Mr ANDREW: Up north, local communities are still celebrating last month’s decision by Arc Energy to pull the plug on the proposed wind development at Chalumbin, and so it should. For three years Arc Energy tried to gain federal EPBC approval for the project before abandoning it after receiving unofficial indications that it was unlikely to ever be approved.
In my electorate, $111 million has been spent on taking up housing and properties. For what reason? We do not even have an EIS. We do not have any financial understanding of what we are doing with the Burdekin hydro. What a disgrace it is that, when I asked the minister about all of the frequency situations and what happens with koalas and all of our fauna, I have had no answer. There is no understanding. We are just going ahead and spending all of this money to destroy our ecosystem by clearing thousands and thousands of hectares of remnant vegetation, which will never be replaced. We will never have a situation where it can be replaced. On what premise? We do not even know but we are still spending the money.
No environmental groups and no greens people are standing up for anyone or anything. They are all dead in the water. Why? Because they do not have the decency or the integrity to find out what will happen to the animals and other things that cannot speak for themselves. That is why I am here. I am here to speak for them. I am out in the bush, I see what happens and I know this: nothing good will come from renewable energy. If you want it then put it down here in the south-east. Put it down here where it should be because nothing good will come of it up there.
As the saying goes, measure twice and cut once. The coal industry is paying for everything. No subsidies will come from the renewable energy sector. It is just a farce and a scam on our whole society. Show me where it makes a difference. Show me where power prices are lower. Show me what it does to make sure that Queensland is actually bolstered by this stuff, because I cannot see it. Open up the books. Show us all the contracts. Show us who is going to do the clean-up because I cannot see it. No-one says it. No-one wants to talk about it. It is all commercial-in-confidence. It is like someone under a blanket with a torch reading a book. It is disgraceful.
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