Page 2306 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 August 2015

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witch-hunt on wind might ease. But it probably will not because our Prime Minister has an ideological objection to renewable energy that is shared by his senior colleagues. The attacks on wind will only slow in the polls in the right seats clearly indicate that it is unpopular.

The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, of course, famously made headlines by saying that he thinks wind farms are utterly offensive and Maurice Newman, the Prime Minister’s business adviser, calls them a crime against the people. Nowhere do I hear that the well-documented impacts of coal mines and the planet-destroying impacts of burning coal as a fuel are a crime against humanity. Here we are on the cusp of a climate catastrophe—one one that will cause massive disease impacts, displacement of people, and significant impacts on agriculture and food security—and our federal national Liberal government thinks wind farms are causing health problems. Honestly, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and their colleagues in this chamber should be equally ashamed of this sort of level of public discourse and this ideological hatred of the source of energy that this planet really needs. They are an embarrassment to the political debate on climate change and the debate on how we plan for a secure and safe energy future for this country and for this planet.

I understand the Prime Minister’s rhetoric on renewables on both a political and financial front. Politically, if I may say so, his attitude verges on the ridiculous and politically naive. Even his predecessor, John Howard, understood that while he could support and advocate for coal, you should never forget to pay homage to renewables generally, and solar specifically, as a form of political insulation. It was John Howard who introduced the fledgling mandatory renewable energy target. It was John Howard who gave the federal rebates on small-scale solar. This was because John Howard realised the people actually love solar. If he gave small amounts of cash for it and helped along a fledgling industry with a meagre two per cent target, he kept the wolves from the door. It was classic Howard politics, but it actually assisted some of those industries get underway. Ultimately it did not work and climate change ended up being part of his downfall, but at least it gave him and his colleagues something to talk about when the renewable energy topic came up.

Perhaps one could assume that the Prime Minister and his colleagues are all singing from the same song sheet because they all have dinner together and have reached a collective view that wind farms specifically and renewables generally are bad news. Unfortunately the truth is probably a lot more grounded in reality than that. The truth is that renewables are a genuine threat to coal in the medium and certainly the long term. That is scary news to any federal coalition or ALP government, because Australia is on the teat when it comes to coal, and giving it up is going to be tough. Indeed, the rest of the Prime Minister’s outrageous comment that coal was good for humanity was, in fact:

Coal is good for humanity. Coal is good for prosperity. Coal is an essential part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world.

It is true that global demand for coal is still growing, although the rate of that growth is slowing. China, Japan and Korea are big players in that. In spite of China’s policies to shift energy sources away from coal over the next five years, it is likely that their


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