In a game of catch-up with One Nation, former leader and co-founder of the Greens, Bob Brown, has declared sections of the wind farm industry are ‘not doing it in the service of the planet’ and are ‘negative’.

One Nation has long pointed out the irony of wind farms causing far more environmental damage than they could ever ‘fix’. Over the last few months, Senator Malcolm Roberts has listened to locals in Ravenshoe, North Queensland, who have expressed environmental concerns about wind farms in their communities.

Australians would be shocked to learn the Daintree Rainforest is being bulldozed to install yet another wind farm to blight the landscape. Where are the Greens on this issue?

At least it appears their past leader, Bob Brown, has joined the chorus of people bitterly opposed to the destruction of rainforests in the pursuit of renewable energy. Bob, of course, is more concerned about the environment than the 300% rise in household electricity costs caused by renewables over the past 20 years.

One Nation is fighting back too. In Victoria, Rikkie-Lee Tyrell has introduced legislation to make solar farms pay a bond for the environmental damage they cause to a landscape once installed.

State Labor governments have stated they support most of these wind farms and oppose our legislation for solar farm bonds in Victoria, but in a glimmer of hope, federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek has indicated a tougher approach to some wind farms, with a Victorian facility recently rejected on environmental grounds.

One Nation knows you can’t pick and choose which wind projects destroy the environment. They all do. We know also these turbines need replacing every 15–20 years. There is no practical means to recycle them, so they end up in landfills.

We’re not against renewable technology in principle, provided it’s reliable, affordable, and doesn’t damage the environment or good farming land. But putting all our energy eggs in one basket is dangerous. One Nation supports an energy policy that prioritises affordability over climate, which leverages the advantage of Australia’s abundant natural energy resources like coal, gas and uranium, and ensures energy security with reliable, dispatchable baseload power provided by a wide range of technologies.