It was a joke when we said, ‘Why not put wind turbines on Bondi Beach and see how the Teals feel about it…?!’

At the last federal election, the idea of wind turbines flattening pristine rainforest and interrupting beach views was considered a footnote in a pamphlet that no one read. We certainly didn’t see wood-chipped rainforests on the glossy Teal billboards or social media ads featuring beaches with dark shadows on the horizon, looming over the water like grave markers.

‘Vote for us, and we’ll turn that old-fashioned wood into coal-fired steel!’

As with Albanese’s Voice referendum, there hasn’t been much honesty or detail about the reality of wind energy. Those companies putting forward wind farm projects must have known they would involve a major imposition on the natural environment, but no politician in their right mind would inconvenience ‘the money’ by shoving wind turbines within sight of affluent postcodes.

All those horrific transmission lines – they’ll be on pesky farmland that we want to get rid of anyway because it’s hurting our UN Net Zero targets. Turning the rolling hills of Australia’s agricultural heartland into New York circa 1890 – with streets shaded by a canopy of power lines – is the perfect revenge by city politicians on regional electorates. Just as DC electricity was wiped off as unsuitable, so too will wind farms after governments get sick of covering up their corpses in landfill.

Where are the Nats? Panicking far too late after taking a ‘maybe, kinda, just a little’ approach to Net Zero targets. They’ve discovered, as these projects transition from paper into reality, that rejecting renewable energy is a huge vote winner for angry residents incensed by the barbarity of this ‘green revolution’. Except who would vote for the Nats when they were right beside Scott Morrison, pushing farmers onto the sacrificial pyre? If farmers vote for the Nats again it will be through gritted teeth and scowls with the full knowledge that the party is one of opportunity, not principle.

The Teals built their political empire entirely on public sentiment and so, as quickly as it was constructed, it can be dismantled.

No one with a vanity Tesla and an Upper North Shore home wants to be shadowed by a forest of steel and concrete skyscrapers. These are the doctors’ wives who complain if someone’s fence is half an inch too high, or a satellite dish on a neighbouring roof looks ‘ugly’. Would they tolerate a 200-metre monstrosity of steel and concrete whirring overhead, munching up the lorikeets, splattering feathers and blood all over the pool and casting shade over their patio? Heck no! Wind turbines are for the peasant farmers. Teals vote greenish so they don’t have to chip their nails saving the world.

Keeping wind turbines away from the rich is exactly why Labor is on the verge of cutting down rainforests and wrecking farmland for renewable energy – they stay buried in Australia’s wilderness where the climate-controlled generation never venture. And farmers know it. Pretty soon real environmentalists who care about the rainforest will know it too if Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek signs off on the woodchipping of Chalumbin to make way for another wind farm.

Indigenous voices are begging the Labor Minister to back down and veto this unnecessarily catastrophe. If Tanya Plibersek decides to give it the ‘all clear’, she should be made to stand in front of a GoPro while the forest is torn down behind her. That can go on the next Net Zero campaign poster and we’ll see how long Labor’s ‘green’ credentials last.

If Plibersek is looking for a precedent to soften the blow of rejection, she could always point to the Swedish government’s rejection of Vattenfall’s huge offshore wind farm that was meant to hang off the West Coast. Sweden said it would have ‘negative effects on the environment’ with the project falling short of the nation’s Environmental Code.

‘The government has today come to the conclusion that an establishment at Stora Middelgrund would risk damaging sensitive natural values in an unacceptable way,’ said Sweden’s Climate and Environment Minister.

So, come on Tanya, be Australia’s Romina Pourmokhtari.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has decided to break the ‘renewables are for rurals’ rule, which has kept renewable energy alive, and has instead hatched a plan to put offshore wind turbines everywhere. Bowen effectively took a map of Australia and used a crayon to colour in our coastal waters then Albanese put a big green ‘tick’ on it.

Bowen is operating under the mistaken belief that he can destroy one of the world’s most beautiful and pristine coastlines with tens of thousands of steel and concrete monsters.

Is this what the nature-loving opulent Teal voters had in mind?

Labor would not be in power if it wasn’t for the misguided votes of deep-pocketed Liberals who thought they could keep their ‘Strike4Climate’ kids quiet by voting Teal. These are the rich electorates with ocean views who were told they were saving the environment and protecting the natural landscape – and by extension their property values. While they have a vague understanding that wind turbines are out there somewhere, Teal voters did not – I guarantee you – envision their favourite beaches and views being vandalised by Bowen’s Bizarre Blades.

When Bowen starts sticking these things along the reefs and ridges of our beaches, there will be a very different political conversation.

Twenty years from now, if we let Bowen have his way, Australia’s waters could be filled with the rotting corpses turbines. Snapped-off blades will wash up on our shores and lay there, decaying, while oil from their collapsing gear boxes makes sad brown trails over the water. There’ll be apologies and excuses, with each political party promising another fortune in public money to clean up the mess of wind energy. It’ll be a new era of environmentalism, just as expensive as the last one.

How about we cut to the end? Instead of trashing our country with wind farms – let’s just not do that and tell Bowen to go jump in the pristine sea. Maybe then he’ll gain some appreciation for the landscape he’s determined to ruin…?

As for the Teals, remember your Blue Ribbon roots. If you feel ‘guilty’ about the climate now, it’ll be nothing compared to the guilt of being responsible for destroying rainforests or coastlines.

---

Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.

Get 10 issues for just $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

SUBSCRIBE 10 issues for $10 REGISTER 3 articles a month

Already a subscriber? Log in