Queensland is closed for business

Queensland’s deputy premier and planning minister Jarrod Bleijie just cancelled a conditionally approved billion-dollar, 450-megawatt wind farm in the state by using his executive powers to override the bureaucracy. According to Bleijie:

“Eighty-eight per cent of local residents opposed the Moonlight Range Wind Farm proceeding. We think an equal and fair policy is just like the resource sector, the agriculture sector, the gas sector have to get certain approvals and community buy-in and community say, so should renewable energy projects.”

There were a total of 142 submissions from local residents, so 125 people objected. And they can’t all have been from Morinish—the location of the wind farm—as only 62 people live there. I’m not entirely sure what “local” means in this case, but if it includes the nearby (30km) Rockhampton with its population of 82,000, then only a tiny fraction of locals objected.

You must remember that many people who approve or are ambivalent to projects don’t take the time to make a submission. That means the 88% figure is hardly representative of public opinion and is more likely a smokescreen for a decision Bleijie wanted to make for other reasons.

As for the costs, the wind farm would have generated energy for 260,000 homes annually. At 2.5 people per home, that means 125 vocal busybodies were enough to convince the minister to block something that would have benefited 650,000 people!

According to the article I linked at the top, the “main concerns” listed by said local residents “were strain on the accommodation supply from the 300 construction workers, lack of community consultation, and environmental and bushfire hazard impacts”.

Right—so the same “concerns” that NIMBYs have with all local development, whether it’s housing, roads, rail, airports, wind, solar, coal, power lines, manufacturing, or even shops and pubs. To avoid any doubt that this was a NIMBY-inspired decision, here’s LNP member for Mirani, Glen Kelly:

“The voices of regional Queenslanders who host these projects in their backyard are an important state interest and are finally being heard. These large-scale developments impact on local infrastructure, people living and working in these communities and also the natural environment.”

In the past I’ve been critical of federal Labor’s failure to consider trade-offs when using its executive power to override the already-burdensome planning process in favour of their personal ideological agenda. Why? Because as soon as a Liberal National government comes into power, they might be tempted to use those powers to achieve their ends:

“Those opposed to renewable projects, whether ideologically or for NIMBY reasons, are going to slow progress towards net zero by using the same tools environmentalists have been using for decades to slow and raise the cost of fossil fuel projects. Noise, aesthetics, tourism, recreation, wildlife, habitats, danger, lightning, their way of life – you name it, and you can be sure it will be trotted out in opposition of these projects during “community consultation”, often without any evidence at all. They don’t have to be right: they just have to delay projects for long enough to make them prohibitive.”

Bleijie’s decision, along with his recent legislation designed to “make it more difficult for renewables proponents to win environmental approval”, will be good (for them) only until Labor wins power at a future election and uses the same powers to cancel the projects that Bleijie holds dear. If the vicious cycle of cancelling everything against which you’re ideologically opposed repeats itself for long enough, eventually no investor will risk their capital on projects that might get blocked as soon as the other side assumes power.

So, I’m going to issue Bleijie a warning similar to the one I gave Tanya Plibersek: if you persist with ideological discretion over rules-based processes, you will ensure that nothing gets built in Queensland, and energy abundance will forever remain out of reach.

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