THE National Rally Against Reckless Renewables led by farmers and regional communities last week at Parliament House in Canberra put the government’s 82 per cent renewables target by 2030, in the spotlight.

 Western Victoria MP, Bev McArthur congratulated her constituents on travelling to Canberra to express their concerns, in particular, about the above-ground transmission infrastructure.

 “I commend the many farmers and landowners from Western Victoria who have travelled to Canberra to voice their frustration on the real-life impacts of renewable energy and transmission,” she said.

 “It is completely unfair that rural Victoria should have to bear the whole burden of the renewables transition.  

“Energy users in Melbourne get guilt-free power, while homes, businesses and the environment across the regions are blighted by these monster-towers.

 “There’s no point transitioning to shiny-clean renewables, if the transmission infrastructure, then required, is massive, ugly, outdated and environmentally degrading. Generation and transmission are part of one system, and they must be considered together.

 “The Western Renewables Link threatens financial, agricultural and community devastation in Western Victoria.

“I’ve frequently raised the environmental and ecological threat, the visual blight, the damage to farming, disruption to firefighting, and the constraint of development of Melbourne’s western housing growth corridor.

 “The dangerous and ill-conceived high voltage transmission project will destroy productive farmland and property values, diminish the natural landscape, and create a fire hazard along its length.

 “Victoria’s most productive farmland communities are deserving of alternate and efficient ways to proceed with power transmission and distribution such as retrofitting existing infrastructure or better still - undergrounding it.

 “Both the state and federal Labor governments have run roughshod over Western Victorian farmers and landowners, forcing them to take this matter to Canberra.”

Among the guest speakers who were invited to speak at the rally was Country Liberal Party senator, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price who spoke of her objection to the development of wind farms in regional Australia.

 Sen Nampijinpa Price addressed the crowd who she said were “true blue Aussies”.

“I love this country,” she said.

“You are the custodians of our land, (and) you know better than anybody the importance of taking care of our environment.

“It is common-sense to go down the road of nuclear.

“Renewable energy is not as clean and green as they make out it is.”

She said that she had recently traversed across the country on a road trip and that “nothing angered me more than the sight of wind turbines … these horrible eyesores”.

“The fact (is) they don’t produce reliable energy - they only produce energy when the wind blows.”

Sen Nampijinpa Price said the Prime Minister needed to listen to regional people and “stop taking us down the path of destruction.”

The Nationals MP and shadow minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Barnaby Joyce also addressed the crowd and conducted a quick survey to show that people had travelled to the rally from all over Australia.

“This is a big issue,” he said.

“These (wind farms and solar farms) are not farms - farms grow carrots, peas, they grow meat - these are not farms - they are factories, they are environmental dumps.

“What we have to clearly understand, is that farms that took hundreds of years to (establish) - they are going to be destroyed in the matter of a year … how is that an environmental benefit? How can it be an environmental benefit to kill wedgetails, hawks, kites, to kill wildlife?

“It’s a massive, multinational swindle underpinned by your taxpayers’ dollars.

“Wind towers are static capital - they don’t develop. Wind towers that they put up even five to six years ago are now out of date. What’s going to happen to them?

“In Minnesota they have had studies (which have shown) they cost up to $800,000 (AUD) to pull one down.

“What’s going to happen to the value of farmland - it will be like negative equity.

“You’ll destroy the countryside - you see that overseas, they’re rusting, they catch on fire, they’re filth.

“They tell us they’re 100 per cent renewable. 

“Why don’t they have wind turbines on the hills around here (Parliament House)? Because they think they’re ugly. 

“Rather than put them in the ACT, they’re going to put them in your backyard.

“They’re totally imported and overwhelmingly foreign owned.

“They say that power prices will go down, but instead they’ve gone through the roof.  And your money is going overseas and that’s supposed to be a power plan.”

Nationals Queensland Senator, Matt Canavan referred to a report from the ABC that said majority of farmers support renewable infrastructure on land, a claim he said relied on a survey done by Farmers for Climate Action.

He said the government’s own report said 90 per cent of farmers were unhappy with renewable energy development occurring on their land.

Sen Canavan referenced the wind farm with 60 turbines each of which will be 300 metres high, covering 10,000 hectares in central Queensland that was unique koala and sugar glider habitat.

“A nearby coal fired power station, Stanwell Power Station, produces ten times the power of the wind project on a tenth of the land.

“A nuclear plant would just be the third of the size (of the wind farm).

“These people that back these projects say they want to protect the environment - when they are destroying it.

“The only thing green about renewable energy is money.”

No government MPs addressed the rally.