Labor’s Bill Shorten Publicly Ridicules Joanne Kermond – a Victim of Pacific Hydro’s Non-Compliant Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm

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Australia’s Labor Party – once, justifiably, called the worker’s party – has long since ceased being a voice for anything other than the corrupt bosses of the unions that fund it – via the $billions siphoned through Union Super Funds, like IFM Investors. IFM Investors is the outfit that used to own Pacific Hydro, a wind power outfit that lost $700 million of mum and dad retirement savings in a single year:

Pacific Hydro’s Ponzi Scheme Implodes: Wind Power Outfit Loses $700 Million of Mum & Dad Retirement Savings

Pacific Hydro (for the time being) owns the Cape Bridgewater wind farm disaster, which has been driving its neighbours nuts and/or out of their homes, due to incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, for well over 6 years.

Among its victims are Brian and Joanne Kermond, and their family.

Which brings us back to Bill Shorten.

‘Electricity’ Bill is the bloke that’s pushing for a 50% renewable energy target, that would require a further 11,000 of these things to be carpeted all over Australia’s rural heartland:

Electricity Bill Shorten Signs Suicide Note marked ‘Labor’ & ‘the Australian Wind Industry’

Why?

Because outfits like Pacific Hydro have been set up – by their union superfund masters, like Shorten – to wallow in a $45 billion subsidy stream – which itself was created by Labor’s Greg Combet, who set up Members Equity Bank to provide funding for the whole stinking rort.

Australia’s Ministry of Truth – the ABC – runs a hard-green-left echo chamber called Q&A, on Monday nights. As part of their team’s efforts to foil the conservative Coalition – resurgent after the appointment of Malcolm Turnbull as its new PM – Q&A – in an usual move – turned over the entirety of last week’s program to Shorten. Shorten gave a confused and rambling diatribe about his “vision” for Australia.

Demonstrating the kind of ‘understanding’ of economics that you’d expect from an intellectual pygmy, Shorten explained how, by throwing everything behind building a wind powered future, Australia could regain its place as a manufacturing powerhouse. Patent nonsense; to be sure.

Never mind the fact that trying to rely upon a wholly weather dependent power source – as economic basket case, South Australia does – causes retail power prices to skyrocket, as peaking power generators cash in on spot prices of $13,800 per MWh (instead of $70), every time wind power output collapses on a routine, but unpredictable basis:

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh

Never mind that the entire cost of the $45billion in subsidies – that will go to the wind industry over the life of the LRET – will all be added to Australian retail power bills, crushing households and businesses alike:

Wind Power Fraud Finally Exposed: Senator John Madigan Details LRET’s Astronomical 45 Billion Dollar Cost to Power Consumers

Now, with Bill Shorten’s lack of wit, when it comes to economics – and his team’s obvious financial interests in keeping the wind industry rort alive for as long as possible – in mind, take a look at this little extract from Q&A, where Jo Kermond puts a perfectly fair and reasonable question to Bill:

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Hmmm….

Bill mentions Australia’s farmers who, he apparently believes, are just dying to host thousands of these things. He may just have overlooked the Gares – South Australian farmers who have pocketed over $1 million for hosting 19, 2.1MW Suzlon S88s – and who told the Australian Senate that it was the worst decision of their lives:

SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

Nor could Bill have had to mind the case of Hamish and Anna Officer – turbine hosts at AGL’s non-compliant Macarthur disaster – who, having completely destroyed their community, pocketed the loot; and – with all the moral fibre of Judas Iscariot – bolted to a $multi-million ‘retreat’; over 30km from the scene of the crime; and nowhere near any wind farms – actual or planned:

Macarthur Turbine Hosts Destroy Community & Bolt as Hammering the Wind Industry becomes the “New Black”

The first thing Jo Kermond got absolutely right is that the ABC runs – and ONLY runs positive drivel about wind farms. When news of Steven Cooper’s ground breaking noise study at Cape Bridgewater broke, ABC’s Media Watch tried to pull a complete hatchet job on it:

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

… in which it trotted out a former tobacco advertising guru, relying on him as a wind farm noise and health ‘expert’. Yep, that’s the very same ‘chap’ that was caught out lying about Dr Sarah Laurie’s professional status; who the Australian Senate found to have not one single, relevant qualification on the topic in issue; and whose ‘work’, aimed at backing his ‘nocebo’ theory, lacked any factual or scientific credibility:

Wind Industry’s Propaganda King – Simon Chapman Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for False & Malicious Taunts

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Now, there’s a word that’s used to describe people like Bill Shorten. Lads, with a few beers under their belt, tend to drop a few, at an increasing rate as the night wears on. It’s not often used around the ladies; and other genteel types tend to cringe when one pops up in conversation. So, instead, we’ll substitute the only apt description of Bill Shorten with the word “chap”.

Here was a woman standing up in an audience of several hundred people, during a live broadcast on national television – to an audience of several hundred thousand – asking one of our so-called ‘political betters’ for a straight answer, on a topic of obvious importance to her, and her family; among many others.

Instead of listening to what she had to say, this chap heard only what he wanted to hear; and dismissed the rest.

To reduce this woman’s suffering to a matter involving mere “concerns”, requires the temerity of a very special kind of chap, indeed. To go on and try to explain her experience (one he’s never had), as the consequence of being a “sceptic of wind farms”, deserves the ‘gold medal’, that’s reserved for the greatest chaps, of all.

What Jo Kermond was talking about, were her common law and human rights: namely, the right to live in, sleep in and otherwise enjoy her family home, free from unlawful interference from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

To put this champion little chap’s conduct in context, here’s a taste of what Jo Kermond and her neighbours have had to put up with for over six years:

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And here’s Jo and her husband Brian – who worked to build the wind farm – talking about some of what they’ve had to suffer at the hands of Pacific Hydro:

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Jo also delivered a heart-rending submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud. Here’s a very powerful extract from it.

Joanne Kermond Submission 211:

In 2008 the wind farm at Cape Bridgewater was complete and commissioned. Our life as a family of four was quite normal for a rural setting. My husband, I and our two sons all enjoying the coastal, isolated location and freedom of life on the land.

We were keen to spend our spare time at home enjoying the space, peace and natural setting of our home of seventeen years. Our two sons at secondary school, ages fourteen and sixteen, enjoying friends, family, soccer, surfing, bike riding , camping and any outdoor activity. We were keen to share this lifestyle choice with as many friends and family who would visit.

We had developed a hobby farm with various animals including goats, cats, dogs and fowl.

We spent many hours working the land and garden, building and maintaining our renovated home.

It had been my family home for five generations being built in the mid 1800’s.

We had put our savings into our home to build a future for ourselves and our sons to have security.

My husband worked long hours on our home and I also committed many hours into restoring and maintaining our dream.

In 2008/2009 I had enrolled in courses at a local agency to expand my employment potentials. This should have been a simple task but I found it challenging to complete my study at home and was becoming fatigued through lack of sleep for no apparent reason.

Our family dog, an English/Australian terrier was four years of age and began to change his behaviour including scratching at the house windows/doors, anxious behaviour, loss of muscle in skull and jaw followed by all body muscle deterioration. He was developing a mass of fluid behind his ears, and was scratching at his ears and body. He suffered hair loss, became depressed looking, and lacked energy to greet us when we returned home from outings. His health continued to deteriorate over the next few months despite regular communication and visits to the local veterinary clinic.

We were eventually referred to a senior veterinarian at the Werribee Melbourne University Veterinary Centre who performed more extensive tests and concluded that our dog “Skruffy” was enduring a severe form of environmental stress and there was no physiological diagnosis to determine a condition or other results. He died several weeks after to our extreme distress in late 2009.

To this day we are so upset we did not know to remove him from the toxic and painful emissions of the nearby wind facility. Ironically he did appear to be relieved or happy when we took him on outings to the local beach etc. not realising it was the distancing between him and the wind facility that was the main solution. He also developed travel sickness and was unstable on his feet in the latter months.

Our boys were suffering varied symptoms which affected their daily lifestyle and activities, they lost energy and enthusiasm for life as did my husband and I. We found ourselves struggling to get to school and work or leisure/social engagements.

After numerous health complaints and visits to doctors and specialists we were informed of some information from doctors and citizens throughout Australia and the world correlating wind turbines and similar machines to the very symptoms we were suffering on a daily basis whilst residing near the wind facility. These symptoms included headaches, nausea, fatigue, sleep deprivation, dizziness, loss of concentration and cognitive skills, heart palpitations, fluctuations in blood pressure with no correlation, depression, head and ear pressure increasing to an unbearable level ,cramping pain in limbs, vision impairment, and nerve complaints.

These symptoms would all decrease after we had left the wind farm zone for a period of time. This was more confirmation of the mounting evidence that it was the wind facility causing our health issues. There were more health complications which led us to attend specialists, one of which mentioned he had knowledge of the type of adverse effects from industry we were experiencing. He advised we leave until this issue is resolved. We had a trip to Sydney for two weeks and returned in better condition even though it had been busy and otherwise tiring. Almost instantly we were feeling the cluster of symptoms we had left home with. We spent the next year packing an overnight bag and escaping to stay with friends and family every other day. This was humiliating and frustrating for us all, as we were in shock as to leaving our home and security.

It was also difficult and disruptive to our boys schooling being in their final VCE years in their initial years of being homeless. They have not been able to return to a family home to this day despite our best efforts and intention. As a mother this has and still does give me great pain to recall their suffering and sacrifice. Also as a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin and friend I have struggled to meet my commitments and relations to these important others. Many still do not understand the complexity of our suffering and sense of our helpless situation. It feels like our identity has been stolen as well.

We have endured the constant exposure to the environment of the wind facility whilst under the denial of the wind facility operator, Pacific Hydro, and now struggle to return for any time without severe consequences to our health. We have a heightened sensitivity to the area around the wind facility and any others in the local area, and we feel strongly that we cannot co-exist in the district of Portland and Cape Bridgewater without further health consequences.

Since 2009 we have been communicating with local council, The Glenelg Shire, and the wind company, Pacific Hydro. In council we are well known to the councillors, planning and environmental health. All sectors have denied any responsibility, stating it is the state government who issued the permit and both state and federal governments are a law unto themselves.

We do believe the local council are equally responsible for the location, planning and design of the wind farms and the lack of duty of care to their ratepayers who only lose from their rezoning, property devaluation, and loss of quality of life.

The wind company had a standard response to all our complaints: “We are compliant to the standards” and when asked why they have not tested on our property after several reports of issues they duly replied “we do not legally have to”.

In May 2014, after a year of negotiating with Pacific Hydro, testing by Acoustician Steven Cooper began at our vacated home at Cape Bridgewater. We would visit daily when possible over the next eight weeks to record our experiences of noise, vibration, sensation and other problems or experiences.

This was an extremely difficult time for us as we had not endured the close proximity to the wind facility for this amount of time since leaving years earlier. We needed to stay in the general area as it was a strain to travel far after the impacts of the wind facility each visit. We were advised to minimise our time at the wind farm zones, but felt strongly we needed to commit to reveal this tragic health hazard to the world. I felt many adverse symptoms during this exposure and was fatigued on a constant basis.

In the last few weeks of the testing period I began to notice more constant fluctuations in my blood pressure. I would wake each morning feeling exhausted.

On 4th July I awoke at a house 2 kilometres from the wind facility and walked a short distance before I experienced numbness in my left side and loss of vision in my left eye. Upon nearing my husband I attempted to speak, but could only say a few words. My husband took me in to Portland Hospital and my medical clinic where I was diagnosed as having a mini-stroke. I left the Portland district a few days after for an eight week period.

In this time I returned to Cape Bridgewater only by necessity every two weeks and experienced eye migraines and elevated blood pressure problems again. I have since been diagnosed with heart issues which may correlate with the Vibro-acoustic disease and studies identified by physicians such as Mariana Alves-Pereira in Portugal, and in relation to the studies done by NASA in the 1980’s.

When I leave the district of the Portland Wind Project I feel a lift of pressure and my heart even settles. We sleep well and can function more productively in our lives. It is like a cloud is lifted and the symptoms only return if we are exposed to any of the emissions which are similar to the wind farm power plant. This isolates us from the society which requires our interaction with these noises, electrical fields, radiation and the like.

We remain in a refugee status moving from one shelter to the next and our only option was to stay in a bus or caravan most of the previous twelve months. We found a suitable place of convenience in Portland in December 2014 but now the last stage of the Portland Wind Project is now complete we will be forced to relocate yet again as there are nine turbines due south of our existing temporary home. I have been referred to several psychologists and social workers in this period of wind turbine trauma. I have reported to doctors and all professionals of the unusual nature of our lives as Australian citizens.

The Environmental Protection Agency has not responded to our complaints. We have exhausted every avenue possible to resolve this issue. Every Member of Parliament or government agency/department we have access to, have been notified of our unjust situation with little or no response. State and Federal politicians Denis Napthine and Dan Tehan are two we have visited several times to help us. This also included the department of planning and community development for Victoria, who visited our home and were duly concerned. He was moved to another role after reporting his findings to his supervisors we believe.

Our basic human rights as stated by the World Health Organisation have been violated. Yet we still suffer and do not have another option at this point whilst our home is vacant, deteriorating, and we are being forced to pay rates and other expenses for the privilege of owning a piece of untenable property in an industrial area.

Many others have left or relocated without declaring publicly their issues and others were and are simply not aware why they have had symptoms of ill health. As the only practical mode of selling and relocating is to remain silent about the adverse effects of the neighbouring power plant, this has become and is still the trend.

Our home is our greatest asset and if we lose money on this we struggle as a society. I believe many properties around the wind turbine zone have become unsaleable as this would not be a desired lifestyle choice for the purchaser as we have argued to local council and contracted land valuers. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone listening.
Joanne Kermond, Submission 211

Joanne’s Submission to the Senate Inquiry is available here: sub211_Joanne_Kermond.

Brian Kermond’s is available here: sub204_Kermond.

And their son, Bradley’s very moving submission is available here: sub219_Kermond.

What Bradley Kermond has to say in his submission is gut-wrenching – read it, and we guarantee that all but real ‘chaps’ will weep – he concludes:

I think the biggest toll this has had on my life is the mental/emotional effect this whole situation has brought forth. I’ve slowly watched this battle eat away at my parent’s bodies, minds and spirits. Mum and dad put so much of their happiness, time, strength, effort, and money into our home at Cape Bridgewater. But when something comes along like a thief in the night and steals all of that joy away from you, you have no rock to stand on. I believe there is a nature in every man to feel like a failure when you can’t provide for your family any longer. I’ve seen this very nature destroy nearly every peace that was once in my father. There have been times of great anxiety when we have all not known where we were going to lay our heads at night. There have been times where I have had to be the strong one when my father and mother couldn’t cope. The youngest child, holding up the whole family at one point in time. It’s a hard and confusing time for a teenager to go through. I would have compassion on anyone that has or still is going through that sort of trauma.

I ask you, the reader to have compassion on our family, and the many families across Australia, to help give our lives back, to give my mum and dad a hope to live for and to bring an end to this dehumanisation.

Proverbs 31:8-10 New International Version (NIV)

8 – Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

9 – Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

May God open your ears, eyes and heart to the things more important.
Bradley Kermond.

“Compassion” doesn’t form part of the vocabulary of complete and utter ‘chaps’, like Shorten; nor does “empathy” or “insight”.

In her submission, Jo speaks with a mixture of anger and anguish, at the callous indifference shown by Pacific Hydro to her and her family’s completely unnecessary suffering.

What Jo did not know at the time she penned her submission to the Senate, was that Pacific Hydro has conspired with its pet acoustic consultants to produce fabricated noise reports, purporting to show that the wind farm is operating in compliance with the noise conditions of its planning permit; when, in fact, it has been operating in breach of those conditions ever since its turbines began spinning, almost 7 years ago.

What’s gone on at Cape Bridgewater is ‘criminal’, in every sense of the word. Pacific Hydro has pocketed tens of $millions worth of renewable energy certificates, to which it has absolutely NO entitlement; and it continues to do so:

Pacific Hydro & Acciona’s Acoustic ‘Consultant’ Fakes ‘Compliance’ Reports for Non-Compliant Wind Farms

STT hears that, thankfully, there are a number of those striding the Halls of Power in Canberra, with slightly more grace and empathy than chaps like Bill Shorten; and they’re ready to take serious action.

Bill’s attack on Joanne Kermond – a direct victim of Pacific Hydro’s criminal misconduct – seems, somehow, even more monstrous – in the light of the Labor Party’s direct financial interest in Pacific Hydro’s “success”; hinging, as it does, on entirely fabricated noise ‘compliance’ reports.

Now, with all those facts in mind, go back and watch our little snippet from Q&A. Cringe again as the audience applauds the response from one of Australia’s most monstrous ‘chaps’.