has been involved in doing the surveys up in Robbins Passage Boullanger Bay since 1996. I was up there in 1996 when there were about 20 of us camped on one friend’s house floor, couch, everything, to start the ball rolling in terms of getting coordinated counts. I’ve got a very short presentation today. I was basically talking about the migratory and resident shorebirds over there. And I’ll simply start off with a very simple statement of fact: that the tidal wetlands of the far north western Tasmania regularly support more migratory and residential birds – also known as waders – than the rest of the state combined. If the area is that important, no-one can challenge that simple fact of the significance of that area.
The Robbins Passage Boullanger Bay here is of international significance, it’s been recognised internationally. The area has been identified for more than 10 years now as what’s known as an Important Bird area or an IBA as part of a global network of sites that have been identified to standard criteria around the world, these IBAs, it’s a network of sites that contribute to the global conservation of biodiversity. So straightaway, we’ve got that whole area and the northwest is part of a global network of sites that we need to protect now and into the future for future generations. And to ensure that we don’t lose any more of our global biodiversity, we lose that habitat. There’ll be no more birds. It’s as simple as that. The Robins Passage Boullanger Bay area’s a critical habitat for more than 20 species of migratory shorebirds for half their lives. Many of these birds spent more time in Tasmania than they do in the Siberian areas where they breed every year.
A count in February this year, the most recent count that we have for a single day count, we had about 15 people in the area, recorded more than 10,000 shorebirds at about eight different sites in the area. They’re there because low tide is more than 100 square kilometres of mud flat that is perfect feeding habitat for them. It’s worth flying all the way from Siberia to northern Tasmania to feed in those areas. Some of the species that we have up in the northwest are able to fly 11,000 kilometres from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere nonstop. They can’t land in the sea, if they land in the water they’re dead, they drown. Every kilometre of that 11,000 kilometre flight from the northern hemisphere to southeastern Australia is power. The birds use flapping flight, they don’t glide, they don’t use the jet stream, they don’t do anything else to ease the pain. They have to flap their wings every single metre of those 11,000 kilometres from the northern hemisphere to Tasmania. Half the time the wind is in their face, it’s not an easy trip for them at all. One species is particularly common up in the Robbins Passage Boullanger Bay area is the red-necked stint. It’s so small, you can cup it in your hand. You would have a little bit of bill at one end a little bit of the tail sticking out on the other hand. These birds weigh about 25 grams, less than than an ounce in the old measure. And they take six weeks to fly from Siberia to Tasmania. Every year they do around about 25,000 kilometres on a round trip from the northern hemisphere down to Tasmanian and back. These birds can live for 20 years. over their lifetime, they’ll fly half a million kilometres. That’s farther than the distance between the Earth and the Moon for birds that sit in the cup of your hand with very little showing. It’s a remarkable bird and the more the more we know about the birds, the more we know about the migrant shorebirds, the more remarkable they become.
We don’t need to exaggerate or distort what goes on. What the birds do is so remarkable, is so exceptional, we need to protect them for future generations. The area’s also critical habitat for resident shorebird species, so the species present every day of their lives on the beaches and on the foreshores. You’re all familiar with the pied and sooty oystercatchers on our beaches, they used to be called redbills. These birds can live for up to 35 years; imagine the changes they’ve seen on the beaches and foreshores in the last 35 years. The oyster catchers are generally faithful to one site for their entire lives. The oystercatchers you saw the last time you went to a beach somewhere, were probably there 10-20 or even 30 years ago. Imagine the changes they’ve seen at their beach in that time. Even the tiny hooded plover that can only survive on sandy beaches can live for almost 20 years. I’m not talking about the masked lapwings or spur-wing plovers that swoop you when you walk too close to a nest, the hooded plovers are small birds like little clockwork toys that run along with the beach in front of you when you’re walking along the beach. 20 years some of these birds can live for. Oystercatchers and hooded plovers use the beaches and the foreshores every day of their lives. They don’t migrate anywhere. They rely on those beaches every day of their lives. They can’t migrate anywhere else. The habitat that they have to have is the foreshore, they rely on beaches, foreshores, wetlands, salt marshes to provide food, critical habitat for their nest, eggs and shelter every day of their lives. Again, no habitat no birds, it’s as simple as that.
Many of our migratory shorebird populations are decreasing around the world. Sadly, some of them are listed as endangered or even critically endangered. It won’t take much to push them over the brink, and then they’ll be gone. Extinction is truly forever. The remaining foraging and nesting habitat that we see in the Robbins Passage Boullanger Bay area, already recognised for their international contribution to conservation of global biodiversity, are becoming more critical by the day and must be protected to ensure the survival of the shorebird species dependent on these wetlands. It’s urgent, we have no time to waste. Global populations are decreasing largely due to habitat loss. Safe feeding areas are critical to migratory species every day of their lives, be they live species that live 35 years or the ones that live for 10 years. An industrial scale wind farm with more than 100 turbines proposed for Robbins Island in the middle of these wetlands will only add pressure to the species and is inconsistent with internationally recognised values that are present in those areas. The proposed wind farm poses serious risks to the shorebirds of the Robbins Island Boullanger Bay area. Birdlife Tasmania supports the development and use of renewable energy. The proposed wind farm on Robbins Island is simply the wrong development for such a sensitive and internationally-recognised significant wetland system. Thank you.
Leanne Minshull
Thanks, Eric. This has been taped, I might listen back to that later because I found so many interesting facts in that. Well, what little chargers kilometres with wind in their face. Next up we’re going to hear from a local fishermen in the northwest of Tasmania. Craig Garland will talk about the impact of Robbins island on fisheries
Craig Garland.
Craig Garland
I live and reside alongside the Robbins Island channel. I’ve fished and camped on Robbins Island for the best part of my life. The amount of life that is fed and nourished in that area, not only the birds, but the fish life is quite significant. Montagu channel, we’ve got a major greenlip fishery there, the snook, the rock flathead, blue spot flathead, the flounder, the garfish, all those species come to feed and breed in that area. It’s absolutely crucial to them. What we have here, when I started on my political journey, a fella come up to me and he said, ‘Craig, it’s all about raw honesty, and sense of community’. Now, the Aboriginal community has been ridden over, ignored. The birds that Eric talks about, that community out there is not given a second thought. The fish community – if that causeway goes through or bridge, which keeps changing all the time – all the soil around Montagu Channel is high acid, particularly around where they want to put that bridge / causeway. When that’s disturbed, that goes out into that marine environment. All the food that these birds and the juvenile fish they feed on in that channel area are susceptible to acid, it will affect them greatly.
I’m just gobsmacked that a project such as this is being forced on us, there is no benefit whatsoever. In the words of an energy consultant I engage, all benefits flow north, apart from the tuck shop in Smithton and Tall Timbers for accommodation during the construction stage, there is nothing in it for us whatsoever. I believe, one apprentice per year. Now, if you’re going to impact our forestry, fisheries, our endangered bird life, Aboriginal archaeological sites of which they’ve only done sticks and stones archaeological work, if you’re going to impact all that, that one apprentice is going to have to feel like a pretty important individual. This is just ridiculous. And we have a choice. What’s happening in this state and what’s gone on in my lifetime is two major parties that have no respect, no thought for anybody else, except their parties and their donors. And this project is being done behind closed doors, with money changing hands, without experts such as Eric, and all the rest of us here. Michael Anderson from the CEPU.
We all know it’s the wrong project. But we have to make a choice now. And what it is, it’s up to the people of this state to vote independent. We’ve got good independents sitting down here and we’ve got good independents up north. We cannot allow this to continue. Democracy is sick. That’s it plain and simple. Democracy was fought, and it was earned. And it’s been overwritten and taken over. And money is the main objective. And now we have to take it back and the people in this state, they have to give their vote elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. And you have good independent candidates. So that’s my message today is to shortfall all this. And remember, it’s all about community. I’m not talking just to our community, I’m talking the birds and fish, the forestry and all those creatures that reside in there. You know, this is just wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s a dickhead project. I just can’t believe, in my time, this would have to be the most stupid project I think that I’ve ever had to stand up and fight against. And I’ve stood up and fought against quite a few you know. It’s been a lifetime journey for every one of us in this room watching this state being done over? Well, now we have an opportunity to make a difference because we’ve got momentum, there’s a need out there for good independents.
So please, every one of you in this room, when you go home, you convince your friends and everyone else around you that you know, to give you votes of the independents and send a loud message to these ignorant bastards who sit behind closed doors with their faceless suits making decisions, which put people like Bevan and myself… You know, you take away from me you, take away from my environment you’re taking away from me, you cannot take from one and not degrade the other and that’s how I feel. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts my whole life watching the bush go, watching the waters being done over, and watching the expansion of salmon farms, these stupid wind farm protests. We’re 95% self sufficient self sufficient in this state. We can sit back and we can pick the eyeballs out of any project that’s coming forward to us. We don’t have to take the first one that’s thrown out. And that’s what we have to do. We’re in the box seat here in Tasmania. The whole world would love to have what we have here. Now what we have to do is manage it with the whole world’s best interests in mind. Thank you.
Leanne Minshull
We know what you think Craig, thanks for that. Because, of course, there is a state election on at the moment, that’ll be over in 10 days. And no matter what happens at the state election, the proposal still be going ahead and the community will still be fighting it. And part of what we’re doing today is trying to let the community members voice what their concerns are and help people down here know a little bit more about what’s going on. So yes, the state election is important, but it is one part of a much longer campaign and a much longer, you know, journey for want of a better word, that we’re all on. There were a few politicians that sent their best wishes today that couldn’t be here. And included in that was a statement from the Greens who said they are opposed to Robbins Island, and Marinus they were had questions over. But very clear on no support for Robbins Island. So I just wanted to mention that and a similar message from Sue Hickey. nothing from Labor or Liberal. It’s not just Robbins Island wind farm, there’s growing opposition in communities to wind farms all over Tasmania. And the next person that we’re going to hear from is Ben Marshall, the person with the best t shirt in the room, from SOLVE. And they’re concerned amongst other things about the transmission lines of Marinus. So please welcome Ben.
Ben Marshall.
Ben Marshall
Many thanks to the organisers for our community voice in Hobart. My name is Ben Marshall, to represent the community of the Loongana Valley, a place most of you have never heard of, and in rejecting UPC TasNetworks new transmission grid and the entire premise it’s founded on, the so-called Marinus Project. Our community story is simple. Two years ago, we heard rumours about huge transmission line that foreign-owned and controlled UPC renewables wanted to run through our beautiful valley, which is nestled under the Black Bluff and under the Loongana Range, the unique Leven Canyon and Winterbrook Falls. It’s a stunning, heartbreakingly beautiful place. Our first thoughts were the impacts of the 60 metre tower and 60 to 90 metre wide easements. We were concerned about the effects of that on our wildlife habitats, our properties and the small tourism businesses in our little valley. The towers and lines would damage the views and killed wildlife while also increasing fire risk.
Worse than the poles and wires are the easements underneath them, a football field wide. These are permanently bare areas and these would fill our valley with an open field across which many animals cannot cross without risk. The easements will bring in a tidal wave of weeds, we all can see that with forestry, and feral cats. They love this, this would be the perfect feeding ground for them, they would increase as well. The easements not only destroy the habitats directly under the lines, but also to either side, as the easements dry the forests out and channel the high winds right through. And they themselves knock down even more trees outside these. Okay, that was our first concern. We put all this UPC, and then TasNetworks, because once locals kicked up a stink, suddenly UPC wasn’t there anymore and TasNetworks took over negotiating. Talking to both UPC and TasNetworks, we weren’t getting straight answers from either of them.
We, our own community of nobodies, were first forced to become investigative journalists to find out what was actually going on, who is doing what and why. It took us two damn years. We slowly realised that the government and TasNetworks didn’t have a plan or a policy as much as a rolling PR campaign. Just to be clear, Marinus PR campaign is covered under cotton. Even now, the lead sales staff, TasNetorks CEO Lance Balcombe and his PR team are selling Marinus to the Victorians as guaranteed jobs and growth. Sound familiar? That’s how they were trying to sell it to us. But the point’s been made, all the power, all the profits, going offshore, what’s left for us? An influx of FIFO construction workers who’ll drive up local rents, buy pies from local shops, and then leave us with the mess. There won’t be jobs left after they go. So for two years, TasNetworks avoided answering critical questions, withheld critical information from us, lied to us and tried to gaslight us with phoney community engagement workshops. If you haven’t been to a community engagement workshop run by Marinus, you’re lucky person. Despite the spin and lies we learned the truth, we learned the lead planner TasNetworks is also the main commercial beneficiary of the huge new transmission grid they themselves will build. It’s a massive conflict of interest. The government’s outsourced energy, climate and jobs policy to TasNetorks. TasNetworks is a for profit corporation. We learned TasNetworks didn’t bother with the cost on the ground because they don’t have the skills. And that’s not what they might make money from. They make money from direct transmission lines.
We learned that route selection itself was deliberately flawed. And the only real criteria was the cost of the infrastructure, not the cost to our community, or our environment. We learned from the minister that over 90% of all new renewable energy will go to the mainland, if you take into account power losses from the lines themselves, that’s all new renewable energy will go to the mainland; it will be sold for a profit. Communities will pay this is not just my community too. We all pay one way or another for foreign companies to to Tasmanian wind power into private profits which will go offshore. We learned that the renewable industry is mostly owned and controlled by foreign shareholders, many with links to certain powerful governments. We learned that the claims of jobs and growth for Tasmanian communities were cynical lies to cover a government cash grab from TasNetworks nearly gold-plated poles and wires. We’ve seen this happen on the mainland; gold plate the network, increases the debt to asset ratio, suddenly, the CEO is looking like ‘oooh, I’m deserving my Christmas bonus’. And the government profit from that because they take an efficiency dividend. Because it’s a state-owned corporation. Those are the only winners in this. We learned in our valley and across the entire northwest, that hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines will lose tourism jobs. We learned that our properties will lose value. We learned that our forests and habitats will suffer. And we learned that our community and many others will subsidise the profits of UPC and TasNetworks by bearing the multiple costs and impacts of the rotten, cost-saving transmission line.
Our community has a message for politicians: stop lying about jobs and growth from this project, from Marinus. Stop paying mainland PR companies to gaslight our communities. It’s enough you’re railroading us without that bullshit. Go back to the drawing board with Marinus to genuinely address climate and energy and in a way that benefits Tasmanians, not foreign shareholders. Shut down UPC’s appalling Robbins Island wind farm project and stop TasNetworks transmission line destroying the Loongana Valley. Return energy, climate and jobs planning to an independent public service. Make it evidence- and science-based. Start working for Tasmanian people you claim to represent and begin listening to our communities. We need genuine action on climate, not more taxpayer handouts to the corporate sector. We need a renewables industry that doesn’t destroy forests, doesn’t add to climate impacts, and instead brings benefits to Tasmanian communities. Trashing the Tassie environment to ship renewable energy offshore isn’t clean or green. Nor is it anything like an actual climate or energy policy. So let’s take charge of what’s happening to our state not hand the keys to the likes of UPC and their sales staff in TasNetworks. Listen to communities. Offshore the wind farms, bury the transmission lines like what they’re doing on the mainland. Keep cheap energy here to grow our economy sustainably, put Tasmania first. Thanks for listening and if you want to support Loongana, and Tasmania’s threatened and endangered species, please go to our website solvetasmania.com. And Facebook. Thank you for listening.
Leanne Minshull
Thanks, Ben. Because I’m sure I actually didn’t realise I mentioned that Sue sent a message but Sue Hickey and Lisa Gershwin are both here in the front row. So I’d just like to acknowledge them. It’s…especially in the middle of an election campaign, I think it’s great when politicians come to listen, not just if I’ve got a speaking opp. So we’re almost being kept to time, we’re going to have about three or four questions that are going to be able to be asked at the end of the meeting. If someone close to that microphone would just press the red button on. It will turn on. I’ve just had it off because the battery run out, because our last two speakers. We’ll start off. Sorry about this. I don’t know David yet. So we have David Bigley, who’s the chair of No Turbine Action Group in the central highlands. So Thanks, David.
David Bigley.
David Bigley
Thank you very much. On behalf of NTAG it’s a privilege to be here and share a story about the central highlands and Marinus. How do you summarise it? Well, my suggestion to you is if you love the central highlands, go up and say goodbye. Because Marinus is coming. It will never be the same. The brand will change. It’s this great big wind farm coming near Miena. It’s going to change the unique character of the highlands. It will change the sense of remoteness and the scenic beauty that’s there. It will affect nationally-endangered flora and fauna. It will make the area ordinary. We are a new group on the block. We know that we have a good case.
I’ll give you a few things about St Patrick’s Plains wind farm that illustrates the point that it’ll be made an ordinary place. St Patrick’s Plains wind farm is next to the A7 Highway near Miena at Steppes. The turbines there’ll be 50, they’ll be 240 metres high, three times the height of the Wrest Point Casino. It’ll be visible from World Heritage areas. It’ll kill resident wedge-tailed eagles, there are 17 nests on the site. The wind farm is going to be built in an ecological hotspot that’s got more than 26 nationally-endangered plants and animals. It’ll mean the international icon the fly fishing icon of Penstock Lagoon will be able to see the turbines. In fact today there’s a national Fly Fishing Championship. Get used to the noise, get used to the terrible sights. The central highlands will never be same. The wind farm’s in the wrong spot and it doesn’t have social licence. The frustration I have is that this wind farm comes out of a high risk approach to the battery of the nation. When you think about it, the locals know they don’t want the highlands community scarred to supply power to Victoria. Because Tasmania doesn’t need it. We don’t need the power. But we’ll wear the scars.
The locals know that there’s a tidal wave happening on the mainland, coming on stream in the form of new investments and new batteries. Like for example, South Australia, it now has a 500% renewable energy strategy. Where’s that going to go? New South Wales, Victoria. The Australian energy regulator had set a target that by 2040, there should be 25 gigawatts of renewable energy power. That target fact 28 gigawatts will be met by 2020, 15 years. The market for Tasmania is shrinking. Tasmania’s supply into the mainland market is only small, certainly a couple of thousand megawatts. There’s a wind farm going to be built on the east coast of Victoria, which is going to be about the size of Tasmania’s hydro generation. It’s a tidal wave happening, there’s less demand coming for Tasmanian power. And it’s expensive… $3.5 billion or more as an insurance policy for Victoria. The AEMO, the regulator itself said there needs to be flexibility, they had us part of the roadmap. Next year they’ll review Marinus, is there one cable needed, is there two cables needed? And yet our government has set a hard target of 200% when even the regulator knows things are happening on the mainland that affect Tasmania.
But it gets worse. Once you hunt under the glossy PR that’s been talked about, for example, in the framework document, it comes across and there are figures that support up to 93 wind farms the size of Grenville Harbour to be built in Tasmania under Battery of the Nation. 31 in the Midlands, up to 50 in the northwest and 12 in the northeast. So there’s a wind farm coming near you. You’ve got a power line, there’s one coming near you. But not only that, St. Patrick’s Plains will need to be subsidised by the taxpayer. Their owners offtake agreements, which have been imposed by the government to prop up unviable wind farms. And St Patrick’s Plains wind farm proposal will be unviable, will need propping up, and already to date there has been 300 million spent on propping up Cattle Hill, Grenville Harbour and other renewable energy initiatives. So there we have it. Battery in the central highlands. It’s the central highlands getting battered. By wind farms in the wrong place. It’s no social licence, there’s community opposition, there’s a need to keep the highlands unique. There’s a need for no subsidies to be paid. Thank you for being here, candidates for election. My advice is wind farms need to be in the right place and need to respect the rights and values of the local community. And they need to have transparent funding. We need to stop the precedent on St. Patrick’s Plains for the central highlands because we love it. Thank you.
Mick Anderson.
Mick Anderson
G’day everyone. My name’s Mick Anderson, I’m the State Secretary of the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union and it’s an absolute pleasure to be talking to you about something like energy generation in this state. First of all, it’s probably important to point out that although this sort of started with Robbins Island, this is symptomatic of the broader issue in which our elected politicians and the electorate has forgotten our state’s rich history in publicly-owned energy generation. And it’s really reasonably simple equation to solve a whole range of these problems. I’m not going to be able to add a lot to all these brilliant speakers here so I’ll make it reasonably brief. It’s always a pleasure bringing up the tail. But, you know, we’re in an interesting position ourselves, a labour union opposing these great jobs. So, you know, what are you doing? What are you getting involved with the greenies for and all that.
But beneath all the propaganda of this jobs, jobs, jobs stuff, what got us involved in just because some good folks from up this way contacted us and said, ‘Well, what do you reckon about the jobs and the cheaper energy and all this other stuff that is part of the propaganda for this project?’ You don’t have to look very far back through history to find out that it’s complete nonsense. So myself, I’m a born bred electrician. And you know what, I don’t have all the answers or the technical knowledge, but our union has been around 108 years in the state, and it’s represented 10s of 1000s of people that have generated energy in a pretty efficient manner, in line with community interests; good jobs, actually cheap energy, and a bit lighter on the propaganda front. So the simple equation, for me to add to this conversation, is simply that public ownership of energy generation, which in a rich developed country, like Australia, should be considered an essential service, it’s a human right. In fact, in a country like that, with the history that we have in Tasmania, as opposed to the lived reality, of the encroachment of private energy interests in Tasmania, and certainly private energy projects on the mainland. It’s pretty startling, a stark example.
So the public model, think back to the hydro 10s of 1000s, of good, secure, safe, that’s an important part, those jobs at the Hydro and related entities until, say the last 10 years, they’ve supported regional communities through actually employing real apprentices, like actual humans, not just whatever spin they’re applying to a project at the time. The reality of private energy generation is cheap, exploited, sometimes visa workers, most of the time FIFO workers, lowest price worse product, get it up quickly, sell it to the market, that’s their only motivator. And as much as the the public side of the propaganda will try to say that ‘well, UPC is different’, that they have managed to strike or solve this unsolvable problem of investors somehow managing community good versus the profit motive, we have our doubts and history is on our side when we make these sort of statements. Another point to make is this does Tasmania need wind energy, 100%. There’s nothing wrong with wind farms. But the difference in how they’re rolled out under a public model is absolutely polar opposite to how private is rolled out. So under a private model, investors choose the location, they choose quality of jobs, and they choose what they do with the surplus power. Demonstrably, all those things are sacrificed for profit. Under a public model, which we need in Tasmania, a few cleverly thought out wind farms and another mix of energy, communities – us – we can elect governments or candidates that are actually going to oppose privatisation for a start, but also recognise that it is an essential service and community to then be in control of where the wind farms are built, how good the jobs are, and what they want done with the surplus value or the surplus energy.
A couple of examples in Tassie, so I’ll try to go through, Cattle Hill wind farm, known by the workers there as Battle Hill. That’s a good start. Promised X amount of jobs, it’s actually returned one local job, what a bonanza. The place has changed forever on the back of that one job, I’m sure. Health and safety standards were terrible. 90% FIFO workforce, the dodgy electrical contractor they brought down from Queensland, because they were dodgy and cheap, they fell over on the job, they went bust because they brought in an army of unlicensed electricians. How good’s that for Tasmania, jobs, jobs jobs, you know. Granville Harbour, not much different, the pattern emerges. FIFO jobs, massive exploitation of workers rights, terrible safety. And we also got the privilege of taxpayers paying to connect that to the network to sell wind power to the mainland, what a fantastic result for local communities there. So the jobs thing’s a complete myth. Robbins Island, the numbers have moved around a little bit, but it’s something like 400 during construction and 60 in operation. Sure, there might be that many jobs, they’re just not going to be very good. And they’re not going to be done by locals on the whole. 90% FIFO workers. Where are you going to find a workforce of 400 in Smithton that’s been decimated by the decline in manufacturing,
No-one in this state in the private sector especially, or the government who they’re currently mainland sponsored by, they see, training in apprentices and workforce is like a Rubik’s Cube, they don’t understand it, because they don’t see it as their problem. That’s easily solved if you look back through history a few generations and go back to the model that was employed under the Hydro schemes: good quality, long term safe jobs in regional communities. It’s all there in front of us. Before we move on to Marinus, so aside from the sort of evidence-based approach we take to the quality of jobs in private renewables, who’s got a gut feeling that UPC is going to change the game on that? Does anyone actually think that it’s going to be any different or we just march down the same road? We might wait to the Q&A for that one. So Marinus, the promise there is 1400 jobs, is that going to happen? No. There’s a few reasons why that’s not going to happen. There might be a few token jobs, I’m sure there will be. TasNetworks has a sick fetish outsourcing everything that’s not bolted down. So there’s your first problem. The second problem is, when TasNetworks do say ‘This is a government owned project’, because it’s outsourced, they’ll go to someone, local contractor, at Granville when we saw that happen so Granville Harbour could access the NEM. And even though a local contractor picked up the job, they were Queenslanders, West Australians and South Australian fly-in workers, not a single local built the transmission lines from Granville to the network.
The value of the project, so to get an interconnector going of this nature, essentially, in my mansplaining terms, there’s two big black boxes that they install either end, worth about half a billion dollars. It’s proprietary gear, all you do is hook up the feed-in feed-out cables. There’s not a lot of labour involved in that side of things. So we know that the transmission or the access to Marinus will be outsourced. The installation…not only do we not have the skills in Tasmania to do it, because the government hasn’t done anything about it for generations, but also the marine works – like the cable across the ditch – that’s all specialised skills that we don’t have. Again, no net benefit to Tasmania, very dubious. Basically, in summary, it should be a bit of a joke, but it’s not really, the amnesia in the sense of communities where we have forgotten all about what a good job and a good outcome for communities in terms of central energy has been completely forgotten. And we only see all the propaganda around that the private investors are the only solution to climate and energy problems into the future. And it’s an absolute nonsense.
All we’re really doing by standing by as communities and wasting our vote on politicians that agree with privatising and private interests having swayed communities, is taxpayers subsidise private investors to sell to the NEM, the national energy market. And they can make an actual motza, then we pay for the privilege. On very little measure is there a net benefit to Tasmania. So a little bit ironic, these people are going to have to vote in a bit of over a week. So however you choose to vote, that’s fine, but it’s very frustrating that such an important issue like this has been abandoned by the two parties. But that’s up to us. It’s up to you and us and the folks in the northwest. My only encouragement – because I got told I’d be in trouble if we politicise this too much – is what are you going to do? If this is important to you collectivise your vote around it. And someone might like to ask some spicy questions in the Q&A. So I might just wrap it up there. Clear options: private investor profit, or public ownership and actually good for communities. Thanks very much.
