Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has put out a call for farmers and others to protest against the “onslaught” of wind, solar and transmission lines when prime minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Bush Summit that is sponsored by Murdoch Media and Gina Rinehart next month.
The call was put out by Joyce to farming groups this week. “I call on everyone concerned about the onslaught of wind, solar, transmission lines and high power prices to make their way to the Bush Summit in Tamworth next month to have your say,” he wrote in a post.
He noted that Albanese is expected to attend the Bush Summit in Tamworth on August 11. The summit is sponsored by the Murdoch media and Hancock Agriculture, which is owned by Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman and – like Joyce and News Ltd – a strident critic of renewables and supporter of coal.
Joyce’s call continues a determined campaign from conservative voices against the transition to renewables, to stop the closure of agains coal fired generators, and to push for nuclear power instead.
Joyce has been leading the opposition in his electorate of New England, the location of a proposed renewable energy zone and dozens of possible wind sea dollar projects, and has also been co-ordinating opposition to renewable energy zones in a number of states.
The Murdoch media has also intensified its campaign against renewables, and more lately transmission lines, and the NSW Farmers has called for a moratorium on new solar projects.
The campaign against renewables is being accompanies by a push for nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors, which is being led by Opposition leader Peter Dutton, despite the nuclear industry’s own admission that this technology is a long way off, will be costly, and may even be more hazardous.
The Coalition has also been opening up its fight against renewables on other fronts.
James Patterson, the Liberal senator who was formerly a fellow with the Rinehart-funded climate denying lobby group, the Institute of Public Affairs, launched a new scare campaign against Chinese made solar inverters, saying they are a threat to national security.
On social media, the campaign is intensifying, with a series of anti-wind Tik Tok videos repeating years’ old false claims against wind energy, including that they are “intimacent” (sic) and need coal fired power to make their turbines spin.
The videos are, of course, pure nonsense, but wind farm and other renewable project developers report that they are being quoted back at them as they initiate discussions with farmers and land-owners about possible projects.
“It’s very old school anti-wind stuff, but I’ve had it quoted back at our team by would-be land owners a few times now,” said the head of one renewable energy developer.
The renewables industry is becoming increasingly concerned about the issue of social licence and opposition to projects, which have intensified following the push for new transmission lines and – in some cases – some poor efforts at gaining landowner support.
However, the roll-out of decades-old tropes against renewables is equally concerning, particular through social media.
Currently, the roll out of renewables is slowing – and remains well below the pace needed to meet the federal government’s 82 per cent renewable energy target for 2030.
In NSW, with only two new wind farms approved in the last four years, the rollout is below that needed to ensure that the state’s coal fired power stations – including Eraring – can close by their mooted dates.
Transmission projects are also being delayed and are being hit by cost blowouts, and despite increased offers for landowners – some of up to $200,000 per kilometre – some transmission projects are having to be re-routed in the fact of local opposition.
