Rally – Craig Kelly MP

Next at the National Wind Power Fraud Rally on June 18, 2013 at Parliament House, Canberra,  was Craig Kelly MP.

Craig talks about the hardships of the Australian people under the current Government’s energy policy – and his disappointment at his fellow members callous disregard for both rural people, suffering health impacts by having wind turbines too close to their homes, and the poor, who are struggling to pay their rising electricity costs. He promises that a Coalition Government will conduct an Inquiry into the health impacts of wind turbines.

This is a transcript of the video

KK:  But firstly I would like to thank you all for coming here today. One thing that is very important about our democracy, is the right to protest against decisions of the Parliament. And that right has been enshrined in our Constitution, and also by our War Memorial up on the hill up there. There’s 100,000 Australians that have died in war to fight to protect that right to protest here today.

However, the mere fact that I announced that I was coming here to speak today has led to people abuse me, has led to people sending me aggressive emails, has led to people protesting outside my office. But I believe it is my obligation as an elected member of the Federal Parliament, to come here today to address you.

Now firstly, last night, up in Parliament, we had a debate on wind turbines. And one thing that really disturbed me, is the complete callous disregard, of members of this Government have, for people who are having their health affected by wind turbines. A complete callous disregard. And I think Murray Hardin said it best. If a farmer tells you he’s sick, you better bloody believe it.

The other thing that was also great to see was Angus Taylor here today. It will make a great member for Hume, taking over from Alby Schultz. What Angus said is very true. This is going to cost our community 3 billion dollars a year by 2020 rolls around. So we should be thinking what the opportunity costs of that 3 billion dollars are.

Firstly, already, this Government has put our nation into massive debt. Our debt stands close to 270 billion dollars today. By Christmas time we know it will be close to 300 billion dollars. To give an idea of what that means, the interest payments alone, just the interest payments over this year and next three, over the forward estimates period, comes to 34.5 billion dollars. So we as a nation, will have to send 34.5 billion dollars over the next 4 years, money to pay the interest, and most of that money will go overseas. That works out for $1,500 for every man woman and child in the nation.

That is the situation that we face. And yet, we are bringing in a system that will see 3 billion dollars cost added to our electricity bills. We need to ask at what cost? We are trying to fund a National Disability Insurance Scheme, to give more money to our kids with disabilities and our carers. We are trying to spend more money for our roads, for our hospitals, more money for education. The list is endless. We simply can not afford this addition burden on our electricity costs.

We need to ask ourselves, what hardships will occur? How many people will be forced, unable to turn their electricity on at night, on a cold winter’s night, because their electricity bills have increased?

There is a lot to do should we come to Government. And clearly one of the first things we need to do is have a proper inquiry into the health effects of wind turbines. That is one thing that our Coalition Government has promised to do.

The one thing we see about this industry, they seem to shy away from Inquiries and investigations. Because our history has always shown those that seek to suppress Inquiries, to seek to suppress further investigations, are normally the ones with the weakest case or the most immoral case.

So I can give you an assurance here today, as a member of the Coalition, we’ll conduct a study of the health effects of wind turbines to get to the bottom of this. We do not want to see any Australian affected as though we had not heard the many people here today.

So I again thank you for coming, please continue to use your democratic rights, that our Constitution guarantees, to express your disapproval against this appalling policy.

Thank you.

All the Rally videos will be available in this playlist.