June 17, 2013
Australia

Australia: Activists converge on Canberra for wind power protests

By Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon | Jun 16, 2013 | asiancorrespondent.com

Supporters and detractors of the Julia Gillard Government’s clean energy plans will converge into the Australian capital Canberra Tuesday to hold two separate rallies in a showdown of rhetoric on wind power turbines.

The Green bloc led by Friends of the Earth and citizens’ watchdog GetUp! are rallying supporters nationwide to join the march to Garema Place at noon to face the anti-wind turbine top guns.

“Tuesday’s rally will be the biggest moment this anti-wind ‘movement’ has ever had, and it’s our job to make sure it stays that way. If they gather in opposition to renewables, it’s our job to gather in support [of renewables],” GetUp! said.

One group which opposes wind energy and runs a website called Stop These Things, boasts of its parliamentary members from the opposition coalition. Their rally will kick off at 10am on the lawns to the north of Parliament House. Their agenda is to thrash the “unreliable” and “costly ” wind power industry. They claim “wind turbines are not clean, not green and the cost consumers are forced to pay for the unreliable and intermittent power they produce is ridiculous.”

The anti-wind power group accused the industry and its benefactors of raking in about, “AU$50 billion worth of consumers money in the form of REC tax”.

Supporters are instructed to take bring cameras and capture any misbehaviour from the Green bloc and spot their “Ditch the Witch”-type placards – or “equally unsavoury material.”

Bring a camera or use your phones to capture any misbehaviour from wind industry goons and their supporters – STT will have a name and shame spot where we will post photos and videos of any thugs in action…O ur fine people are smart enough to know that the Green-Labor Alliance is over and that – with a little more help – the Coalition will make energy policy work again for all Australians – not against them – as is the case now.

The pro-wind groups shot back saying the Coalition’s anti-renewables crusaders are peddling misinformation to try and erode support for clean energy sources. The Gillard Government wants to achieve 20 per cent of energy sourced from renewables by 2020.

Anti-wind crusaders include Alan Jones of 2GB Radio; Victorian Senator John Madigan; South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon; Alby Schultz MP, member for Hume: Craig Kelly MP, member for Hughes and an early anti-wind fraud warrior; Chris Back, Liberal senator for Western Australia; Mary Morris – campaigner and community representative for Waterloo in SA; Alan Moran of the Institute of Public Affairs; and other anti-wind turbines.

Opposition Leader Tonny Abbott earlier admitted he will scrap the price of carbon if elected in this year’s Federal election. He has described climate change as “absolute crap”. Meanwhile, Crikey alleged that Abbott’s wife, Jeanette Newman, has been linked to active involvement in the anti-wind power movement. She is said to be linked to business tsar, Maurice Newman – the former chair of the ABC and the ASX, and chair of Abbott’s proposed business advisory council.

The Guardian reports Newman earlier claimed that government subsidies for renewable energy is tantamount to a “crime against the people” because higher energy costs hit poorer households the hardest and there was no longer any logical reason to have them.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/06/17/australia-activists-converge-on-canberra-for-wind-power-protests/