Friends of Collector Inc

Submission

Select Committee on Wind Turbines

Select Committee on Wind Turbines PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

March 20, 2015

22 March 2015 Senate Inquiry into Wind Farms 2

Introduction and context

The Friends of Collector organisation and its members congratulate the Senate on initiating this inquiry and opening up the wind industry and the policy settings that support it to closer public scrutiny.

In responding to the invitation to provide a submission, while we are concerned about a number of the aspects outlined in the terms of reference, we have opted to focus on term of reference (d), namely:

The implementation of planning processes in relation to wind farms, including the level of information available to prospective wind farm hosts

Formed in early 2011 and with close to 100 members, the FOC has for more than four years maintained its firm opposition to the establishment of an what was planned to be an 88- turbine wind farm extending along 15 km on the ridges extending from the Hume Highway at Cullerin to above the Collector Village near Lake George in NSW, barely 60km from Canberra.

This would adjoin the already established Cullerin Wind Farm with 15 turbines on the northern side of the Hume Highway. It would also be close to the established Capital Wind Farm at Lake George and with 67 turbines, currently the largest wind farm in NSW. It is also close to the proposed Tarago wind farm with a further 110 turbines.

Since the unveiling of the Transfield Services proposal for Collector in 2010, the FOC and the local community have endured the worst of NSW’s planning processes including a cynical and tokenistic community consultation effort by the wind farm proponent.

In 2011, in the face of strong opposition from the local community including a complaint to the NSW Planning Minister and ICAC that it had failed to declare almost $40,000 in political donations despite being required to under the planning rules, Transfield Services sold down an 80% interest in the wind farm to Thai energy company Ratchaburi to form RATCH Australia. Since then the Collector community had dealt with RATCH.

Wind farms have lost their social licence to operate

In the end, despite our best efforts to express our deep reservations and opposition to the proposal, late in December 2013 the NSW Planning Assessment recommended approval for a reduced scheme of 55 turbines along much of the ridge near Collector.

Because of RATCH and Transfield’s own actions and approach, their relationship with the Collector community had become so toxic and dysfunctional that even in approving the reduced 55 turbine scheme the NSW Planning Assessment Commission found that ‘it (the RATCH/Transfield community consultation) has not been best practice and has exacerbated tensions within the Collector community’.

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We go further; we believe at Collector and more widely across NSW and other parts of Australia, the wind industry’s anti-community practices mean that it has squandered its social licence to operate.

The industry must radically change its model and practices to regain any semblance of trust and co-operation with communities and regain its social licence to operate.

We would prefer that the Senate encourage the Government to support renewable technologies other than wind as we head towards more reliance on renewable energy sources. The Government should divert any future funding for renewable projects away from wind to lower impact technologies, particularly large scale solar.

And it is not only the Friends of Collector who believe the wind industry has lost its social licence to operate in NSW. Even some of the most ardent supporters of wind energy believe it has done so – even the ALP and Green dominated ACT Government which is committed to a 90% renewable energy target by 2020.

NSW wind farms rejected by ALP ACT Gov’t in wind auction

In February, only a matter of weeks ago, the ACT Government refused to award any NSW wind farm – including that already approved at Collector – any contract for long term supply of energy to the Canberra market under its much-touted ‘wind auction’.

Given the ACT Government’s clear intention to support the establishment of local NSW wind farms, this is a signficant decision based partly on price but also openly on the lack of NSW wind farms to properly engage with their affected communities.

All developers participating in the wind auction were required to demonstrate best practice community engagement processes for their projects and contributions to local job creation.

The ACT ‘wind auction’ was concluded in February 2015 with three successful proponents:

• Ararat Wind Farm Pty Ltd for a 80.5 MW proposal to be located north-west of Ballarat, Victoria. The project is being developed by RES Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of RES UK, a global renewable energy company. • Coonooer Bridge Wind Farm Pty Ltd for a 19.4 MW proposal to be located north- west of Bendigo, Victoria. The project is being developed by Windlab Ltd, a Canberra based renewable energy company. • Hornsdale Wind Farm Pty Ltd for a 100 MW proposal to be located south-east of Port Augusta, South Australia. The project is being developed by Neoen, a French based renewable energy company.

This lack of a social licence and dificulties in dealing with community concerns was raised in the ABC Country Hour report on the ACT Government announcement in February:

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-06/act-wind-farm-contract/6075646 Australian Capital Territory energy contract to interstate wind farms blow to local operators NSW Country Hour - Michael Cavanagh

An inability to work with the wider community is one reason given for rejecting a number of wind farms in southern New South Wales vying to supply electricity to the Australian Capital Territory.

Licences to provide power were granted to two Victorian operations and one in South Australia which will begin pushing electricity into the grid by 2017.

A number of wind farms surrounding the ACT had hoped to be part of the deal.

"They need to continue to push hard," ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell stated.

"There are some good projects in the region but they just weren't as strong as other projects.

"I would encourage them to look at the outcomes of the auction."

The criteria set by the government includes price, and also how the companies operating the wind farms were involved with the community.”

Members of Friends of Collector were also advised by the ACT Government Minister Corbell of this focus on the need for positive community engagement (see attached letter)

Wind industry pattern of negative behaviour built on sense of entitlement

The Senate has a genuine opportunity to see for itself in the range of submissions that there is a pattern of negative and cynical behaviour towards communities displayed by the wind industry that is not confined to one company or another.

The negative practices are endemic and are a reflection of how the wind industry sees itself, namely one that is entitled to impose turbines on communities virtually at will for their own financial gain all under the guise of, and in the wider interests of, increasing renewable energy generation.

This sense of entitlement should be unacceptable to government, to electricity consumers and particularly to the wider community.

Under these practices, little attention is paid to addressing genuine community concerns. The goal is to gain as quickly as possible planning approval in spite of, rather than with, those residents affected.

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Communities are seen as an inconvenient bump in the road. The relationship with RATCH/Transfield in our direct experience at Collector is at best described as passive- aggressive. Rarely has it been constructive.

A member of the Friends of Collector did attempt to bridge the gap and in 2012 agreed to join a RATCH-established ‘community forum’. His letter of resignation is copied below. His comments are self-explanatory.

COLLECTOR NSW 2581

Ms Chair Collector Windfarm Forum

Resignation from the Ratch Australia Collector Windfarm Community Forum

Dear Ms

I hereby resign from the Forum. Thank you for the opportunity to participate over the past two years.

I believe in climate change and renewable energy and had hoped that Ratch Australia would effectively engage with the Collector community. Unfortunately, much of Ratch’s engagement has been characterised by false and misleading information: people have been reported to be at meetings when they have not been there; to have supported positions and roles which they have not agreed to; and points of disagreement or where tangible commitment has been required have been either ignored or evaded by clever words. It has become apparent that looking good for Government stakeholders is clearly a higher priority for Ratch than honest communication with the Collector community.

The recent Collector community petition where over 80% of the townspeople call for the ACT Government to reject Ratch’s wind auction tender, confirms its failures in this area. Two years of clever, empty promises and meetings is enough: there are better things to do! People here want more than public relations spin in return for destroying our visual amenity, real estate values and community harmony.

Yours sincerely

6 August 2014

Our concerns and experience is further outlined in detail in our submission to the Planning Assessment Commission in 2013 and this is attached for reference. 22 March 2015 Senate Inquiry into Wind Farms 6

Over the years we believe that this unacceptable ‘shortcutting’ behaviour by the wind industry has received succour and quiet encouragement from some pro-renewable energy policy makers and administators within the NSW, ACT and Federal bureaucracy.

There is a tendency for pro-Green bureaucrats – and indeed a number of commentators within the metropolitan media - to put their views about global warming and blind support for wind farms ahead of any impact on local communities or residents.

To them this is an arms-length policy issue where the greater good of the planet should be considered ahead of a few pesky rural residents. The usual response to community concerns, parrotted by the wind industry, is that it is ‘only a few noisy NIMBYs’ underserving of compensation or support.

In reality across the nation as the decision to conduct this Senate Inquiry attests, many thousands of ordinary Australians are affected by wind farms, not a few pesky noisy residents.

Indeed, our group is aware that a now-former NSW Government employee in 2011 said directly to one resident whose property would be severely affected by nearby wind turbines that he and his family were simply ‘collateral damage’ to the needs of wind energy.

We also believe wind farm affected communities such as ours had been described within the NSW enviromental bureaucracy as ‘policy road kill’. NSW Ministers were advised and the matter was investigated.

Urban–rural gap exploited by wind industry and a hypocritical ACT Government

Like many other rural and regional communities affected by wind farms, the Collector community has suffered from a yawning gap in reality between urban voters living in Canberra and Sydney who consistently support wind farms as a ‘nice idea’ to address their concerns around global warming, and the reality for residents forced to live day after day in the shadow the 150metre tall wind turbines with all of the negative impacts that come with them.

This urban view of wind farms as a ‘nice idea at arms length’ only survives while the turbines are established in rural and regional locations well away from their own homes and properties in the major urban centres.

The legislated ban on development of Canberra’s hillsides and hilltops is a classic double standard – one for the city and another for the ‘second class’ rural villages and towns around Canberra.

The ACT Government stands condemmed of rampant hypocrisy; on one hand it encourages wind farm development and insists wind farm developers adopt best practice in engaging their communities.

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On the other, what the ACT Government planning laws effectively prohibit the establishment of wind farms in the ACT because of long standing community concerns over development of hillsides and hilltops which is seen as a significant impact by the Canberra community.

Yet at the same time the ACT Government is doing all it can to support wind farms which will impact in similar ways on a number of NSW rural communities on the borders of the ACT such as Collector, Yass, Tarago, Booroowa, Rugby and Crookwell.

So it seems that hilltops in Canberra are more valuable to policy makers and renewable energy promoters than hilltops in nearby NSW. We can only speculate what might be the attitudes of Canberra residents if wind turbines were placed on Black Mountain, Mt. Taylor or Mt. Rogers.

We suspect that attitudes towards noise, property values, potential health effects and fire risk might be somewhat different in Canberra if wind turbines were within close proximity to the homes of policy makers and political decision makers.

This urban – rural gap is also exploited in a cynical manner by the wind industry – and at Collector RATCH provides the perfect example. In 2012, under pressure from residents, RATCH said it had commissioned market research from Auspoll that showed overwhelming support from ‘this community’ for the Collector wind farm.

The then General Manager for RATCH Geoffrey Dutton (speaking to the ABC 7.30 Report in an interview in Collector − August, 2012)

"We have a lot of support from the community.

“Well over the majority of people in this community support this project. That is why we have come here and why we say let us build them in this place."

The Auspoll survey had a catchment area of 50 km from the proposed Collector wind farm (taking in as far as Goulburn, Canberra, Bungendore and Yass) just after the Collector wind farm had been announced in October 2010.

The Auspoll survey purported to show that 68% of respondents supported the Collector wind farm, with 14% opposed. Most (58%) had heard little about the Collector wind farm, 33% had heard nothing and 42% did not want any further information about the Collector wind farm.

60% of Auspoll respondents said they saw no impact/ minimal impact on the landscape. 73% of respondents could see neither the Cullerin Range nor the Capital wind farm (adjoining Collector) from their home.

• Only 3% lived within 1−5 km from either the Cullerin Range or Capital Wind Farms (adjoining Collector).

22% came from Goulburn, 16% from Bungendore, 12% from Gunning, 11% from Gundaroo, 22 March 2015 Senate Inquiry into Wind Farms 8

6% from Collector, 5% each from Tarago and Murrumbateman, 3% from Canberra, Dalton and Sutton, 2% from Yass, and 1% each from Bywong, Crookwell and Lake Bathurst.

This is in spite of the RATCH/ Transfield/ APP insistence that their focus at 'Open Day' one−on−one interviews should be with residents within 5 km of the proposed wind farm site (clearly not people from Goulburn, Canberra and other regional centres remote from the site).

The true picture of the Collector community attitudes

The Friends of Collector, which comprises a significant number of the people who would be directly affected in the Collector area, saw this as a blatant attempt by RATCH to mislead and deceive not only the people of Collector, theNSW Department of Planning but also the wider NSW and ACT community.

Feedback from residents to our group was and is very different to that claimed by RATCH, and so in August 2012 in the wake of the ABC 7.30 Report interview, the Friends of Collector commissioned independent research by StollzNow Research (based in Sydney) into the attitudes of the Collector community −the people who would be most directly affected by the proposed wind farm (see full report in our submission − Tab 6a).

A catchment area of 10 km around was chosen as the most relevant given view lines and likely impacts including noise, fire and property values. This was seen as the natural community network around Collector village and extended towards Gunning, Yarra, Currawang and Breadalbane.

The survey involved all 238 households in this catchment who were invited to participate in the online survey using randomized access codes.

The results validated the Friends of Collector concerns and uncovered the true position of the people of the Collector area:

• 81% of residents do not wish the wind farm development to proceed, 13 % do and 5% are unsure

• Most (88%) believe they would see the wind farm development from their property

• Most (79%) live within 5 km of the proposed wind farm

• Over half (53%) see no benefits for Collector area if it proceeds

• Only 9% have no concerns at all about the wind farm development

• One in five (21%)'strongly agree' that they will relocate away from Collector if the wind farm development proceeds, with a further 29% 'don't know' • Over half (52%) have been involved in the community consultation process and of these 79% are either 'dissatisfied' or 'very dissatisfied' with the process 22 March 2015 Senate Inquiry into Wind Farms 9

No prior consultation before launching proposal

In late 2010 when the proposal by then proponent Transfield Services was launched unannounced onto the community, most local residents saw the well-advanced proposal as a bad idea. Further study showed it to be based on bad and costly policy, both at a NSW and Federal level.

The very structure of the Transfield proposal immediately created deep division, anger and frustration in the community that persists today.

Ultimately Transfield has largely stepped away from the scheme and sold down 80% of its interests to Thai energy company Ratchiburi. RATCH Australia now is responsible for the scheme and has displayed little sensitivity to the concerns of the local community.

And since the approval was given more than a year ago, no work has started on the construction. Collector was one of the NSW proposed wind farms expected to win a contract under the ACT Government’s wind auction. Yet we understand they failed ultimately because of price, and particularly because of their poor relationship and failed consultation with the local community.

Consider social and impact costs in renewable energy policy and wind power subsidies

FOC and the local community are not opposed to renewable energy. Indeed, at the first meeting of the FOC in January 2011 there was unanimous support for a motion calling on the wind farm proponents to propose instead a major solar farm.

The wind industry should not be a protected species – they should pay the full cost of the social and local impacts they create.

While both wind and solar require huge financial support and subsidies through the RET and REC process and these are reflected in electricity retail prices, currently wind turbines do cost less to build than solar but have by far the higher social cost and impacts of the two.

We believe that the full social and local impact costs should be taken into account when calculating the ‘real’ cost to the Australian community of wind power.

These costs should be set against any form of subsidy – whether this is direct investment or indirect subsidies in the way renewable energy certificares are allocated under the RET. Wind power should attract a penalty equivalent to the social and local costs they create.

Wind turbine technology itself is outdated in that it will be progressively overtaken as the cost of solar and other renewable energy technologies reduce. The wind industry’s only response to this is to build larger and taller towers and machines - which will undoubtedly create even more widespread social and local impacts in affected communities.

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Yet current policy settings at a Federal and state planning levels give licence to wind farm companies to impose industrial blight on well populated areas such as Collector, Yass, Booroowa, Tarago and Crookwell for periods in excess of 20 to 30 years.

Allowing masses of highly visible and high community impact turbines to be built when far lower impact technologies are available is a short sighted, and ultimately higher cost approach to society for renewable energy production.

There can be no massive expansion of renewable energy – especially wind energy – in Australia unless the significant social and local impacts that this would create on rural and regional communities across NSW and the ‘target’ areas for wind power are fully taken into acount. Even better, these high cost impacts should be prevented before they occur.

Unless there is re-weighting to reflect the high social and local costs of wind farms, community groups such as the Friends of Collector will continue to vigorously oppose every wind farm proposal as they emerge across Australia.

This is an utter waste of government, community and corporate energy and focus. It is also an unnecessary addiiton to the costs to the nation of this ungainly and unwelcome form of renewable energy.

Lower impact technologies such as solar power should also receive a positive weighting when renewable energy certificates are assessed and allocated.

And just as the ACT Government showed in its decision not to award any contracts to NSW wind farms under its recent wind auction, unless wind farm proponents constructively and positively propose schemes that are acceptable to local communities they should not receive any Federal subsidy direct or indirect.

Give us solar. Wind power has no place anywhere near communities in Australia.

Tony Hodgson Rodd Pahl President Committee Member Friends of Collector Inc Friends of Collector Inc