Greens exposed as Bob Brown baulks at turbines in his backyard

Bob Brown has exposed a conspiracy of silence by the Greens on the true cost of ­renewables.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown. Picture: AAP

Environmental crusader Bob Brown has exposed a conspiracy of silence by the Greens and their supporters on the true cost and ­unintended consequences of ­renewable power.

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Dr Brown yesterday stood by his comments slamming a proposed $1.6 billion Robbins Island wind farm in Tasmania’s northwest. The response from the Greens party and environment groups to Dr Brown’s outburst was as quiet as a wind rotor on a dead-calm day.

The Greens and Australian Conservation Foundation refused to criticise either Dr Brown or the project, slated to be one of the ­biggest wind farms in the world if it goes ahead.

In the past, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale has likened investigating complaints about wind farms and noise to taking ­seriously alien abductions.

He refused to support the appointment of a wind farm commissioner to handle public com­plaints. His staff yesterday said he did not wish to comment on his former leader’s protest.

A spokesman for the ACF said “we don’t have a view” when asked about Dr Brown’s objections to the project. “We don’t know enough about it,” he said.

The ACF “can’t say definitely either way” if it had ever objected to a wind farm development.

Political adversaries criticised Dr Brown for displaying not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) hypocrisy in warning against the Robbins ­Island plan, but bird lovers who have been fighting wind farm ­developments across Australia for a decade would like the anti-­development, anti-coal powerhouse to extend his concerns beyond Tasmania. When Hamish Cumming tried to interest Dr Brown’s foundation in the plight of Victoria’s endangered brolgas, which he says are threatened by wind farms, he was ignored.

By publicly opposing the Robbins Island development, Dr Brown has unleashed a decade of pent-up frustrations of nature lovers who fear industrial-scale projects are transforming rural Australia for the worse.

Dr Brown yesterday defended his fight against the wind farm proposal, which he compared to the Franklin Dam. The Hong Kong-based UPC Renewables Robbins Island and Jim’s Plain Renewable Energy Parks project will be one of the world’s biggest renewable ­energy developments.

It will include up to 200 wind towers, each stretching 270m from the ground to rotor tip.

Electricity generated from the project will be exported to the mainland via a new interconnector as part of the “battery for the ­nation” project supported by the federal government.

To get to the interconnector, electricity from the wind and associated solar farms must travel through some of the most spectacular scenery in the region.

The project is also located in a significant area for raptors and ­migratory birds. UPC said it had been conducting eagle surveys, with white-bellied sea eagles and Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles nesting on Robbins Island.

The company said there would be a 1km exclusion zone around each nest

Dr Brown shocked many with his public protests against the ­development because of its visual impacts and the threat the massive windmills pose to birdlife. “I’m a big supporter of renewable energy and energy efficiency but this massive wind farm goes too far,” he said. “It’s comparable to the Franklin Dam for hydro-energy … you have to look to the environmental, economic and social consequences of this wind farm.”

Dr Brown said as well as the environmental impacts, he was concerned profits from the project “will not go to Tasmanians, but to the multinational building it”.

Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor yesterday said: “This is a classic case of Greens’ hypocrisy. The Greens love nothing more than to lecture Australians about their preferred source of energy generation, but when it’s in Bob Brown’s backyard, wind farms are suddenly a bad idea.”

Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz ridiculed Dr Brown’s protests. “Consistency, integrity and facts are the three ingredients regularly missing from Bob Brown’s advocacy,” Senator Abetz said.

“And if he still believes in his slogan of ‘think globally, act locally’, the fact that the energy produced from the Robbins Island wind farm would be exported from Tasmania is irrelevant.”