17 August
2006 - Western Australia's Environment Minister
is indulging in hypocrisy yet again by urging
the Australian Government to abandon a proposed
national wind farm code because the Labor states
don’t want it.
This is the same Environment
Minister who told a conference of his counterparts
that:
“… sometimes when local communities don’t agree
you have to roll over the top of them …”
(Mark McGowan, Environment Protection and Heritage
Committee meeting, Sydney, 23 June 2006)
Clearly Mr McGowan believes it’s okay to ignore
local communities, but not Labor Party politicians.
This is the second time in two days Mr McGowan
has resorted to hypocritical attacks.
Yesterday, he had the gall to
attack the Australian Government over the approval,
subject to 60 strict conditions, of a brickworks
at Perth Airport, when his own Government has
allowed kiln expansions to proceed at existing
Perth brickworks without any formal assessment
and regardless of the views of the community.
This is also the same Government
that has allowed a Swan Valley brickworks to increase
its hydrogen fluoride kiln stack emissions to
five times the proper limits for two years (The
West Australian, 9 July 2006).
Wind power is an important source
of renewable energy and the Australian Government
wants to ensure it continues to form part of our
energy mix, in a way that is economically, socially
and environmentally sustainable.
However, an increasing number
of communities are expressing concern about the
potential impact of wind energy installations
on landscapes, amenity and threatened species.
Much of these publicly expressed concerns centre
around the consistency and transparency of the
public consultation process – essentially communities
want to make sure that their views are heard and
given a high priority.
The wind energy industry is
also concerned about the need for greater consistency
and transparency in the wind energy installation
planning and approval process. These concerns
are behind the proposal for a national wind code
and I remain keen to pursue the idea. I will be
convening a community round table at Parliament
House in Canberra in the next few weeks to discuss
the issue.
Rob Broadfield (Senator Campbell’s office)
