Statement – Supporting Our Loongana Valley Environment, 20 June 2022
SOLVE Community response to 2022 Energy Development Conference
There’s one guest missing from Tasmania’s 2022 Energy Development Conference – us, the Tasmanian people. The Minister will be there, the Marinus Project and TasNetworks’ heads will be there, as will the renewables industry. Tasmanian communities, however, are excluded from rooms where decisions are made because the conference isn’t about energy, climate or jobs – it’s about making money from the Marinus Link and TasNetworks proposed new transmission grid. All this will cost communities dearly, yet independent experts have found little to no evidence of the claimed benefits touted by for-profit proponents like TasNetworks and UPC.
The cosy deals made at conferences like this have been exposed in our current energy crisis, and Tasmanians have every right to be angry.
At the conference, community will be mentioned only in the context of how they can be persuaded to believe they’ll benefit from the current push to cover our north-west in a new transmission grid, and our coastlines with wind farms – all to connect foreign investors to energy buyers on the mainland, and leaving Tasmanians with the bill.
Our community in the Loongana Valley has been forced into a war with the major player, TasNetworks, a for-profit state-owned company, who were handed the Jurisdictional Planner role for the energy sector. Giving an old ‘poles and wires’ company carte blanche to design the energy sector is a clear conflict of interest, and when our communities objected to the costs that bulldozing their giant double transmission line through our valley would cause us, our tourism businesses, and our still wild forests, TasNetworks refused to acknowledge them.
The Loongana Valley community and our supporters want nothing more than good climate, energy and jobs planning which includes us and benefits us, not forces us to bear the costs for profiteering companies. The Devonport Energy Development Conference denies us a voice, denies the costs for-profit companies seek to impose on us, and denies the injustice of making us pay for all of it.
We call on TasNetworks to acknowledge the harm they’re causing the Loongana community, and to halt plans to run a double transmission corridor through our valley. We call on councils, unions, community groups, and all political parties to demand a halt to Marinus, for TasNetworks to be divested of its Jurisdictional Planner role, and for the lip-service paid to ‘community engagement’ to be replaced with genuine community consultation that benefits our state, and which transitions us to a clean, lower-cost all-electric/hydrogen economy for real jobs and growth for Tasmania, not for foreign companies to export yet another raw resource offshore for private profit.
Media release – Respect Stanley Peninsula, 20 June 2022
Protest – Tasmanian Energy Development Conference – Wednesday 22nd June
Event: Wednesday 22nd June – Protest – Tasmanian Energy Development Conference, Paranaple Place – Devonport (protestors outside in forecourt)
Here we are a year on, standing in the same place once again protesting outside the renewable energy conference. Why are we protesting in a time of urgent energy crisis? We have long supported renewable energy and the need to transition to renewables, but it must be done well. Our communities and our special landscapes should be respected in this process. Tasmania is plenty big enough that appropriate locations can be found that don’t negatively impact on communities and iconic landscapes.
As members of the Stanley community, we have come here today to raise awareness and galvanise support for our cause. We are not your typical ‘protesters’, we are shop-keepers, farmers, fisherman, bakers, retirees and accommodation operators, to name a few.
We are concerned about Tasmania’s lack of regulation for renewable energy zoning locations. We are asking the Tasmanian Government to follow the lead of other states and establish ‘No Go Zones’ for important landscapes. We are asking the Tasmanian Government to create buffer zones between massive renewable energy infrastructure and our communities. The Energy Infrastructure Commissioner recommends a 5km buffer zone, but our government is simply not listening.
The Government is investing $800,000 over the next two years on implementing the Tasmanian Renewable Energy Coordination Framework, yet we fear this will simply be a box-ticking exercise on the part of government. This framework is not legislation and whilst it claims to address social license and community impacts, we believe at it is simply a tick-box list for developers to steamroll small communities.
Small communities who have to band together and organise significant funding to have any hope of providing reports and information to combat slick, well-resourced developers in the planning process. Developers hell-bent on achieving our government’s 200% renewable energy target and shipping that energy to the mainland.
The irony is not lost on Kerry and Alastair Houston, owners of award-winning Ship Inn Stanley. Yesterday attending the tourism symposium in the Paranaple Conference centre and enjoying cocktails with the Premier. Today protesting outside the same conference centre, trying to protect one of Tasmania’s iconic landscapes and stunning heritage townships.
Epuron’s proposed Western Plains Wind Farm on the Stanley Peninsula will include twelve wind turbines towering four stories higher than the iconic Stanley Nut. It will forever change this iconic Tasmanian landscape and heritage town. Many Stanley locals believe Stanley is worth saving, believing it is simply the wrong location for an industrial wind farm. An Epuron representative will be speaking at the conference on “Achieving Tasmania’s’ Renewable Energy Target (TRET) together”. We are here to tell Epuron that the community of Stanley do not stand ‘together’ with Epuron on their proposed Stanley Wind Farm.
Media Release Monday 20 June 2022
Protest – No wind turbine zones needed in Tasmania
A central highlands community group, No Turbine Action Group Inc, aims to highlight concerns about wind farms in the wrong place at the Tasmanian Energy Development Conference in Devonport’s Paranaple Centre on Wednesday. A local community presentation has not been included in the conference agenda even though repeated requests have been made. The same happened last year and shows the community is not a pillar of renewables as claimed by Energy Minister Barnett, his agencies and the renewables industry.
Korea Zinc, a global mining giant, who recently acquired Epuron’s renewable energy portfolio of Australian developments wants a green persona but has adopted wind farm projects, at St Patricks Plains in the Highlands and Stanley on the Northwest Coast, that are in totally inappropriate locations according to No Turbine Action Group Inc (NTAG). The group has called on the Tasmanian Government and the renewables industry to act on community concerns by pressing the pause button on developments until areas of Tasmania a are identified that are suitable for the proliferation of planned wind farms and ‘no wind turbine zones’ are established.
Korea Zinc’s plan at St Patricks Plains is to build and operate an industrial development covering 10,000ha with 47 turbines, almost the tallest in the world (240m high) straddling the Highland Lakes Rd between the Steppes and Miena.
NTAG has over 250 members who are strongly opposed to the plan and include – shack owners, local residents, businesses, landowners, developers, hunters, ecologists, retirees and workers – as well as regular interstate and international visitors who treasure the unique landscape and attributes of the area. Ninety (90) % of attendees at community meetings have opposed the plan.
The community says the St Patricks Plains proposed wind farm is in the wrong place for a number of reasons:
A visual disaster. Victoria Onslow from Ouse says the 240m towers are too high (three times the height of Wrest Point Casino), too close to roads and a major highway, too close to residences. Ridge locations of turbines mar the skyline and would be highly visible from long distances including the World Heritage Area on the central plateau.
Killing wedge-tailed eagles. Greg Pullen, resident at Barren Plains, says the wind farm is optimum habitat and home to Australia’s largest raptor, the threatened Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle (WTE). There are 17 known WTE nests on or near the site! Korea Zinc has adopted an out of date (35-year-old) buffer of 1km around nests, but this was designed for ground-based forestry operations and not 240m turbines that would seriously disrupt breeding. The recommendation for a 3.7km minimum buffer distance from turbines by eagle experts has been ignored by the developer. The expired Threatened Tasmania Eagles Recovery Plan (2006 – 2010) must be updated urgently to provide protective measures for our spectacular species.
Noise. David Ridley, Shannon shack owner and Chair NTAG, says turbine noise will be heard at nearby settlements of Wilburville, Flintstone, Penstock and Shannon. Turbines that are too close to residences will have noise nuisance impacts. A recent Victorian Supreme Court decision, regarding complaints against Bald Hills Wind Farm’s noise, stated all people are entitled to a good night’s sleep. The Court imposed an injunction on the wind farm’s night operations and awarded compensation to the neighbours.
World fly fishing site desecrated. Malcolm Crosse, convenor of the 2019 World Fly Fishing Championships in Tasmania, says an internationally recognised flyfishing icon will be lost because turbines will be seen and heard from Penstock Lagoon. Ironically, the World Championships were promoted by this state government, highlighting the wild nature of the area as a drawcard for multinational competitors.
NTAG has identified areas on private land in the central highlands and west coast that have good infrastructure, great wind, but which respect visual, eagle, noise concerns, – and as such, would have a community social license to operate.
“The community can help implement renewables, but it must be taken seriously from the start, rather than as an afterthought. There is no need to sacrifice the Tasmanian landscape and brand for the mainland. With 100% renewables energy being achieved, we can be selective about where the next wind farms will go.”
NTAG seeks a moratorium on wind farm approvals until ‘No Turbine Zones’ that include areas of high eagle utilisation are mapped; a new Threatened Tasmanian Eagles Recovery Plan is instated; and the renewables mess is sorted out. Renewables in the right place will allow economic and employment benefits – impossible without a cohesive social licence.
