NSW must stand up to Federal attack on clean energy

Saturday, 29 April 2006 00:22

“Ian Campbell is trying to play Pied Piper to NSW Government’s energy policy,” said Jane Castle, TEC Campaigner.  “The knee-jerk response to ‘not in my backyard’ is reckless in the face of dangerous climate change.  Wind energy is key to reducing our greenhouse emissions, but it is in decline due to the failure of the Federal Government’s policies.  NSW must show its maturity by resisting moves to squash this clean energy industry.”

“If you are going to stop wind farms on this basis then we look forward to the Federal Minister stopping all the new coal mines and fossil fuel power stations that are causing massive local problems as well as much broader environmental impacts. Of course they won’t because they are not consistent, nor genuine in their greenhouse policies.”    

The Federal Government has been moving to limit wind farm proposals by rejecting the Bald Hills wind farm in Victoria, pushing for a national wind farm code and trying to extend federal powers to allow it to stop wind farms on community objection grounds.  NSW planning laws are already sensitive to the local amenity impacts of wind farms and have caused proposals to be altered, for example, the Taralga wind farm which was forced to reduce the amount of turbines.

“NSW needs to boost, rather than reduce, its renewable energy industry or risk losing more than $3 billion of investment, 2000 jobs and 1500MW of clean energy.  Otherwise, renewable energy will continue to decline compared to fossil fuel energy.  NSW is losing valuable investment, jobs and clean power to the other states – it’s an embarrassment.”

There is currently only 17 MW of wind power in NSW compared to 252 MW in South Australia, 104 MW in Victoria, and 67MW in Tasmania.  However, there is an impressive range of potential new projects (1,400MW) slated for NSW that could be built in the next 6 years. These would mean thousands of jobs and over $3 billion of investment in NSW, much of it in regional areas.

 “Rural communities opposing wind farms need to take a trip up to the Hunter Valley, where vast, polluting coal mines are devastating local communities.  They also need to think about the effect of climate change on their dwindling water supplies and jobs that renewable energy can bring to regional areas.”