Coastal wind farms: This Sunday, the people say ‘no’ again 

When the first coastal wind farms were announced by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, I thought I was dreaming.

Australia has some of the best beaches in the world. People come to this country to see its unspoilt natural beauty. Despite a 42 per cent decline following the lockdowns, tourism remains Australia’s 14th-largest export industry. Along with education, it is one of the most sustainable industries that contributes to our standard of living.

Nobody wants to come to Australia to see rotting wind turbines at our beaches.

They can visit their own failed renewable energy white elephants at home. To make matters worse, our Energy Minister is pitching his vibe to elite activists while refusing to listen to ordinary Australians.

Groups of those aforementioned ordinary Australians are turning to social media in their thousands, particularly Facebook, to vent their frustration and to organise protests. These are farmers, fishers, tourism operators, tradies, surfers – everyday Australians. You might call them the forgotten people. They are slow to move but once motivated, they grow like a snowball.

Today they will gather in the surf near Port Stephens. The protest is called Paddle Out. Like many other groups who do not want to bear the cost of Mr Bowen’s fantasy, the people of Port Stephens have a Facebook group and theirs is a movement we should all support.

I have not seen such a tectonic movement that has brought out ordinary people to challenge ‘the powers that be’ since I was a teenager in Cairns, Far North Queensland, in the late 1980s. I was riding my bike near the Esplanade one Sunday and there were cars parked everywhere. A Japanese company was proposing to build an artificial island in the middle of Trinity Inlet. I found my parents cooking a barbecue there with the local fishing club. Thousands of ordinary Australians protested that day and the artificial island was never spoken about again. Ever.

But Mr Bowen does not seem concerned about ordinary Australians. Communities are rightfully asking questions, but they feel they have not been adequately consulted. They want to know what fail-safes will be put in place to guard against the social and economic decline of Port Stephens, not to mention other parts of pristine coastlines along NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, and Western Australia. I am convinced there are other sites in the pipeline we haven’t been told about yet. Are any of the areas impacted by coastal wind farms the same areas that voted ‘Yes’ in the majority at the recent referendum? Virtue signalling, it seems, is directed at ordinary Australians, and carries no requirement for self-reflection from elite activists.

People want to know how coastal wind farms will impact their communities. They want to know how many of the specialist jobs they are told will be created will actually be local jobs. They want to know the rate of failure of offshore wind turbines worldwide. They want to know who will bear the cost of maintenance of the turbines. They want to know what guarantees Mr Bowen will give to ameliorate the negative social and economic impacts of building enormous wind turbines off their coastline. They don’t want to become yet another uncosted externality in the Albanese government’s ideological agenda.

These are all reasonable questions, but it appears that most of the decisions have already been made. Consultation in such circumstances quickly becomes a tick-a-box activity that is meaningless.

The recent announcement that coastal wind turbines will go ahead in the Bass Strait ought to make Australians reconsider the folly of our energy policy. Not only are we losing enormous tracts of our ‘food basket’ agricultural land to wind and solar energy infrastructure, but now our pristine coastline will be ruined, too.

None of this makes any sense and it smacks of the Albanese government being ‘Johnny come lately’ to a host of European problems that we could avoid by ending the ban on nuclear and developing a proper transition plan. We are barely halfway to the planned 82 per cent renewables target and energy prices are crippling Australian households.

Official figures suggest energy prices are rising by more than 20 per cent from July 1, 2023, amid inflation rising by 1.2 per cent in the September quarter, higher than the previous quarter. Such modest figures reflect overall inflation, however, and do not show how fuel is at around $2.20 per litre and a box of sliced cheese that cost $4.99 a year ago is now $7.99. The cost of grocery basket staples such as cooking oil, meat, dairy, cleaning products, and so on, has hit households much harder than the overall change in the CPI index suggests.

We did not have to trade away our standard of living by having governments at all levels hell-bent on their ideological agendas. Coastal wind farms are suddenly getting all the attention, but the Albanese government has been asleep at the wheel on the economy while pushing agendas like the divisive Voice Referendum. And after such a complete failure to read the mood of voters, the Albanese government’s first response has been to double down on energy policy. The first major policy announcement since dividing the country has been to create more division by announcing more coastal wind farms.

Throughout the regions and along the coast, Australians are being ignored by Mr Bowen as solar factories, wind farms, and transmission lines threaten people’s property, livelihoods, retirement prospects, and standards of living. And coastal wind farms take the interference with our natural beauty to a whole new level.

No Australian government has been so divisive since the Billy Hughes-led conscription debates of 1916-17. But Hughes was grappling with Australia’s commitment to a world war. The Albanese government is grappling with problems of their own making, and Australians are divided because of a major own goal.

Ordinary Australians must speak up. The various social media groups must connect with each other and create a mega-group to push a petition that will rock the Albanese government’s electoral foundations to the core.

Leave no doubt that the people say ‘No’.