CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa) (09:42): I want to bring to the parliament's attention the human toll of this all renewables approach to this government's undertaking. Recently, I visited the Franzs and the Duffs just outside Jandowae. They've been impacted by a wind turbine farm called the Wambo Wind Farm.

Mr Franz and Mrs Franz are in their 80s. They retired near their son, wanting to just produce beef and to be able to live comfortably and happily. Unfortunately, their neighbour decided to sign up to the Wombo Wind Farm.

There's a 260 metre wind turbine less than 1½ kilometres from their home. They now live with wind turbines towering over their homes. They had no say in this.

They had no inclination to want to have this anywhere near their properties. It is the same with the Duffs. They've had this imposed on them because of the planning that the former Labor government has put on this in Queensland.

Allowing these turbines to be that close to someone's home is a downright disgrace. What makes it even worse is that the approval application said that they do not need to have any of the sound tested for up to 12 months after all stages of the development are finished. So, the first stage, which is right over their homes and is going there now, doesn't need to be tested to see if it's above 35 decibels to be in breach of their planning application and approval of the applicant, and so these people will continue to live with this until stage 2 and 3 are completed.

This is pure insanity. I've written to the Queensland government to say that they need to now impose new planning rules over these applications to say that it should be set back three kilometres from someone's property boundary and can be negotiated into 1½ kilometres. That gives the non-host the ability to be able to negotiate whether they want these turbines towering over their homes, whether they want to have a 260-metre tower swishing over their homes at all.

And that's a practical solution. There is also no decommissioning deposit that these companies have to put down until after year five, six or seven of the project being in place, and so decommissioning stands at the feet of the proponent themselves. That is not something that we should be seeing happening for these people that are being thrust upon with these renewable projects, and we should have independent testing of the noise to make sure that there is independence.

You can put this right across where the cooks out in the Tara project now have trouble around their ability to be able to fly aircraft in and out not just for their agricultural production but also emergency management processes. The member for Warringah was here a moment ago and she railed against eight wind turbines on North Head because of the amenity of the good people of Sydney.

Well, just start understanding what happens out here. I've also written to the federal government to say this should be part of the approval processes, not just state government, to make sure these families are protected.