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The wind industry in Australia is in full-scale panic because the recently completed Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud turned a (long-overdue) blowtorch on the biggest rort in Australian history, with their thumping report on Australia’s wind power fraud – available here: Senate Report
The first 200 pages involve a detailed and thorough analysis of every aspect of the most ludicrous piece of energy ‘policy’ ever devised; the balance – written by the wind industry – and headed ‘Labor’s dissenting report’ – requires the suspension of our good friends, ‘logic’ and reason’, in order to digest.
Last Tuesday, STT Champion, Alan Jones picked up on the recommendations – first, on his 2GB breakfast radio show and, later, on Sky News – on ‘Richo + Jones’.
Alan’s morning radio show reaches some 2 million listeners through over 77 Stations, Countrywide; Sky New’s ‘Richo + Jones’ is a top rater, amongst politicians and pundits of all persuasions. So, when AJ, talks – those in power tend to listen.
Along with applauding the efforts of the Senators on the Inquiry, Alan interviewed three of the most courageous, magnificent and stoic Australians of modern times – in Sonia Trist, Jan Hetherington and Annie Gardner. Each of them are entirely unnecessary victims of Australia’s great wind power fraud; and all of them are fighting back.
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Sonia Trist had her beautiful seaside home stolen by union super fund backed, Pacific Hydro – aided and abetted by the Federal government’s mandatory Renewable Energy Target:
‘Silly’ Sarah Henderson joins ‘Disappointing’ Dan Tehan, as another ‘Green’ in Conservative Clothing
Jan Hetherington and Annie Gardner have the misfortune of trying to live next door to AGL’s Macarthur wind farm disaster; suffering the daily onslaught of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound from 140 3MW, Vestas V112s.
In modern times, we’re told that the internet is all; when it comes to spreading news and telling peoples’ stories. However, take your time to listen to this little broadcast which demonstrates that – in the hands of a master – radio has lost none of its awesome power to convey human dignity, grace, strength and suffering. STT commends it as one very powerful piece of media [the transcript of the radio broadcast appears below].
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Alan Jones AO: Well the final report of the latest Senate inquiry into wind farms has been tabled in the Parliament. It’s urged that the Parliament should draw up National rules restricting how wind farms are built and operated and punish States that don’t accept them.
The final report, published yesterday evening by the Senate Committee in wind farms puts forward a range of measures to curb them, including recommendations to reduce support for projects under the National Renewable Energy Target. The report recommended subsidies to new wind farms be limited to 5 years rather than the current period of 20 years.
This is ridiculous isn’t it? Subsidies to wind farms. There are mechanics, and bakers and taxi owners and hire car owners all listening to me this morning-businesses everywhere listening to this program – they don’t get any subsidies at all. Why should foreign-owned wind farms get 2 cents?
But the Clean Energy Council, wind energy’s peak body says ‘limiting wind farm subsidies to 5 years will destroy the future of the industry’. How can an outfit make any sort of claim to commercial viability if its unable to survive without 20 years of subsidies? And a government, which is operating on borrowed money?
Amid the recommendations is a proposal that an independent scientific panel be established which would have the power to block new projects being registered by the government, if it believed human health was at risk. The panel would help draw up “National wind farm guidelines” which the Federal government would introduce and ask State governments to adopt. The guidelines will include – and this by the way is just the Senate Committee’s recommendation- would include National standards on wind farms for infrasound, vibrations, air craft safety, indigenous heritage, birds and bats, shadow flicker, fire risk, electromagnetic interference and blade glint, amongst other things. Remember amazingly wind farms are currently approved and none of these receive any consideration.
The committee recommends that if a State government didn’t accept the new National measure for infrasound and low frequency noise, the Committee recommends that wind projects built in those States should not get Renewable Energy Certificates, that is, money. Yours. Unbelievable. Money – which subsidises these wind farms.
But cop this, this is the ultimate kick in the guts from Canberra. A spokesman for the Environment Minister Greg Hunt said ‘The government had no plans to make further changes to the Renewable Energy Target’. In other words the Senate committee all party committee can get stuffed. In one hit the recommendation seemed to be ruled out. Shouldn’t be available if they’re operated in States which don’t comply with new National noise rules. Remember noise guidelines are a State issue and a number of States refuse to agree to a National noise standard at the last COAG Meeting. Believe me, this renewable energy stuff is money down the drain. The cost of it with subsidies is exorbitant and you’ll pay by your electricity bills or if you’re a business, via your energy costs. And without subsidies this whole industry is not viable.
Yes it’d be nice to have clean quiet cheap energy, a bulk supply of it – everyone would love that, but the reality is that it doesn’t exist. There are wind and solar generators being built all over the world and they only add a small amount to the overall power demand and this is all because of a problem with carbon dioxide. And this is all happening because there’s a Paris conference coming up. And you know the story about carbon dioxide the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.04% of all gases. 97% of of that 0.04 of a percent, is naturally occurring. You can’t effect it. Only 3% of it, 0.04 of a percent is caused by human activity. And we, Australia, are responsible for 1% of that 3%. What are we doing? Spending billions of dollars and Bill Shorten says well we’ll have 50% renewable energy, 50% by 2030. Utterly unaffordable, impossible to implement.
And Tony Abbott said when he became Prime Minister he wasn’t going to be chasing Holden up the road with a blank cheque. Why are we chasing foreign owned wind turbine companies up the road with a blank cheque?
Now the problem here is we’ve got ground-breaking research from Germany on low frequency infrasound which concludes that ‘exposure to infrasound below the range of hearing stimulates parts of the brain that warn of danger’. German research. Only a couple of months old. That human beings can ‘hear sounds lower than had been assumed and the mechanisms of sound perception are much more complex than previously thought’. Scientists in Japan have measured brain function and reported last year – it showed the brains of Japanese wind turbine workers could not achieve a relaxed state. In Tehran a study of 45 people, found that despite all the ‘good benefits’ of wind turbines, it can be stated, this technology has health risks. The German project leader, Christian Cox said, ‘it’s been agreed that infrasound is perceived by human beings and it represents an unknown hazard to human health’.
Well, the people who complain to me in droves are fools, idiots and ignored. Thank God they’re women because women don’t take no for an answer. I’ve got women here who have suffered. Sonia Trist is on the line – Sonia good morning.
Sonia Trist: Good morning Alan.
Alan Jones AO: So you are 620m wind farms from your kitchen window.
Sonia Trist: From my closest wind turbine, yes.
Alan Jones AO: And your Federal member is this Dan Tehan – who is nowhere to be seen.
Sonia Trist: Dan Tehan, nowhere to be seen.
Alan Jones AO: You’ve written to him, no answers.
Sonia Trist: Repeatedly, yes.
Alan Jones AO: Repeatedly. And this Pacific Hydro mob are at Cape Bridgewater, they’ve got 29 wind generators.
Sonia Trist: They certainly have, yes.
Alan Jones AO: And it impacts on you in disturbing and harmful ways.
Sonia Trist: Most certainly, most certainly, extremely disturbing.
Alan Jones AO: But you’re just a dumb complainant.
Sonia Trist: Well, I think one thing that you learn Alan, when you lived near these things for a while, If you can possibly, possibly keep breathing, you don’t give up. And you were saying, you sort of cast a shadow on the possibility of the Senator’s recommendations getting through, well I’ve learned to look at it a different way, I think they’ve opened the window to – they’ve revealed so much, that worked so hard, they’ve open the window to the next step that we have to take, this is a journey.
Alan Jones AO: Sonia, you said something very significant, she wrote to me Sonia, and she said, ‘subsequent generations won’t march in our memory – surrounded by fields of concrete, cabling, collapsed towers and fragmenting fibreglass blades we’ve created layers of industrial graffiti across rural Australia. What a monument to progress in a young country’.
Just hang on Sonia, I’ve got Jan Hetherington on the line. Jan Good morning.
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Jan Hetherington: Oh hello Alan.
Alan Jones AO: You’ve suffered a range of ailments, haven’t you?
Jan Hetherington: I have yes, I have.
Alan Jones AO: No one wants to listen to you.
Jan Hetherington: No, nobody wants to listen to me.
Alan Jones AO: You paid $10,000 for testing in your own home.
Jan Hetherington: I did, yes, yes.
Alan Jones AO: You wake up 4-5 times a night.
Jan Hetherington: Yes, yes.
Alan Jones AO: You wake up with vibrations in your body and your eyes are wobbly.
Jan Hetherington: Yes, yes.
Alan Jones AO: You said the impact on human physiology from low frequency noise has been known for over 50 years.
Jan Hetherington: That’s right.
Alan Jones AO: And you’ve reported to authorities all these studies.
Jan Hetherington: Yes.
Alan Jones AO: And that they have frequent noise and infrasound creates nausea. You’ve talked about vertigo-like symptoms.
Jan Hetherington: Yes.
Alan Jones AO: No one wants to know.
Jan Hetherington: No, nobody does.
Alan Jones AO: AGL are the people that you have been dealing with – they ignore you.
Jan Hetherington: Yes, they do. I send in many, many complaints and I …
Alan Jones AO: In fact you’ve written to them, you’ve written to all senators and all Federal MPs.
Jan Hetherington: That’s right. and I don’t hear from a lot of them. There’s only the, well only about 4 or 5 that are interested in it – and Senator Madigan and Leyonhjelm and Senator Back and what have you – they are interested. Our local member Dan Tehan, couldn’t ..
Alan Jones AO: Unbelievable this bloke, this bloke Tehan.
Jan Hetherington: He couldn’t care less.
Alan Jones AO: You said to said to me early this morning ‘you woke up at 4.35 with a very sharp ice pick stabbing on the top of my head.
Jan Hetherington: Oh yes.
Alan Jones AO: … behind my right ear.
Jan Hetherington: Yes
Alan Jones AO: ‘This was followed by vibration running through my body, then came the headache in my right temple and right eye. I just had to get out of bed. Unfortunately there’s no running away from this infrasound. Nothing can stop it’.
Jan Hetherington: That’s right, that’s right, it is terrible … oh it’s hard to talk about it because it’s so, it’s so real, it happens.
Alan Jones AO: I know Jan. I know. Jan has written to me and said ‘I am sick of living like this. This is not what I intended for my future. It was to live my life in peace on my farm and enjoy the natural beauty of the landscape, not to live in fear for my health and well-being. It’d be nice to think that just one of you reads this and thinks, yes there is a problem and decides to do the right thing by the residents suffering at the hands of the Macarthur wind factory’.
Jan Hetherington: That’s right, that’s right. I just wish somebody would do something. Sorry Alan.
Alan Jones AO: Jan, you hang on – we’re here. But just hang on there, ‘cos I’ve got Annie Gardner. Who’s, well this women is built of concrete and granite. Annie, good morning. You’ve written to everybody.
Annie Gardner: Good morning Alan, yes I do, and I keep doing it in the hope that one day somebody might do something.
Alan Jones AO: Including the ABC and now they no longer accept your emails.
Annie Gardner: Yes that’s been going on since the start of the year Alan. I have a group of journalists, probably about 20, on my complaint list and every time I send complaints to everybody, it bounces back undeliverable. But in actual fact, it’s not just those journalists. I tried someone in the ABC I’d met years ago, which wasn’t on this list, and it bounced back too. I’ve written to the Chairman of the ABC over five weeks ago I think, and still haven’t had any reply from my request.
Alan Jones AO: No, No answer, no answer from those members. And I have spoken to Annie before because this destroyed your ultra-fine merino wool growing enterprise – the sheep simply couldn’t produce in this environment. You’ve written to me to say ‘we suffer badly from infrasound emitted by the turbines in the form of headaches, severe nose pressure, excruciating ear pain, nausea, chest burning, just to mention a few. As a result from being hammered by infrasound, we’re unable to sleep at night. We’re forced to leave our home and property for at least 2 nights a week just to get some sleep’. I mean, how – you wrote that Annabel Crabb on the ABC described you on the Robyn Williams science show, you people who complain about health impacts are ‘dick brains’.
Annie Gardner: That’s correct, she did and I wrote to her, actually inviting her to come and visit us and realise that we’re not necessarily dick brains, we’re actually, some of us are quite intelligent people, if we weren’t, we would have lost our farms years ago because of, you know, unfortunate financial …
Alan Jones AO: But you can’t get local government, or anybody, politicians. And you’ve said and Jan says, and poor Jan can’t even talk about it. There are people who wake up in the early hours suffering from vibrations and dizziness caused by giant wind energy plants and Macarthur, the one you’re exposed to, is the largest of its kind in the Southern hemisphere.
Annie Gardner: That’s correct Alan.
Alan Jones AO: And a farmer, Ron Gelbart said he regularly had to leave his home to sleep in Hamilton. ‘Something is there and we can’t understand but we can not live with’. I mean everywhere, people are writing and telling these stories and Parliamentarians won’t listen.
Annie Gardner: No. That’s correct Alan, not many of them, except for the good Senators.
Alan Jones AO: Well David Leyonhjelm is but now we’ve got the statement by Greg Hunt’s spokesperson saying we’re not changing anything about the Renewable Energy Target. Just stay there Annie, a quick word, because we are beaten for time. Jan – just come back to Jan,
Jan Hetherington: Yes
Alan Jones AO: I just hope…it makes you just a bit better that we do care.
Jan Hetherington: Thank you, at least somebody does. And I’m sorry – I just get emotional.
Alan Jones AO: Don’t apologise. Don’t apologise. These people should be made to live in the circumstances you are enduring.
Jan Hetherington: Well we’ve invited so many people to come and stay with us but nobody will take the offer up.
Alan Jones AO: Invited them … no one comes, no one comes. Sonia, Just to say goodbye to you and keep in touch.
Sonia Trist: Alan – thank you very much.
Alan Jones AO: Keep in touch.
Sonia Trist: I certainly will.
Alan Jones AO: You let me know when you write letters to these people and they refuse to answer. You let me know.
Sonia Trist: I certainly will, and thanks for your work Alan, bye.
Alan Jones AO: Not at all, and Annie, hang in we talk everyday. This is disgraceful, we’ll get somewhere.
Annie Gardner: Thank you very much Alan for your help, we certainly appreciate it.
Alan Jones AO: Not at all. And we will be looking at this issue again tonight with Riccho and Jones, it’s an absolute national disgrace.
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That wonderful women like these are reduced to tears on national radio is nothing short of a complete disgrace; that they are left to plead to our political betters through the media, for an end to the misery that they – and hundreds of others like them – have been forced to endure at the hands of an industry that treats all and sundry with callous disregard, is a moral and political outrage.
Not content with that stand-out piece of radio journalism, Alan followed it up that night on Sky, with an equally brilliant effort. This time interviewing Senator David Leyonhjelm about the Senate’s recommendations; and bringing Annie Gardner into the Sky News studio for a reprise of her morning’s efforts on 2GB – only for Annie to excel as a voice for those set upon by an industry and its political backers – all of whom stand shorn of any trace of human empathy or compassion.
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STOP THESE THINGS 
Alan, the problem you and all those affected by these monstrosities is that the uber-government’s, UN, EU, the big environmentalists organization’s, the World Bank and other major financial & insurance institutions, and gravy-train ‘bought’ scientists are all “saving the world for future generations”. They have tunnel vision and nothing, repeat nothing, will divert them from that belief, no matter how much damage they do now to people or the environment. It’s all for a ‘greater cause’. The only way to overcome this is by overturning that mass ‘belief’, and undermining the vested interests many have. Fortunately, we have good honest & independent scientists, an active band of sceptics with the Internet at their disposal, plus a few good journalists and broadcasters such as yourself, Mark Steyn, Jo Nova, etc.
Now the beautiful world heritage listed Lord Howe Island is looking at installing two wind. Turbines. These will be about 500 metres from my house! What can I do?
Fight, using everything that appears in the Senate Recommendations.
Reblogged this on Fincher Trist.
I have known for a long time the three women profiled.
They are truly an inspiration for so many of us, whilst at the same time they are suffering very bad health impacts caused by noise pollution from industrial wind turbines. They work tirelessly to help and motivate others and to expose the corruption of the wind industry.
Many politicians have no morals, they pander to the lowest common denominator in society and are too easily conned by the wind industry and their cohorts.
Reblogged this on Mbafn's Blog and commented:
..and we want to put this things up around Mareeba?? What for? What’s in it for Us the people apart from power prices up, noise and visual pollution? Nothing! Just a bunch of suits with their snouts in the public purse!
Hello Australia. We’re fighting the fight here in Ontario, Canada too. To those women…”Good on ya”.
I’ve sent this article with the video to all who are responsible in Huron County and in the Ontario government for the siting of turbines such that they impose on and surround residential/recreational neighbourhoods or even productive farm homes. It was a long list of recipients/complicit players. I urged them to look at it NOW and to work together to make the necessary changes to the travesty of justice that is occurring here in Ontario as well. The parallels are stunning.
I’ve received one response so far and that was a ‘canned’ computer generated response.
Thanks for the powerful interview and article! We’re inspired by all of you!
Annie, Jan, and Sonia could be anyone’s wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt or friend. They are constituents of politicians and elected officials at every level of government who have failed to act to protect them from predictable harm. This is not just an outrage, it is abuse. Given that government authorities were first alerted to this problem in 2004 by Dr David Iser, this abuse can only be described as deliberate on the part of those many authorities who have been repeatedly advised of the problems who choose to ignore them, dismiss them or attribute them to something other than a direct result of exposure to excessive sound and vibration.
There are many responsible people with the power to act to help end this abuse, such as any politician currently in government, company director of a corporate entity owning wind power developments, or public health experts. Why is there such a conspiracy of silence from almost all these people and lack of action about this problem of excessive environmental noise and vibration, which numerous parliamentary inquiries have clear documented evidence of, and which the World Health Organisation has produced numerous reports about, since 1995.
These three are indeed remarkable and courageous women.
There are many many more women, and men, who are equally remarkable, all of whom together with their families are victims of what can only be described now as deliberate government sanctioned abuse.
Prominent, powerful, well remunerated and generally male acousticians working as paid consultants for powerful noise polluters in Australia have been known to refer to such severely “noise” affected women as “hysterical old women”. How dare they…
At a time in Australia when Domestic Violence and Childhood Abuse are receiving such long overdue public and government attention, why is the very real but largely hidden and unheard suffering of these women and their families and neighbours ignored by so many, including almost all journalists, with very few exceptions? Why are so many health practitioners reported by their patients to be so scared to put anything in writing or speak out publicly, even citing concerns about consequences for their own families if they do so?
Trials of CCTV at homes and the ability to record interactions with abusers on personal devices which can be rapidly activated by women about to be attacked as well as personal alarms have resulted in a marked decrease in attacks on vulnerable abused women. The only reason for this change is because the perpetrators know that court quality evidence of their behaviour will have been collected which will be used to hold them accountable for their criminal activity.
It is now time for the same principles and practices to apply to the transparent collection of full spectrum sound and vibration energy inside the homes of those adversely impacted by excessive sound and vibration from any industrial noise source, so that the perpetrators and enablers of the abuse of these rural residents can be held accountable, and so the abuse can stop.
The same serious health problems resulting from exposure to excessive levels of pulsing infrasound, low frequency noise, and vibration abound, whether the sound and vibration source is from machinery used in open cut coal mining, underground coal mine ventilation shafts, gas fired power stations, coal fired power stations, wind turbines, or CSG field compressors.
There is simply no excuse for this ongoing abuse, in particular the failure of the responsible authorities and noise polluters to act to protect sleep, health and well-being.
Sarah Laurie, Waubra Foundation CEO
Sarah, it’s worse than state sanctioned abuse – it’s state sanctioned TORTURE 😦 – there’s no other way to describe it.
Perhaps it is worthwhile writing to the idiots in power and asking them each, individually, if they sanction TORTURE? I can guess what their answers would be.
It’s an utterly disgraceful situation where convicted or suspected terrorists, who are not allowed to be tortured, have more human rights than law abiding people living in their own homes.
In England in 2005 a wind turbine was turned off during periods when shadow flicker became a problem and upset the prisoners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4424201.stm
Funny how people living in their own homes are not treated with equal compassion and respect.
The work Annie, Jan and Sonia are doing along with Alan and all the rest is wonderful.
I am amazed they still have to keep at it, what is wrong with people, why don’t they support the Inquiries Recommendations, after all what they are asking is for this industry to be held responsible, to be subjected to control as all others are, and for research to be conducted into reported health issues.
Why should this industry not be held to the highest environmental conditions, after all it is being installed in vast numbers across huge areas of regional Australia, they are bound to have an impact on the environment, how come the ‘Greenies’ are not supporting controlling of this industry – surely the rank and file members believe it should be and that any funds the Party receives should be sent back to ensure no conflict of interest occurs.
Why do so many MPs and others cry when they see people suffering because they cannot legally marry but ignore people who are suffering physical and mental harm from the invasion into their lives of an industry they have no chance of stopping and no one has control over.
When will our politicians focus on the real inadequacies and injustice within our nation? Is it all too hard for them that they would rather flap around like demented fools than address the crisis staring them in the face.
Talk of travel rorts – rorting is going on inside Parliament everyday when they don’t get down to real business and put their efforts into ensuring this nation reaches its full potential without harming the environment or peoples lives, all the while being paid from the public purse.
None of this nonsense would be occurring if it was not for misinformation peddled by ‘snake oil’ salesmen of a totally flawed technology designed only to siphon of billions of dollars from a gullible public.
The criminals involved in this are aided and abetted (and therefore equally liable) by a plethora of left wing, ignorant (but belligerent) journalists from Australia’s ABC and the now left wing press Fairfax Press.
Any Australian that wants to change this must insist they no longer have their taxes support our public broadcaster who is so smug, so insular and so poor in journalistic skills and ethics and operates in an atmosphere of total contempt for its charter that the words ‘truth and honesty’ to them actually mean ‘propaganda’.
It is now only the ‘commercial’ press that provides any facts on any matter that bears any resemblance to ‘reality’ — this is manifested by the 3 heroines featured in this post by the commercial broadcasters. To defeat the madness of public subsidies for wind farms you also must defeat the madness of ‘subsidies’ for the publicly funded media empire called the ABC.
The remarkable words of Kurt Vonnegut are so apt for BigWind.
“So why don’t you take a flying f$%^ at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying f$%^ at the moooooooooooon” !
It is time for Governments internationally to end Wind industry’s sustained abuse of neighbours around the world