Tuesday, 9 September 2025

Tall Tree Wind Farm

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:53): (1932) My adjournment matter for the Minister for Planning concerns the proposed Acciona Tall Tree Wind Farm in the Lethbridge–Meredith area and its profound threat to Victoria’s threatened bird population. The action I seek from the Minister for Planning is a commitment that a separate, comprehensive impact assessment focused specifically on raptor and falcon populations and habitats is a mandated component in the environment effects statement process for the Tall Tree Wind Farm. I would like to take this opportunity to summarise a comprehensive and detailed submission from Marilyn Maddy-Byrne, whose concerns, based on extensive research and investigations and supported by detailed references, raise apparently very serious questions about the potential ecological impact of the development. Before I go on, I also want to appeal to the Greens and the Animal Justice Party MPs in this place, who should surely take these ecological and animal welfare issues seriously. They are not here tonight, but they should all be with us on this.

Specifically, the submission highlights the danger posed to the long-term survival of highly concentrated raptor and falcon populations around the proposed project site. This area is known to host 17 out of the 23 known raptor and falcon species in Victoria. Blade strike from wind turbines is widely considered the second-biggest killer for these and other large birds in Australia. An accepted ecological formula projects the loss of one raptor or falcon for every two operating turbines annually. With 2500 turbines already operating in Victoria, this means an estimated 1250 raptors and falcons will be lost in the next 12 months alone, potentially reaching 25,000 deaths over 20 years. These are not hypothetical losses. I am told that peregrine falcons are already being sliced in half by moving turbine blades. In the view of my correspondent the proposed design creates a 14-kilometre-long, 7-kilometre-wide killing field. Turbines, nominally 500 metres apart, are effectively only 320 metres apart on the north–south axis due to blade arcs. For a fast-flying raptor or falcon moving at up to 300 kilometres per hour this leaves a mere 4 seconds of safe flight time between blades. Acciona has reportedly shown no intention of installing appropriate raptor- and falcon-specific detection or protection systems, and existing systems are acknowledged as inadequate. The proposed 200-metre buffer zones from nesting sites are grossly insufficient. At least 500 metres is required for safe flight.