With the Premier up to his eyeballs in defectors, perhaps his Minister for Energy and Renewables Nick Duigan might like to shoulder the burden of a mistruth, brazenly stated as fact in a government media release.
It was published under both Liberals’ names on Wednesday, January 31, after the pair paid a visit to Circular Head, with a jaunt at low tide across to Robbins Island.
“Federal Government Delaying State’s Development” it claimed. See https://www.premier.tas.gov.au/site_resources_2015/additional_releases/federal-government-delaying-states-development
“Premier Jeremy Rockliff has urged the Federal Government to get on and approve the Robbins Island wind farm.”
“The project has undergone among the most rigorous approvals processes in the world. It’s time to get on and build it, Minister Duigan added.”
Once again, it’s those irritating locals and their Canberra deity, Tanya Plibersek, who are responsible for stalling a development which “will provide clean energy for tens of thousands of homes, create hundreds of jobs and drive billions of dollars of economic development for our state.”
But people like Kim Anderson, who along with her husband Bevan were founding members of the Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network, understand just where the development is up to, having devoted the past five years of their lives fighting the proposed 100-turbine wind farm.
They see the destruction of world-renowned wetlands, the predictable deaths of thousands of birds, and the loss of habitat for eagles and devils as being a poor trade-off for a 50 year, privately-owned eyesore.
At the moment they are preparing to appeal the TASCAT approval of the development, with a hearing expected in the Supreme Court in Hobart later this month.
“Blaming any hold ups on the Federal Environment Minister is complete bs. I could have knocked up a free breakfast at home, but these politicians are never interested in talking to us to get a different perspective. We won’t bite them”, said Mrs Anderson, alluding to a social media post by Nick Duigan, showing the pair smiling after ‘a fantastic brekky’ at a Smithton bakery.
The Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has a public portal, with a page dedicated to the Robbins Island wind farm proposal.
It states quite clearly that the DCCEEW, and hence the Minister, Tanya Plibersek, is still awaiting information. This has not been provided by the proponent, ACEN Australia.
Delving a little further into the site the detail is revealed:
“Annexure A: Information that was requested from the designated proponent on 18 April 2023 under section 132 of the EPBC Act
- a) An offset strategy and offset management plan to compensate for the loss of up to 366.2 ha of Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) habitat. The offset proposal must be consistent with the department’s EPBC Act Environmental Offsets Policy and its associated guidance documentation, noting that:
- i) current evidence indicates that the Robbins Island Tasmanian Devil population is free from Devil Facial Tumour Disease; and
- ii) As per the department’s EPBC Act Environmental Offsets Policy:
(1) a minimum of 90 percent of the offset requirements for any given impact must be met through direct offsets;
(2) suitable offsets must deliver an overall conservation outcome that improves or maintains the viability of the protected matter as compared to what is likely to have occurred under the status quo, that is if neither the action nor the offset had taken place.”
Enquiries made as to the accuracy of the website elicited a response on Thursday February 1 from DCCEEW official: “The EPBC public portal is up to date for the project and once all the requested information has been received the portal will be updated to reflect that.”
It appears that while our State Government rushes about pushing this energy project (and others) through the approvals process with zealous determination, their habit of finding a handy whipping-boy in local community groups has now expanded to blaming a seemingly laggard minister in the Federal environment sphere.
Tanya Plibersek obviously has Tasmanian devils on her radar, along with the Maugean skate, the red handfish, and both the swift and orange-bellied parrots. The plight of the long-neglected Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle has also been brought to her attention after a decade of purposeful ignorance by Liberal Governments both here and in Canberra.
She is unlikely to be unnerved by a couple of blue-shirt lightweights with connections to “the island owners [who] have had a vision for over two decades to harness the world-class wind resource here and combine it with their successful beef cattle operation.” (Rockliff)
We’re now seeing the havoc wrought by the ‘vision’ of salmon farmers in Macquarie Harbour, who, along with a complicit State Government, silenced independent scientific research that predicted the disaster now unfolding.
When people like Minister Duigan say ‘Get on with it’”, you can bet your life they don’t mean ‘according to rigorous process’.
A look at the Government’s new Renewable Energy Approval Pathway proposal – an attempted bypass of local government and local community to further ‘streamline’ government-declared Major Projects – should convince all thinking Tasmanians to question the steamroller policies both the major parties are proposing as they cast a nervous eye towards the ballot-box.
We deserve a government with a clear and realistic policy for energy generation in this state, which does not encompass the trashing of our environmental heritage.
Until the required information about devils on Robbins Island is provided for the Federal Environment Minister’s deliberations, a delicate ecosystem hangs in the balance. And no amount of pollies pointing the finger on behalf of a lax developer should change due process.
Greg Pullen is a committee member of the Central Highlands No Turbine Action Group (NTAG) and has a keen interest in renewable energy transformation, in particular its benefits for Tasmania. He is a firm believer in the KISS Principle.
Ben Marshall
February 9, 2024 at 10:04
Greg Pullen is again on-point, and Kim Anderson is right – the politicians are scared of talking with communities, or anyone who disagrees with them. The pollies’ refusal to hear community voices is gutless, and reveals that the two major parties’ agenda isn’t ‘jobs and growth’ but socialising the costs of renewables and transmission for global and state investors. Tasmania, as ever, is run for the ‘mates’ of our truly abysmal politicians.
To claim Robbins Island “will provide clean energy for tens of thousands of homes, create hundreds of jobs and drive billions of dollars of economic development for our state” – is lies wrapped in half truths.
The power will be renewable, but it won’t be ‘clean’, and it’ll destroy linked marine and terrestrial ecosystem and threaten already endangered species. The power might end up in homes, but they’ll be on the mainland where all the power is slated to go via the new grid we’ll all pay for – the North West Transmission Development. Hundreds of jobs will, during construction, be around 90% FIFO, and there’ll be precious few jobs after construction ends, so any jobs and growth will be where the power goes, namely the mainland. Therefore there won’t be any money, let alone ‘billions’ driving economic growth here as that’s a flat-out lie, as independent energy sector analysts have shown.
The Hammond clan and ACEN’s billionaire owners, and our political muppets aggressively ignoring science and community to back them, have created the world’s greatest exemplar of bad and corrupt renewables planning – the Robbins Island windfarm. If it gets up and running then it’s open slather for any global investor to come to Tassie and set up and do whatever they want, regardless of the cost to us. And that, my friends, is the goal of our Liberal-Labor party – to sell off our state and its resources, as quickly as possible, in order to take a cut and grandstand in hi-vis when the next forest or farm is bulldozed for a new windfarm or transmission line.