One of the surprise results of the last federal election was the defeat of Labor rising star Christian Zarah by the dour Liberal Russell Broadbent in Gippsland. Fran Bailey’s opposition last week to wind turbines at near the Victorian township of Daylesford has a similar potential to buck the swing to Labor.

Though initially popular in Daylesford, wind turbines have become less popular as local residents learned more about them. Fran Bailey well knows that it is the electorate, not some glib national policy on climate change, that will decide her fate come election day.

Indeed, Bailey’s opposition to the Daylesford project has global precedents — Scotland, Spain, France and the USA have all seen protests over planned wind farms.

As the most visually obvious action against climate change, wind power has spawned a multi million dollar industry aided by governments all too keen to show that they are “acting”. The ALP is “locked on” to wind power as are all the major local international conservation groups. Planning processes have been fast tracked for wind farms in Victoria with specially appointed panels given the final say on approval, thereby cutting out local councils.

One of the problems (and there are many) is the numbers of birds and bats that turbines kill, and the amount of time turbines have to be shutdown to avoid this mortality. Although their blades appear to spin slowly to the naked eye the blade tip speeds on larger mills can exceed 300 kph. At these speeds they also generate spirals of turbulent air that are deadly to small birds and bats. Larger birds like eagles are smashed to a feathery pulp.

In Tasmania, the Woolnorth windfarm in the northwest has been operated by the roaring forties since 2003. The initial environmental assessments did not predict any significant mortality of birds or bats. However some years down the track the story has changed. On ABC TV’s Tasmanian Stateline program it was revealed the week before last that two Tasmanian wedgetail eagles had been killed there in the last month. Rare compared to their mainland cousins, it was revealed that 10 wedge tail eagles had been killed since 2003. The company was fined $3000 per bird.

Mark Kelleher (for the company) stated: “…at Bluff Point, we had six in a 10 month period. With the measures we put in place, operators there, automatic shut down for certain wind speeds and directions that had been identified with high risk times, we haven’t had any eagle collisions there now for about a year.”

The variety and numbers of birds and bats killed by wind turbines is likely due to their poor siting. While conservation/environment departments in governments around the world may have a handle on land based distribution of birds and bats their migratory routes are in fact being discovered when they are killed by turbines. With Australian turbines on private land under lucrative contracts and little monitoring, their full impact is yet to be determined.

In the USA the deaths of more than 40,000 small bats annually is only now being revealed and many of the turbines at the famous Altamont windfarm in California have been shutdown to protect eagles.

Recent large windfarms have been approved and are being considered for Western Victoria well within the range of brolgas which environmental consultants say will not be impacted. How long will the public tick “green energy” and pay more to kill birds and bats so as they can claim to be green? Maybe Fran Bailey can claim some environmental credibility for her stance after all.