Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Navarre green power hub

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:08): (1118) My adjournment for the Minister for Environment concerns the devastating environmental impact the proposed Navarre green power hub would have. I visited the site with Mr Davis, so I have seen with my own eyes what is under threat. First, there is the scarcely believable scale – more than 18,000 hectares. Second is the location, directly adjacent to Kara Kara National Park, Mount Bolangum flora and fauna reserve and Morrl Morrl Nature Conservation Reserve and in close proximity to Stuart Mill and Big Tottington nature reserves and Little Tottington state forest. All of these are internationally recognised key biodiversity areas between which species, particularly birds, travel. Third is the impact from approximately 100 turbines around 280 metres tall, kilometres of overhead 220-kilovolt transmission lines, a battery energy storage system, two substations and significant construction damage, including onsite quarries.

The following rare and endangered birds face turbine strike and devastating habitat loss: the swift parrot, the barking owl, the bush stone-curlew and the black falcon – all critically endangered, according to the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and Victoria’s flora and fauna guarantee listings. The speckled warbler and the hooded robin are considered endangered. The powerful owl, the brown treecreeper, the diamond firetail and the painted honeyeater are listed as vulnerable. Migratory birds are threatened too, and other animals – endangered tree goannas, vulnerable pink-tailed worm lizards, golden sun moths, eastern bent-wing bats and squirrel gliders. Vast swathes of their habitats face destruction. Populations face extinction. Plant life, too, faces destruction, including many endangered orchids. The wipe-out of native vegetation is extraordinary – 135 hectares no less. This includes 23 hectares of grey box and native south-eastern Australian grassland, 5 hectares of white box, yellow box and Blakely’s red gum grassy woodland – and I am quoting the project proponent’s own report here; it is staggering.

Elsewhere in Victoria councils and farmers jump through hoops if there is the smallest danger of impacting tiny areas of native vegetation. Minister, end this hypocrisy. Admit the truth openly: renewable developments such as this inevitably cause enormous environmental degradation. And I could go on if I had more time.