There is a particular kind of political stupidity that is not malicious, just catastrophically incurious. The kind where a person is so focused on the noise immediately in front of them that they fail to notice they are about to drive off a cliff, and take several thousand people with them.
That is the most charitable interpretation of what the NSW Nationals and Liberals served up in Sydney on Wednesday.
Let us set the scene. The federal government has just axed Inland Rail, a project that would have been genuinely transformative for communities on the New England’s western flank — jobs, freight cost reductions, economic diversification in towns that have been waiting decades for infrastructure investment of that scale. Gone.
All of the region’s mayors are in Canberra for the major Australian Local Government Association conference with all kinds of meetings and hearings, desperately making the case that we need and want Inland Rail. And funding. And certainty.
And out of left field, with no consultation or even the littlest heads up, the state opposition has announced it would cancel the transmission line that makes the New England Renewable Energy Zone function, effectively stranding a project that is the single largest economic development opportunity this region has seen in a generation.
Two massive infrastructure projects. One on the west of the New England. One right in the middle. Both massively transformative to the wealth and opportunity for the region. One gone, the other threatened, in a matter of weeks.
Seriously? WTF. Did the New England walk under a ladder or something?
The damage is already done
The Coalition may not win government in March. Whether Kellie Sloane has a snowflake’s chance in a Moree summer’s day of forming a government is genuinely uncertain. But that is not the point.
The point is that the announcement has already done its damage. Investors making decisions about complex, long-lead energy projects do not ignore opposition policy platforms because the opposition is behind in the polls.
Uncertainty is corrosive. It freezes decisions. It pushes capital elsewhere. The mere fact of this debate — loudly conducted, poorly researched, and amplified across the national media — is enough to introduce exactly the kind of doubt that developers, financiers, and insurers do not forgive.
The New England REZ does not need to be cancelled to be mortally wounded. It just needs enough people wondering whether it will be.
If they persist with this nonsense and campaign on it through to March they will do more and more damage every single day. They only way to have any hope is to literally walk it back – apologise, retract, assure that the transmission line and by extension the New England REZ will absolutely still proceed under a Sloane Singh Coalition Government.
Are they smart enough to do that? Doubtful. They weren’t smart enough to check the facts before announcing the policy.
The fact is the Coalition announcement yesterday did as much damage as the Labor federal budget. A plague on both their houses but we’re the only ones getting sick.
Walcha does not get a veto
Let me be direct about one important thing.
Walcha does not get to hold the rest of the New England REZ hostage.
They do not get to do is to claim to speak for all of us, and assert that New England doesn’t want this like it’s undeniable fact. They don’t get to steal from all of us the opportunity that the REZ presents.
They absolutely can raise their concerns. They can do their petition. If they want to transmission line moved or altered, there’s an engagement process they can engage in.
They do not get to just decide what the opinion of the New England is and fabricate that the entire New England REZ has lost community support — when it manifestly has not.
New Englanders are perfectly capable of having hard, complex, honest conversations about difficult things. We do it all the time.
Walcha’s various agitators need to grow up, and return to having an honest and respectful conversation with the rest of the region. We deserve that much, and it is not an unreasonable thing to ask of any neighbour.
I would imagine that most New Englanders would absolutely support their repeated calls that having wind towers on the border of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is not ok, and share their concerns about the cumulative impact should all of the proposals go ahead.
But they also need to get out of their misinformation bubble and back to some facts.
The vast majority of the proposals will not make it past EIS stage. It is unfortunate that there isn’t an early kill switch in the process where the community can be spared the very damaging debate around various proposals. If there was, Winterbourne is a prime candidate of a project that should have been nuked on sight, and the wonderful community of Walcha might be recognisable, rather than traumatised.
The reports that they refer to as “horrifying” (or whatever other hyperbolic phrase they’d like today) are part of the process, identifying what is required for the various proposals, not a decision of what will be taken or what will be done. You have to identify the need before you can decide what to do about it. The cumulative impact study has not been done yet. Those claiming otherwise need to stop.
Respectful debate is good. Informed debate is good. But those fuelling fears and spreading misinformation need to stop.
And whomever made up that Squadron had pulled out of the REZ, and fed that misinformation to the woman that wants to be Premier? Seriously needs to take a hard look at themselves.
Clearly, Kellie Sloane and her staff that allowed her to say something so fundamentally untrue about the commercial decisions of a large company, while announcing a frankly stupid and clearly uninformed election commitment, also need to do some reflecting.
Brendan Moylan needs to answer for this
The member for Northern Tablelands represents every local government area affected by the New England REZ. Every single one. His electorate is not Walcha. It is the entire New England REZ footprint, and a bit more.
Not one of the three councils that responded to questions on Wednesday had been consulted (all 5 were emailed, I honestly didn’t expect a response given they’re all in Canberra, but such was the strong response the answers were quick).
All of the Councils have the REZ and the economic benefit it brings hard baked into their budgets and plans. The community benefit funds are already revitalising and supporting everything from sporting teams to community volunteers.
I understand that the organised opposition around Walcha is vocal, energetic, and capable of generating significant political pressure. And I understand that managing that kind of constituent pressure is genuinely difficult, for any politician, and that kind of noise is hard for anyone to ignore or take with a grain of salt. Some of the objections to specific wind projects are absolutely legitimate and deserve to be heard.
But there is no excuse — none — for a state member not to see the whole board. Not to know what his councils are planning. Not to be in regular enough conversation with his mayors that he would understand, before going anywhere near a policy announcement of this magnitude, what it would do to the communities he was elected to represent, and that it would cause significant distress and concern in the communities he is supposed to represent.
This is fundamental. This is Brendan Moylan sucking at his job in the most basic way.
“Vote for me and we promise to destroy the local economy” is certainly an interesting pitch.
Inland Rail to the west, New England REZ to the east, and we’re stuck with a politician not up to the fight.
Let’s hope there’s a better option on the ballot come March.
End rant.
Dr RK (Kath) Crosby is the CEO of research and strategy company KORE CSR, former strategist for the Australian Democrats, and holds a PhD in political behaviour. She is also a well known migraine and health advocate, and the Publisher of New England Times and North Coast Times.
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