National Canberra wind farm protest set for February 6 next year

The date of the rally was confirmed at the Port Stephens No Wind Farm pubic meeting at Fingal Bay Sports Club on Sunday.

"The turn out was a lot better than what I expected for that time of year, considering what was on in the Bay and Port Stephens on the weekend with Christmas carols and fairs and all sorts of staff," leading windfarm opponent Port Stephens Game Fishing Club president Troy Radford said.

"A lot had heard about it, but didn't know too much about it. They weren't just hard core supporters, but people who wanted information."

Mr Radford said the Canberra protest, signalled by Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce at a rally in Nelson Bay on October 5, would bring together groups from across Australia who are concerned about the impact of wind and solar farms on their communities.

"They are all fighting the same sort of battles," he said.

"Farmers are losing their land because the government wants to run high-voltage cables through their paddocks or put solar panels or onshore turbines on their land. Some of these are actually compulsory acquisitions,

"Some of the communities have beautiful forests up in the hills and these companies are coming in and bulldozing paths in to put turbines up. They are supposed to be green but they are losing hundreds of hectares of forest to do it."

Mr Radford said the local protest was not anti-renewables, but there were real concerns about the impact of the proposed floating wind turbines on the environment and the lack of real world experience about the technology.

"There's only 24 floating offshore floating wind turbines in the world and they are nowhere near the size of these things are proposed," he said. "The zone we've got you can house more than 300 of them and there will be more than 300 of them.

"We know there will be an impact, but we don't know to what extent. We are the guinea pigs. Nowhere in the world have they got this many floating.

"We did push a campaign about how it would effect whales and we copped a bit of flak from the Yes campaigners who said turbines don't kill whales, but what they do admit is that the marine traffic out there the shipping lanes are responsible for more deaths of whales than anything.

"What we've got is that we are taking 1800sqkm of ocean and condensing the busiest port in Australia, with more than 2500 shipping movements per year, to run up a corridor which is going to be about 15km wide between the coast and these turbines where all the whales migrate.

"So we've potentially got 2500 ships running in that area in a 12 month period with the whales, so that will have a huge impact."

Mr Radford it was a huge concern that the government allowed companies seeking licenses to do their own EISs that's a huge concern.

The protesters want Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen reopen the consultation period with the community, a call supported by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on a visit to Port Stephens on September 27.

A delegation from Port Stephens recently met with in Canberra with Mr Bowen in a meeting organised by Paterson MP Meryl Swanson.

"When we spoke with Bowen part of what we demanded was that we get independent people to look at these EISs and as stakeholders we want to be involved so that we get the right outcome," Mr Radford said.

"At the end of the day we get one opportunity to get this right. If we stuff it, it's another ecosystem gone."

EcoNetwork president Ian Watt said the wind farm issue needs to be put in perspective.

"Worrying about whales and other wildlife being impacted by offshore wind farms is a reasonable concern, we are all worried about the environment, but the primary threat to the environment as we know it is climate change," Mr Watt said.

"CSIRO and Antarctic scientists have reported that the Antarctic is one of the main global hot spots for warming oceans and that the collapse of the ice sheets due to climate change will jeopardise the future of krill populations, and therefore the humpback whale population.

"Hungry and starving whales will not make for a good tourist attraction in the coming years. This risk is essentially being ignored when continuing to press for local concerns over a global emergency, one that has been well documented and reported since the mid 1950s and early 1960s."

Mr Watt said the claims that there has been a lack of consultation would appear to be a rather disingenuous red herring.

"A 65 day consultative period was held earlier this year, resulting in 1,916 submissions," he said.

"Clearly, a good proportion of the community did hear about this consultation period, as a result of which, the Government reduced the overall size of the area by a third and increased the distance offshore."

"To be fair, at this very early stage in the process, and with many more consultative periods ahead, the government, so far, does appear to have shown some goodwill on that front.

"Without any additional information, it is unlikely that more community consultation will achieve any community benefit other than providing a political platform for more rhetoric.

"At this point, it is not even clear whether the proponents for the Hunter Offshore wind farms will go ahead. They may find that it is not economically feasible."

Mr Watt said the issue of how much time is required to carry out the necessary environmental studies should probably be best left to the people who know how to do these studies.

"At this stage, and with the scrutiny that the scientists will be under, there will be too much riding on their reputations for them to take shortcuts that might backfire.

"Econetwork stands by its initial statements during the consultation period and published in the Examiner at the time, that all environmental studies should be independent, transparent, and available to the community at all stages, and that the work should be carried out independently of the proponents, but funded by the proponents through a trust fund mechanism managed by an independent body comprising a range of expertise."

Mr Watt said modern day anchors for offshore installations such as floating (semi-submersible) oil rigs and wind farms do not rely on dead weight anchors such as concrete blocks the size of a house with massive clanking chains that Mr Dutton claimed on the ABC, or anchors the size of a coal ship which will affect the seabed and currents.

"Modern anchors and cables are specially designed with massive holding power, do not have a big footprint, and are secured by cable rather than chain.

"The question is, are we prepared to accept power rationing or even power cuts on hot summer evenings, or is the community preference to expand coal and CSG and accept the demise of the environment and the whales for short term benefits?

"However, these benefits do not seem to take into account the world that is being left for our children and grandchildren. It is estimated that we will reach 2.5C above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100 or before, with devastating impacts.

"This is a mere 77 years away, well within the lifespan of today's children who apparently have no say in this short term thinking that will affect their long term futures."