By Alexandra Marshall for the Spectator on November 4, 2023
Protecting koalas’ has been the favourite mantra invoked by Green groups and local councils to prevent basic services being built. Roads. Dams. Farm sheds. They are all killed off in case they upset fluffy tree bears.
‘Environmentalists’ used to wander down our dirt road and pluck unsuspecting koalas out of the trees to ‘protect’ them in conservation concentration camps. The koalas never seemed to be too pleased by the welfare checks. Mostly, they used to sit in the middle of the dirt, scratch their arses, and growl at the cars.
Attend a rural polling booth around election time and you’ll find at least one old Hippy shouting, ‘Greens for the trees! Greens for the koalas!!!’ They were always consistently on the side of the koalas … until the wind turbines arrived.
2GB host Ben Fordham stumbled over a crazy revelation while in discussion with Nationals MP Keith Pitt.
Koala habitat in Queensland’s Clarke Creek has come under threat, according to the Nationals. The project will involve major land clearing activities and heaven help any animal that gets in the way of progress.
‘What’s in their environmental controls? It’s how to euthanize those small animals with a sharp blow with a hammer to the skull. That’s the description.’
During the interview, Mr Pitt also mentioned that these types of projects are set to receive fast-track environmental approval. Agricultural requirements are deemed ‘too destructive’ by councils but if you want to build a city of skyscraper machetes in the middle of protected koala habitat – you’ll be waved through.
‘So,’ clarifies Mr Fordham, ‘the environmental impact statement for that project says that euthanasia will be conducted using blunt force trauma. Blunt force trauma is recommended to humanely kill reptiles to small-to-medium sized mammals. This involves a hard, sharp blow to the base of the back of the skull. So the animals that get in the way… They’ll cop it if they get in the way.’
Where are the Greens? Where are all the people who claim to have a social conscience? They are questions asked by Mr Pitt.
At least one wind project in Queensland plans to remove 1,400 hectares of ‘core koala habitat’. Farmers will be shaking their heads in disgust. If they so much as touch a tree that a koala is suspected of looking at, they are in big trouble.
It’s one rule for the government’s vanity projects, and another for citizens.
Other wind projects rejected by the Morrison government because they posed ‘unacceptable risks to koala habitat’ have now been approved by Labor because they are ‘required to meet legislated state renewables targets’.
The renewables targets are supreme to conservation interests.
Queensland’s Federal Member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, vented her frustration in August.
‘The environmental damage that will be caused and the fact the renewable sector currently does not have to comply with any current regulations in Queensland including tree clearing guidelines, reef legislation or environmental protocols that have been imposed on every other industry is outrageous.’
The Minister is correct. What justification has Labor given to explain the free pass renewables companies get to wreck the local environment that everyone else has fought so hard to protect?
Are we expected to keep believing the fairy tale of Global Boiling?
‘Chopping down thousands of hectares of native bushland and pristine farmland is senseless,’ said Nationals Leader David Littleproud.
Unfortunately, he uttered these concerns in almost the same breath as backing-in the same Net Zero target that is underpinning renewable projects.
Back in 2018, when Mr Littleproud was the Agricultural Minister, he foolishly declared replacing traditional power sources as ‘exciting, not only for the environment but for the hip pocket’.
Well, Mr Littleproud, Australians are broke and the environment is screwed thanks to this unholy renewables cult sweeping through Parliament.
‘The climate has been changing since we first tilled the soil in Australia,’ he said. ‘I believe the climate is changing. Whether it is manmade or not, I don’t really care.’
Mr Littleproud was hanging off the arm of then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the time, visiting drought-affected regional areas. Areas that still can’t get any dams approved because … uh … koalas or something.
We are at the ‘cutting edge of technology’ with wind turbines, but millennia-old water storage is a bit beyond the Ministers in Canberra. If it’s any consolation, endangered frogs quite like dams. What’s the Woke math on frogs vs development applications?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted that solar and wind projects are not killing koalas or causing ‘more’ environmental damage than they are preventing.
The ‘more’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the Prime Minister’s claim, given no one can begin to approximate if there is any harm whatsoever from a slightly warmer planet. The last time things heated up, the world became a tropical Eden. What we do know is that cutting down thousands and thousands of hectares of forest has an immediate environmental impact in those regions.
‘I have not heard that this is the case, that people are out there killing koalas. I have not heard that,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘I’ve never seen a solar farm that caused grief for a local community.’
Really? Even if his Ministers and advisers have failed miserably, he could always try a quick Google search.
How can the Prime Minister oversee the nation’s largest construction projects to the tune of more than $1.5 trillion to reach Net Zero if he isn’t able to acknowledge the basics of environmental harm and local objection?
Perhaps he could have a referendum on creating a Koala Voice to Parliament and appoint a bureaucracy of chainsaws to do the listening…
Wind Concerns is a collaboration of citizens of the Lakeland Alberta region against proposed wind turbine projects.