YOUR SAY – LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Compensate the shire
In September 2016 I wrote to your paper regarding the minute monies donated to the Upper Lachlan Shire by some wind farm developers. I referred to the practice as ‘crumbs to the peasants’. Each turbine will give its owner an annual income of over $1.5 million, money paid in various ways by Australians, RET subsidy, and green contracts. It is costing Australians over $2 billion per annum in the greatest scam since the GFC. The multinational developer will give us back 0.15 per cent and take 99.85 per cent back to Spain, China etc.
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In the UK, Government policy requires a minimum payment to each community by windfarm developers of $25,000 per 3 megawatt turbine in that community: 10 times our ‘gift’. I believe that we should receive 5 per cent of the turbine income, $75,000 per turbine per year. This could see the council’s annual income almost double and enable a major upgrade of the deteriorating infrastructure of the shire.
At the September 2016 council polling booth, I was assured of support by all but two prospective councillors. When the matter was raised in council by the new councillors the motion was disallowed and the council sworn to secrecy. A closed workshop followed in January. Nothing has happened in a year. Malcolm Barlow and I have written and phoned [Pru] Goward for 10 months seeking a meeting with the Minister for Planning, all to no avail.
From another source I obtained a new policy paper from the Valuer General’s office, which considers applying an industrial rate to hosts of wind farms. This is based on sales of similar farms or on the return to the owners from the wind farm lease. This is a very impractical approach and would yield only a fraction of what is received by UK councils from wind farms.
Upper Lachlan Shire is being desecrated by the largest concentration of wind farms in NSW. The Shire must be compensated. Pru Goward is our State MP. She was Minister for Planning and did nothing to help us. Angus Taylor is our Federal member. He has opposed wind farms on economic grounds, but has been ineffective.