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Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Page: 1490

Mr SCHULTZ (Hume) (09:48): I rise again tonight to talk about the wind turbine industry and, more importantly, the modus operandi of the great clean energy wind turbine fraud and its closest supporters in government, including some sections of the environmental movement. In the time I have available to me I am going to talk very briefly about intimidation, unauthorised exposure of confidential submissions on wind turbine development and other matters. I have been the recipient of intimidation from Friends of the Earth, an environmental group from Victoria. They threatened legal action against me because I was making some pretty strong statements about the great turbine industry.

On 19 December I took some of my constituents and a group of people from the Flyers Creek Wind Turbine Awareness Group to meet with the Director-General of Planning in New South Wales. At that meeting various discussions took place in relation to confidential documents. Confidential documents were tabled. Those confidential documents in some instances contained information which was critical to the draft policy guidelines that were coming out of the New South Wales government and, more importantly, proposed developments of wind turbines in areas centred around Bathurst. Those people, including me, were given platinum plated guarantees from the Director-General of the New South Wales Department of Planning and Infrastructure, Mr Haddad, that all of the submissions would be treated confidentially.

In early January of this year, those submissions that had been tabled, and others, were exposed on the website of the department of planning of the New South Wales government, not only the detail of the submissions but the identity of the people who put those submissions in. That has created massive problems. It has destroyed the credibility of people. It has exposed people to possible violence. It has exposed people to legal action from the wind turbine industry, because a couple of the people who put them in were turbine host people.

I have written to the New South Wales government asking the New South Wales government what action they are going to take against the people who exposed, without authorisation, those confidential documents on a government website. I thank the House for the opportunity to say those few words.