Interview with Chris O'Keefe, 2GB

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Let’s get to the bottom of this offshore wind farm plan off the coast of Port Stephens. Energy Minister Chris Bowen is on the line. Minister, thanks for your time.

CHRIS BOWEN: Pleasure, Chris. G’day.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: So, when I say this, you have a chunk of ocean as big as Greater London, potentially hundreds or thousands of wind turbines, each of them twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It feels a little over the top.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, Chris, let’s go through the facts here – and thanks for having us on to explain it. We are moving to an offshore wind industry in Australia. It’s very important for our energy needs and will create a lot of jobs in places like Newcastle as well and provide renewable energy for a lot of homes and a lot of industry, particularly in the Hunter region, potentially the Tomago smelter. But we do it very carefully, so we consult.

Now, in the Hunter in February I began 65 days of consultation with the local community, had almost 2,000 submissions in with lots of issues raised. We went through those submissions, took into account concerns and made changes. That’s how the process should work. It’s a real consultation. So while I went out with an area to consult on of 2,810 square kilometres, the area that I eventually declared was reduced by about a third – about 1,800 square kilometres – and a lot further off the shore, a lot further off the coast to take into account those very genuine community concerns. So we’re getting the balance right. We’re creating lots of energy, lots of jobs for Newcastle and the Hunter. But also listening to the community concerns as well.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: But, so you’re still going to have a chunk of ocean as big as Greater London, potentially hundreds or thousands of wind turbines, each of them twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, there will be wind farms, but let’s go through the process. This is stage 1 of the process. So, again, lots of consultation –
 
CHRIS O’KEEFE: But nothing about that makes you think, “Geez, that’s a bit over the top”?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, we do need to generate lots of renewable energy for the Hunter and the rest of Australia as well. But let’s go through the process. This is stage 1, if you like, of the process of three steps. So I’ve declared the zone after all that community consultation a lot further off the coast than a lot of people think.

I’ve seen one of the petitions that’s going around that, which respect, has some facts wrong – can come back to that. Stage 2 is expressions of interest which actually open today, so now wind farm companies can put in their bids. Not every – not all the wind zone will have wind turbines on it. They’ll have to put in bids to show us how much energy they’ll create, how many jobs they’ll create, how they’ll deal with whale migration, for example, and other issues, what their local content plans are, how many locals they’re employ, what local goods and services they’ll use. We’ll consider those bids and pick the best ones for Australia and for the Hunter.

And then thirdly they’ll have to go through environmental approvals. So, you know, they’ll have to meet all the standards of the various environmental acts to show what they’re doing to manage the environment. So this is a quite strict and labourious three-stage process, and we’re at stage 1.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Sixty-five days of this community consultation process. Many of the people in and around Port Stephens said they didn’t even know it was on. Is 65 days really long enough?

CHRIS BOWEN: Sixty-five days is a long consultation process –

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Two months?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah. And we had almost 2,000 submissions, around 8 per cent of those were from Port Stephens. So clearly people did know, or, you know, enough people knew to put in submissions. Around 8 per cent of our 2,000 submissions were from that area. And we listened. So the original proposal was 10 kilometres offshore. The closest point it is, is 24 kilometres off the coast now, and off Port Stephens actually further out than that, closer to 40 kilometres. And it’s 35 kilometres in the south of the zone where I had feedback from Norah Head where it’s actually now 50 kilometres from Norah Head.

So we go through those issues – you know, 50 kilometres is a long way offshore. We asked people what they think.

I also had submissions, Chris, to be clear with you, saying this area should be bigger, “We want more offshore wind in Newcastle. We want to create more jobs.” You know, I’ve got to weigh all this up. I had people arguing that to say let’s do more. I think we’ve got the balance pretty right. I understand it’s a big change for Australia.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: It’s a massive change.

CHRIS BOWEN: We’re the world’s largest island and the rest of the world has offshore wind or is moving to it. We’re pretty late to it. And when you consider if you go to Europe you see how much offshore wind there is –

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Sure, but it’s a big deal, right? It is a really, really big deal.

Well, let’s just walk back from the process for a second. Are you worried about what this will do to marine environment? Because there’s a German climate and coastal research institute that said that extensive expansion of offshore wind farms have significant impact on the structuring of marine coastal ecosystems.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, that’s why we work through it so carefully. So, for example, some of the submissions asked me to consider the impact on a bird called the Gould’s petrel, and a place called the Shelf Rocky Reef. I listened to that and I excluded the areas around there. So that’s even at stage 1. You know, we people raise that and say there’s a bird called the Gould’s petrel and the Shelf Rocky Reef that needs protection, I think fair enough. So we’ve excluded that area.

Then, secondly, any expression of interest will have to show how they’ll deal with marine life. And then there’s environmental approvals. But, Chris, I mean, take examples – marine life and whales and fishing co-exist in various ways around the world with offshore wind. You know, some people think whales can’t exist with offshore wind. Well, whales exist now with cargo ships and with oil rigs and with gas rigs and with offshore wind around the world. Still that doesn’t mean you can just put it anywhere; it does mean properly planned they can co-exist.

One of the things I look at – you haven’t raised it but it is a legitimate issue – is fishing. When the firms put in their expressions of interest they’ve got to show me how they can best co-exist with existing fishing. There is – it’s not automatic but it’s also not automatic that they can’t co-exist. There are issues that need to be worked through. But the ocean is there to be shared and these are issues that we take into account.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Can I ask, if you hop in your fishing boat and you’re heading off Port Stephens and you head out and you head out and you’re going, “You know what’s a really good spot? That beautiful big wind turbine farm that’s double the size of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Can’t wait to cast off a line next to that.”

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, again, there are rules around where you can fish around offshore wind. But it varies. Floating is different to fixed, and, Chris, I can tell you – a lot of people will tell you actually fish life is attracted to wind turbines around the world.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Come on.

CHRIS BOWEN: It’s true. It’s true, mate. It’s true. It’s true.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Who’s telling you that?

CHRIS BOWEN: So, that’s what the evidence shows. Now I understand not everyone is going to love it, but what we do is we take into account all these issues. We consult very carefully. I mean, we letterbox-dropped. It was on the news, 65 days open for consultation, and we made changes. As I said, I’ve seen today a petition on change.org that says these things will be 10 kilometres offshore. It’s just not true. It’s just not true, mate.

The closest is 24, 50 kilometres off Norah Head, much more than that off Port Stephens – much more than 10 kilometres off Port Stephens. So, you know, let’s just base it on the facts. Let’s go through it step by step, and there is a long way to go yet with expressions of interest and environmental approvals.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Quickly, when do you want these things generating power?

CHRIS BOWEN: I think we’re looking at close to 2030, that sort of 2028, 2029.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: So five years?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, realistically it’s going to take that long.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: All right. And just on the wind turbines themselves, what’s the plan for the end of life? Because I think they last around 20 years?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah. Well, they can last longer than that. But, you know, we’ve got studies which show 85 to 95 per cent of the wind turbine will not hit landfill; it can either be repurposed or recycled. There’s some complexities. The actual metal inside the wind turbine can be recycled. There’s coating on the outside which is – you know, we need to remove, which is the complexity. But 85 to 95 per cent of it will not hit landfill. I understand that’s a concern some people have. Some people use it as an excuse against renewables. Other people have genuine concerns. Those people with genuine concerns, whether it’s solar panels or wind turbines, I can tell you – or batteries, for that matter, the technology for recycling is improving every day.

Can you imagine in the 1920s, mate, people saying, “Oh, we’d better not move from horses and carts to cars because, you know, those cars are going to fill up landfill”? Well, we didn’t do that; we dealt with that.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: You can still have the conversation. Swedish company Vattenfall, they pulled the pin on a 1.4 gigawatt project over in the UK because simply too expensive to build. Are you concerned about that here?

CHRIS BOWEN: The cost of everything is going up. I mean, I think your listeners understand that. Around the world the cost of building anything is going up with supply chain constraints right around the world. And because the rest of the world is doing this offshore wind as well, of course, there’s strong demand for the product. So therefore the cost is going up.

But I’ve got to tell you, there is huge interest in Australia from the offshore wind farms, wind companies. They want to work in Australia. They see Australia as an absolute opportunity to create jobs, to create energy. These things, because they do – because it is windy off our shore and it’s windy at night and it tends to be windy when it’s not windy onshore, they’re very important for our grid. But also because it is very windy and they work hard, these turbines, they need a lot of maintenance, that means a lot of maintenance workers jobs created, ships to take the maintenance workers out, a lot of jobs for Newcastle port. So pretty good news for the regions.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: But will the federal government have to subsidise these companies to come out here and do this?

CHRIS BOWEN: No. No, no, we’re not

CHRIS O’KEEFE: So can I take that as read – there will not be a federal government subsidy from the Australian taxpayer to build these wind turbines?

CHRIS BOWEN: The firms are looking at coming and doing it on their own bat at their own cost, and they don’t need a federal subsidy. No.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Minister Bowen, appreciate your time.

CHRIS BOWEN: Great pleasure, Chris. Good on you.