Disappointing Dan: Liberal MP becomes Wind Industry Spruiker

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STT has long had it’s doubts about Dan Tehan – a Federal MP from Western Victoria – who badges himself as a member of the Liberal Party, but who, despite his branding, increasingly sounds like the economic illiterates from the loopy-left, that have overrun the Labor Party.

Well, any doubts we might have entertained in Dan’s favour, evaporated during his appearance on the Ministry of Truth’s 7.30 Report last Thursday.

ABC, 7.30 Report
30 April 2015

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: For months, there’s been a high stakes game of chicken going on in Canberra over the Renewable Energy Target. That’s the official goal for how much of Australia’s electricity needs to come from clean or renewable sources by 2020.

Neither the Government nor the Opposition will budge enough to make a deal and that’s been bad news for companies in the sector. Investment’s on hold thanks to the uncertainty and that means jobs are being sacrificed.

Tonight, one Liberal backbencher is breaking ranks to say the Government should accept a higher target than it’s been prepared to so far to put jobs ahead of politics.

Here’s political correspondent Sabra Lane.

SABRA LANE, REPORTER: The slick tourist commercial for Portland belies the terrible economic reality currently confronting the town.

The beautiful spot once provided calm shelter for whalers from the treacherous seas of Bass Strait. It’s now ground zero in the political fallout from the fight over the Renewable Energy Target.

ANITA RANK, COMMITTEE OF PORTLAND: We lost 80 jobs. In a town of our size, that’s equivalent to 40,000 people in Melbourne. Now if you take 40,000 people out of Melbourne, out of a suburb or out of an industry, it has a devastating effect.

SABRA LANE: It’s hard to imagine now, but the Keppel Prince Engineering workshops once teemed with hundreds of workers, supplying contractors to the town’s biggest employer, Portland Aluminium.

Steve Garner is Keppel Prince’s general manager.

During the past 15 years, Keppel Prince transformed its business from supplying an industry past its prime to a sector of the future: renewable energy.

STEVE GARNER, GM, KEPPEL PRINCE ENGINEERING: Back in ‘79 I started the business with five people, built it up. You’re in a small town, you know everybody and everybody knows you. Those people are like family. This company is like family.

SABRA LANE: It’s become the nation’s largest producer of wind towers, but it’s struggling now, most recently because of the Renewable Energy Target stalemate.

STEVE GARNER: Unfortunately there’s no towers here at the moment. We’ve converted it into just doing general engineer and repair work for the smelter and some of the other clients that we’ve got. But normally this whole area would be full of towers. …

… We’re just in state of limbo. I mean, we are actually fighting ourselves with: do we have future in this industry? Do we have a future in this business or not?

SABRA LANE: For a long time there was bipartisan support for the Renewable Energy Target, that 20 per cent of power be generated by clean, renewable sources by 2020. In law that figure’s set down as 41,000 gigawatt hours, but given electricity demand has fallen sharply, that amount will actually generate something like 26 per cent of power. The policy was reviewed, prompting the Government to rule that figure too high. Initially, Labor wouldn’t talk about lowering it and the two sides have stubbornly stuck to their views while companies have been forced to lay off staff.

STEVE GARNER: It really is frustrating that it seems to be a stone-throwing exercise as to who can hold out the longest, but unfortunately holding out this long is creating so much uncertainty and there’s so many jobs that could be created and people employed.

SABRA LANE: The desperation within the industry has prompted one Liberal MP to speak out.

DAN TEHAN, LIBERAL BACKBENCHER: They’ve been saying that politics has been put in front of jobs and what I have been reassuring them is that as far as I’m concerned, what I want to see is jobs put before politics.

SABRA LANE: Dan Tehan has told 7.30 he wants ministers to settle on a higher target and stop the impasse.

DAN TEHAN: If we do that, I think we can reach compromise with the Labor Party and resolve this issue once and for all.

SABRA LANE: Jordan Morris lost his job at Keppel Prince last October. He was retrenched along with 100 others.

JORDAN MORRIS, FORMER KEPPEL PRINCE WORKER: It’s not a good feeling at all. Like, not cool at all. We just bought a new house 12 months ago and hoping that things were going to pick up and the Government were having heaps of confidence behind it all, thinking everything was going to happen, but it sort of didn’t.

SABRA LANE: It’s been tough for Jordan and his wife Emily. They’ve got two young children and he’s not been able to find a job since.

JORDAN MORRIS: When I started at Keppel, it took right off and I was, like, thinking, ‘This is great, you know, like, this is going to happen,” and with the RET the way it was at the time and I’m thinking, you know, “This is going to be a good industry to stay involved with.”

SABRA LANE: The impasse has stopped millions in investment dollars across the entire sector. In Portland it’s brought the town’s two big businesses together to fight for their future and for Portland.

DAN TEHAN: There’s been local electrical contractors who have had to lay off staff. There’s been Keppel Prince, which manufacturers wind towers, they’ve had to lay off staff. So it has caused businesses in the town to lose staff.

SABRA LANE: The two major parties recently came within a whisker of a deal. Labor agreed to a much lower figure of 33,500 gigawatt hours. The Government though wouldn’t budge beyond 32,000. To break the absurd stalemate – and that’s putting it politely; others aren’t so diplomatic – Portland businesses have put forward a figure they will accept and they believe key players around Australia will agree to it too and 7.30’s confirmed there is support.

STEVE GARNER: If we can get them just to resolve at 33 right now, that’s what we’re calling. Just get at ‘em. Put the bulls**t aside. …

… For me, I would be asking the Federal Government to accept the recent offer of 33,000 gigawatt, sign the deal, let’s get this industry up and running and let’s start creating these jobs that have been promised for such a long period of time.

PETER CHELLIS, PORTLAND ALUMINIUM: I think it’s time for a compromise, I really do. It’s time to come back together, get an agreement. 33,000 gigawatt hours is a reasonable compromise, and then, give us some certainty.

SABRA LANE: It’s expected talks will resume when Parliament sits again the week after next. Ministers say they’re keen for a quick resolution.

Dan Tehan’s intervention makes it awkward for the Government, though success is dependent on all sides compromising a smidge more again. But it’s now a bit like fighting over a rounding error.

DAN TEHAN: From what I’ve heard from the energy intensive, trade-exposed industries, which include Portland Aluminium, they could live with 33,000. What I’m hearing back from people involved in the Clean Energy Council on that side is that they could live with 33,000. So what I’d like to see is both sides of politics now come to the table to see whether they could resolve the issue around that figure.

LEIGH SALES: Sabra Lane reporting.
ABC, 7.30 Report

The Ministry of Truth must have been delighted with being able to run a complete story without any need to come to grip with the actual facts, let alone the ‘pesky ones’, during its carefully doctored presentation (or, rather, submission) on the fate of the completely unsustainable Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target.

The wind industry is doomed, whatever the ‘magic’ number arrived at – whether on wind industry talk-shops run by the ABC or in Canberra, simply because power retailers are determined to kill the most insanely costly and utterly pointless piece of policy ever designed:

Wind Industry Armageddon: Power Retailers Win Round One in Battle to Kill LRET

Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic: or Ian Macfarlane’s Futile Efforts to Save the LRET & his mates at Infigen

But, in an ebony and ivory kind of way, good to see Dan talking about “both sides” of politics getting together; except that when he says “both sides”, he seems to be talking about the Greens and the new-loopy-left of the Labor Party.

Dan’s clearly taking a line that he’s been fed by the wind industry and its parasites, like the Clean Energy Council, a point not lost on STT Champion, Patina Schneider, who let rip with this brilliant and pointed riposte.

Australian Industrial Wind Turbine Awareness Network
“OPEN LETTER”
1^st May 2015
Mr Dan Tehan, MP
Member for Wannon

Dear Mr Tehan,

I wish to relay to you my alarm and disappointment in your recent appearance on ABC’s 7.30 Report.  What ‘hold’ does this wind turbine industry have over you to have steered you so far left?

Please declare your interests. They must be significant given that you are the member responsible for representing the residents harmed and nuisanced by the Cape Bridgewater, Macarthur, Glenthompson and Waubra wind power stations on a daily basis.

Are these constituents collateral damage?  Are they your sacrifice to the Green altar?

No one want to see jobs leave Portland but is the solution to blindly advocate for a renewable energy target that would sanction further harm and misery in the south west?

You must be aware that the Portland Wind Energy Project, for example, was only approved because the Australian wind industry told the Victorian government that it would support local manufacturers.  Local manufacturers were tasked to build up to 50% of all wind turbine components, including towers. Approval was granted with the promise that a blade factory would create jobs and operate in Portland.  But, after receiving its sizable state grant, Vestas closed the Portland blade factory and promptly moved its operations off-shore.

The wind industry and its intermittent and acoustically toxic technology have failed Victorians, as I’m afraid, have you.  It is simplifying matters to the point of embarrassing that you are doing the bidding of the opposition and continue to blame Keppel Prince’s woes on RET uncertainty.

The Australian government’s Anti-dumping Commission’s ‘Investigation 221’ tells the real Keppel Prince story.  It is one of the wind industry’s abject failure to support local manufacture of wind turbine and tower components.

Keppel Prince is well aware of the dumping of wind towers from China and Korea.

In 2007, Keppel Prince had 182 staff employed in the production of wind towers. But in 3.6 ‘Employment numbers,’ the Commission’s report reveals: ‘Keppel Prince had a total workforce of 362 at December 2012 of which 71 were employed in the production of wind towers, the number of employees in the production of wind towers had reduced to 64 by June 2013.’

Inflated numbers in tower production were gradually whittled down while the RET enjoyed bipartisan support.  Only 20% or so of Keppel Prince’s employees were making wind towers in 2012 while the other 298 employees – the majority of Keppel Prince’s jobs – were largely servicing the aluminum industry which, incidentally, is being devastated by the same RET you are advocating for!

In 2013, as a result of reported dumping and price cutting, only 64 staff remained employed at Keppel Prince in wind tower manufacture.  There were no further wind tower orders taken after Taralga.  But Keppel Prince and its Clean Energy Council cronies told the media that RET uncertainty had made 100 workers redundant today, in direct response to the Abbott government’s move to lower the renewable energy target.

If Anita Rank from the Committee for Portland thinks that 80 jobs are the equivalent of 40,000 jobs in Melbourne, Keppel Prince just overstated the 60 or so Portland jobs by 20,000 in Melbourne’s terms!

‘Move to lower renewable energy target claims 100 jobs at Keppel Prince’ was published in The Australian on October 23, 2014.  It reported a statement from Keppel Prince: “The continuing uncertainty over large-scale renewables (including the Renewable Energy Target) and related wind tower fabrication projects, together with the significant losses sustained from such activities over the past several years, have forced Keppel Prince Engineering to review this aspect of its business.”

The truth is that Keppel Prince had experienced hardships as a consequence of wind tower dumping and price cutting of wind towers over a number of years. These hardships, significant losses and resulting job losses occurred independently of and irrespective of what was going on with the RET.

Portland has been dudded by the wind industry and its greedy apologists. The former Bracks government failed to legislate laws that would protect Portland’s interests and didn’t bother to task the wind industry to hold them to their empty claims. After your appalling display last on ABC television last night, we can add you to that list of disappointment, Mr Tehan.

There’s a reason why backbenchers are backbenchers.  Here’s hoping your Ministers will put you swiftly back in line.

Yours sincerely
Patina Schneider
On behalf of the Australian Industrial Wind Turbine Awareness Network

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way”.
EMILE ZOLA

Nice work, Patina. But the Boadicea of the NSW’s Tablelands wasn’t alone in giving Disappointing Dan a walloping, oh no! There was a very distinguished line up ready to pull him into line, starting with one of Pac Hydro’s long-suffering victims of its Cape Bridgewater disaster, Melissa Ware.

Melissa Ware
Cape Bridgewater
1 May 2015

Dear Dan,

I am one of the impacted residents from Cape Bridgewater whom assisted Pacific Hydro in their investigations into the causes of impacts at their wind facility and have met personally with you in Portland and twelve months later at your office in Hamilton where you decently took time from your busy schedule and listened to and appeared to understand our dire circumstances.

In your recent focus on jobs for Portland, has the Nine billion dollars of taxpayer money in industry subsidies over the last 15 years of the RET been worth the cost and why?? Will the further Twenty-two billion dollars, for the next 15 years until 2030 be worth the cost, why??

Why should electricity consumers pay and pay and pay to support the renewable energy industry? Why should the jobs of a few workers in Portland outweigh the health impacts on the neighbours of these monstrosities? Or outweigh the cost to the whole nation?

(Un)-’Renewable energy’ health impacts, noise, vibration and sensation impacts, lowered property values, inability to sell, loss of rural rights and other impacts on the general populace you proceed to ignore for the sake of a few ‘jobs’. Why?

‘Portland jobs’ were based on an electricity producing business unable to independently stand alone, that never lived up to its original promises. Pacific Hydro have failed to fix their problems impacting the local communities where they operate and are now on the market, looking for a buyer.

How are they financially or socially supported by taxpayers and energy users when electricity generators haven’t factored in their own impacts on the market? A market where the demand for the produce of electricity has dropped and the glut gets dumped into the ground and when the interconnector and further infrastructure is hooked up, sold interstate at higher prices.

Why such political support to businesses putting their own greedy interests at the forefront at the detrimental cost to other businesses sorely impacted by unaffordable electricity costs due to the still rising and outrageous expense of renewables?

Look at your electricity bill and like me aren’t you getting fed up with paying the price, the price of the REC’s and the associated penalties that are added to our household bills and found in all household expenditure?

Do you turn off the lights, go to bed early because you can’t afford the energy to run the telly or the heater? Have you spoken to anyone outside of the profiteering big business world and heard the hardship? Do you, your family, your neighbours and community sleep well, comfortably safe from the impacts of industrial infrasound?

Have you read all the submissions into the Senate Inquiry into wind farms and considered all the evidence and contributions under review in this Inquiry?

I understand that in your role you are voted in and paid to represent the people and not just big business alone. Again I request you not only spare more than a passing thought to those of us who suffer near wind turbines, but actively represent us. We have lost our health, our home, our sense of security and also, faith in your support and motivations.

Portland, the birthplace of Victoria, is now ringed very closely by turbines, shocking isn’t it … so too are the likely impacts on the health and well-being of people living nearby, impacts which do not abate when putting business profits first. Yet you are calling for a higher renewable energy target, to build and erect more turbines across the rural regions of Victoria, to impact directly on the health and well-being of more rural communities. Impacts condoned by a Planning Department and Victorian Premier whom with complete disregard towards our concerns, have extended the total rural area of land where bigger, more health impacting turbines may be erected.

How about factoring into the tally, the human costs, the social, economic and political losses when more residents leave the area or are stuck, health worsening, unable to live or work properly due to the many still unresolved issues of adverse impacts of wind turbines. In your interviews you are failing to mention any of the adverse impacts on many of your constituents and independent health studies you say you support have not been undertaken … we are not collateral damage, road kill or suffering from nocebo as shown by the joint acoustic study undertaken in and at my home … where is your effort on behalf of impacted residents from Cape Bridgewater, Macarthur, Waubra etc?

Sincerely,

Melissa Ware
Cape Bridgewater

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Ripping stuff, Melissa. The only quibble is that she understates the cost of the REC Tax/Subsidy when she speaks of a “further Twenty-two billion dollars”. That’s a figure forecast by modellers to be the “cross-subsidy”, as between conventional generators and wind power outfits. Under the LRET, the full cost to power consumers of the REC Tax – slapped on top of their already spiralling bills – will exceed $50 billion, with that entire sum siphoned off as a direct subsidy (in the form of RECs) by outfits like Pac Hydro, Infigen and Acciona. For a rundown on the whopping scale of the wind industry subsidy rort see:

Ian Macfarlane, Greg Hunt & Australia’s Wind Power Debacle: is it Dumb and Dumber 2, or Liar Liar?

Melissa’s marvellous missive was joined in Disappointing Dan’s inbox by this little pearler, from another of Pac Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater victims, Sonia Trist.

WAKE UP DAN: IT’S A SCAM!!!

Some considerable time ago I met you in PORTLAND and more recently in your Hamilton office.

At that time I brought to your attention, again, the injustices I was undergoing, living in very close proximity to the Pacific Hydro wind energy facility in Cape Bridgewater. I explained my health problems (at a distance of 620m from the turbines), and the dismissive, and bullying way Pacific Hydro dealt with my complaints.

I participated in the Acoustic Testing carried out for 8 weeks mid 2014 by Mr Steven Cooper. I sincerely hoped serious issues would be examined and attended to.

The results of the acoustic testing have been internationally acclaimed, yet rejected by Pacific Hydro, who are carrying out their protracted, legally threatening behaviour, in an attempt to have total control over the acoustic results. Mr Lane Crockett displayed the actual power policy of Pacific Hydro, in survival mode, in his speech at the PORTLAND Golf Club on 16th February. Cruelly cutting adrift the participating residents, after many months of telling us that ‘Pac Hydro wished to return our lives to their status prior to the commissioning of the Cape Bridgewater Wind Facility.’

I cannot sell my property, my heritage overlayed house is worthless and uninhabitable.

Now you tell me on the ABC TV 7.30 report that your agenda is FOR the wind industry. You quote the Clean Energy Council, a virtual subsidiary of the wind industry, and the bleatings of the Keppel Prince job lobby group. How misguided, and untrustworthy of you.

You in effect, cut loose your impacted rural constituents, compounding their harrowing daily experiences of living, existing, aside wind turbine facilities. Domestically and financially adrift.

You do realise, perhaps, that the homes of Portlanders will, in some instances, undergo this Impaction, and certainly will not be able to sell their homes, let alone have a short term job with Keppel Prince. Financially stretched, electricity prices rising etc.   How short sighted you are. You do not comprehend the deep issues and facts involved in social interaction with giant industrial turbines. Increasingly comprehended internationally.

At my meeting with you in your Hamilton Office prior to the State Election last year, you gravely warned of the socialistic consequences should Daniel Andrews gain power. Your stance displayed in the ABC TV 7.30 report, serves Daniel Andrews well.

All but one of the Senators attending the PORTLAND Senate Hearing Enquiry, have open-mindedly and sensitively observed the living conditions, created by very close proximity to wind turbines. They visited homes in Cape Bridgewater, and took it upon themselves to observe and study the individual premises, and localities, in relation to the wind facility.

HAVE YOU EVER DONE THIS? I think not. You have taken the populist, short lived, route.

Close attention and comprehension of wind industry practices, would have served you very well.

Transparency, directness of concern and honourable regard for your political obligations, are what your constituents rightfully expected of you. They trusted you with their vote. You have betrayed those of us who voted, asked, and wrote for help, because we are being perpetually bullied by the wind industry .. in my case, Pacific Hydro.

I am disgusted by your lack of concern for the public issues pertaining to wind turbine facilities in your constituency, which will increase immensely over time. Your blatant lack of genuine interest in, and acknowledgement of, the Cooper Report acoustic results at Cape Bridgewater Pacific Hydro wind energy facility.

I do wish to thank your assistant Megan Campbell, who attended Mr Cooper’s presentations in Cape Bridgewater and PORTLAND. She was most welcome.

With grievous sentiments,

Sincerely,

Sonia Trist
Corkhill
CapeBridgewater.

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If you thought Sonia’s sentiments were, as she says, “grievous”, then you ain’t seen nothing yet: STT Champion, Annie Gardner chimed in with this withering attack on Dan’s motives and want of bone fides.

Ann and Andrew Gardner
Penshurst, Victoria
1 May 2015

Dear Dan,

We are absolutely GOBSMACKED! What are you doing Dan, firstly to your constituents, and to yourself for that matter? HOW DARE YOU PUT JOBS BEFORE YOUR CONSTITUENT’S HEALTH, Dan?

You know perfectly well what is going on in YOUR ELECTORATE. Your constituents are being “tortured” by wind turbine acoustic emissions, day in and day out, night in and night out. The message on your office phone claims “Dan Tehan” your local member who is there to help you …” You’ve done nothing to help us so far Dan, and with your latest outburst it appears you’re working against us, and have no intention of doing anything to help so many of your constituents.

You know only too well that your electorate of Wannon at this stage is the most severely impacted by the acoustic emissions from so many NON COMPLIANT wind farms, being Macarthur, Cape Bridgewater and Glenthompson; and if Daniel Andrews and the Victorian Labor government have their way, it’s about to be literally “fly blown” with hundreds and hundreds more turbines. People will be forced to leave their homes in the hundreds, so there’ll be NO MORE jobs, as the whole economy of this once wonderful agricultural district will be severely destroyed.

You know very well how badly impacted so many of your constituents are Dan, and yet you have chosen to align yourself with the wind industry and its associated industries, over your seriously harmed constituents.

Many residents impacted by the Macarthur, Cape Bridgewater and Glenthompson wind farms have met with you on many occasions requesting you do something to help us.

I, and others, have written to you several times occasions requesting you help us, represent us in demanding comprehensive, multi-disciplinary research be carried out in the field, (the Coalition’s pledge in 2012 mind you) and not only have you not responded to me, you have DONE NOTHING on our behalf.

Not once since you were elected for the seat of Wannon have we seen, or heard you in the media, representing us, your seriously harmed constituents, or offering any support whatsoever for us. From the beginning since your pre-selection, we’ve seen pictures of you leaning on the fence with your friend Hamish Officer (Macarthur wind farm turbine host) prior to construction, squealing about the fact that this wind farm may not go ahead and he may not reap in the millions from AGL as host of possibly 40 turbines, perhaps many more, at his neighbours’ expense.

We’ve heard so many reports and seen pictures of you in the media, batting for Keppel Prince, turbine manufacturers, and how dreadful it is that they’ve had to lay off workers. I was told recently that once Keppel Prince had been a much larger organisation in years gone by, with plants other than that at Portland and it is literally due to bad management that only one arm of Keppel Prince is still going, at Portland. In fact, what business would employ people to supply components for an industry which is more or less well fully reliant on government subsidy?

The straw which broke the camel’s back was last night’s ABC 7.30 report where you insisted that the government change their current plans to reduce the RET, and increase it to literally the level which the Labor Party is requesting?

Dan, you’ve been bluffed by the wind industry and Keppel Prince, Portland Aluminium etc. One wonders if you’re not working for the Labor party, as you are now snubbing your own party, and promoting LABOR PARTY POLICY!!!

Labor and the Greens are going to have a field day due to your, what we could call, stupidity, or even naivety Dan. You’ve given them so much ammunition and they’re literally going to “have you on toast”, as the saying goes.

We all know how left leaning the ABC is and you’re just playing into their hands with your appearance on the 7.30 report, in addition to reports in the Fairfax media, another left leaning organisation, which is certainly NOT Liberal party friendly and is very pro wind farms.

Did you know that the ABC has, for quite some time now, put a blanket block on all emails from me, as they don’t like to hear my complaints about the severe health impacts from the Macarthur wind farm on me and my family?

What do you say to your fellow Coalition members Dan? What are you going to say to Angus Taylor, whose electorate, like yours, is going to be littered with wind farms, and whose constituents are going to be belted with infrasound as so many of yours are?

How many people’s lives are you willing to sacrifice for a form of power which is so ridiculously expensive and unreliable and intermittent?

You know very well the statistics from Britain, where for every renewable energy job created, 3.7 REAL jobs are lost, and in Spain, for every renewable energy job created, 2.2 REAL jobs have been lost. I’ve personally told you those statistics, so you cannot say you don’t know, but no doubt you’ve chosen to ignore these facts, for your own personal gain.

Are you just the typical politician who cares only about your own votes, and not the real things that matter, that is, the health of your constituents?

As a politician you have a Duty of Care to protect the health of ALL of your constituents Dan. This is what you have been elected for, and you have NEGLECTED your duty with your ongoing actions in support of Keppel Prince and the wind industry. You have knowingly ignored the plight of those who put you there in the first place, by allowing such ongoing serious harm to so many people in your electorate.

Your ignorance and actions show us you are pretty well “in bed” with the wind industry and the Clean Energy Council. You’ve never bothered to contact us, your constituents, yet you’re obviously in touch regularly with the Clean Energy Council, and I tell you, there’s nothing Clean about that Council. The name was changed several years ago from the Australian Wind Energy Association, as the Clean Energy Council sounds much more warm and fuzzy. In fact, people could be mistaken for thinking it’s a government agency – but that’s far from the truth.

This brings me to the Senate Inquiry into wind farms.

Dan, why did you not send a representative to the hearing in Portland on Monday 30th March 2015?

After all, this hearing was no doubt held in Portland due to the fact that Steven Cooper’s ground-breaking research results were exposed in YOUR ELECTORATE.

Have you been keeping yourself abreast with the proceedings of the Senate Inquiry into wind farms?

Have you, out of your concern for the wellbeing of your constituents, even bothered to contact any of the Senators since Monday 30th March, to find out the outcome of that hearing?

Have you read Steven Cooper’s report yet, and have you read any of the commentary, particularly from his eminent peers, Schomer and Hessler, Robert Rand, Ambrose, Bob Thorn to mention a few.

If you haven’t I can easily forward them to you.

It seems that you JUST DON’T GET IT, Dan.

This appalling public health disaster is happening in YOUR electorate and it appears to us you’ve chosen to align yourself with the wind industry and its associates, that is the perpetrators of this serious crime (and add in there, a whole lot of corruption too), rather than carrying out your obligation to your constituents, that is to PROTECT THEIR HEALTH.

What is going on here is criminal Dan, and those, such as yourself, who knowingly allow this “torture” to continue, will most certainly be held accountable at a later date, particularly after the explosive findings of Steven Cooper’s studies, and the Senate Inquiry are made public.

You are well aware of the seriousness of this issue Dan, and yet you are allowing this “torture” to continue, under your watch. This is known as “willful blindness” in legal terms and you, more than many others, as our elected representative are responsible for this. You cannot say you do not know what’s going on here at Macarthur, and at Cape Bridgewater, and at Glenthompson: ALL in YOUR ELECTORATE, Dan.

Just one last thing Dan, has it occurred to you that the workers at Keppel Prince and Portland Aluminium, whose jobs you are doing your darnedest to protect at the expense of your seriously ill constituents, are most probably union members, and certainly would NOT vote for you? Surely you’re not too stupid to realise they’d be LABOR voters.

After all, the AMWU gave evidence at the Portland hearing of the Senate Inquiry into wind farms. Does that not ring a bell with you, that is that you are barking up the wrong tree, and in doing so severely damaging your own personal reputation and hence electoral chances?

One would think, if you were smart, you’d be courting as many conservative voters, rather than courting and possibly making promises to Labor voters, given that your seat of Wannon has become less safe with redistribution now including the more Labor town of Maryborough.

Yet you appear to be willing to turn your back on and ignore the serious plight of those hundreds of constituents, whose health is being SERIOUSLY HARMED by wind turbines in your electorate, those who mostly are farmers and most likely would be Liberal voters, that is until this latest example of such extreme contempt for your constituents. You’re stepping out, defying your party line, to protect the jobs of workers who would nearly all be LABOR voters, in the ignorant belief they’d vote for you. We thought you were smarter than that Dan.

You are letting your hard working Coalition colleagues down badly, and we assure you we will be doing all we can to unseat you at the next election.

Worst still Dan, you are sentencing thousands of hard working rural Australians to a life of ongoing persecution and torture by continuing to allow serious harm to people’s health, not only in your electorate, but electorates Australia wide.

We find it quite ironic that the date of this letter is 1st of May, May Day, traditionally celebrated by the Labor Party, since the late 1880’s. The significance of this date is that you appear to be aligning yourself with and promoting policies of the Labor Party.

Ann and Andrew Gardner
Penshurst, Victoria