The federal government should tear up its approval of a wind farm at Pilitika/Robbins Island after the company trying to build it admitted to breaching conditions.
ACEN Robbins Island’s recent annual compliance report shows it failed to prepare a legally required plan to monitor the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot.
Pilitika/Robbins Island is on the migratory flight path of the orange-bellied parrot, and a wind farm will be the final nail in its coffin.
Building this wind farm will destroy sites of Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural heritage, sites of geomorphological significance, and also jeopardise other native species, including the last disease-free population of Tasmanian devils.
It is the wrong place for a wind farm, and it should never have been approved, but now the government can right this wrong.
As stated by Vanessa Bleyer, Australian Greens Senator for Lutruwita/Tasmania:
“Barely a year after this Labor government approved a wind farm at Pilitika/Robbins Island, the proponent has failed to meet its legal obligations. This is serious.
“The big, foreign corporation behind the proposed wind farm obviously cares not for the laws of this nation, just like it obviously cares not for the irreplaceable natural and cultural wonders of Pilitika/Robbins Island.
“The government should stop appeasing big corporations and take action on the breach of conditions by revoking its approval for the wind farm. It should also prosecute the proponent for this serious statutory offence.
“Between the Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural heritage sites which will be destroyed and the last remaining orange-bellied parrots which will be pulverised by turbine blades, there are so many reasons this project should never have been approved.
“There is a right place and a wrong place for all developments, and this one is absolutely the wrong place.”
