By Jeanine Bird
Mega $2bn Pottinger wind project to devastate Riverina
Most local residents know absolutely nothing about the Ruin-a-Bulls that are intent on coming to town to ruin their landscape and jack up their power-bills yet again under the guise of Renew-a-Bull energy. It’s not well advertised, they won’t hold public meetings where all issues can be aired. Oh no, it’s Secret Energy Business!! They hold box-ticking “one-on-one” meetings where you have to book – assuming you even knew about it to book!
At the recent Yanco BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) meeting, in a truly communistic effort to keep the Secret Energy Business secret, no-one from the general public was allowed in, unless you had a one-on-one, 10 minute segment booked. Some of us asked locals passing by, none of them knew about it, letalone what BESS stood for. I argued there that the process should be to letterbox the whole LGA and then hold a truly Public Meeting in a large venue so everyone could hear all arguments, not just the sanitized government line. But that won’t do – it’s Secret Energy Business!
Their rules were NO audience for this meeting (previously allowed). You couldn’t even hear the developers give their version, although part-way through they did allow the few speakers there in to hear others. NO phone in objections (previously allowed), and NO experts residing elsewhere to zoom in with their information (previously allowed). NO live broadcast, as they had previously done. JUST the promise of a TRANSCRIPT – “so nobody knows nothing” in the true spirit of the Nazi Secret Service, it was Secret Energy Business. That was 17/9/25, and by 2/10/25, it had been approved.
As it is all over Australia, despite a majority of objections again and again the Office of the “Independent” Planning Commission (IPCN) have ignored them in favour of the developers. They also recently approved the $2bn Pottinger Wind “Farm” [read Bird Blender industrial complex] at Hay, NSW. There is Net Zero “farming” taking place at these “farms” unless you call harvesting the blended up birds, “farming”.
These Ruin-a-Bull energy projects are approved one by one, giving no consideration to the cumulative effect of them, stacked back to back across the landscape. Interestingly, in Cairns Qld today (6/10/25) a “truth map” was launched depicting the $1.38 trillion Renew-a-Bull industrialisation of Australia. Take a bit of time to load the data on your biggest screen, and share the truth around.
I made the following presentation to the Pottinger IPCN meeting at Hay, and a similar one to the Yanco BESS hearing, along with many other presenters, all apparently “conspiracy theorists” albeit with demonstrable and substantiated “mis-information”, and all totally ignored in the end, because we don’t want to stop the Secret Energy Business steamroller coming to a town near you.
SUBMISSIONS LIKE THIS (mine) IGNORED:
Living a couple of hours east of Hay, we’re very concerned about the individual and cumulative environmental, social and economic impacts in our larger region from the Barooban Pottinger Wind Farm. The renewabull rush has shown a lack of oversight in conditions being put on energy companies to take responsibility for the future fallout.
What hasn’t been talked about all along is the fact we’re following United Nations dictates to comply with Net Zero. What we’re NOT told is the top echelon of large corporates sit at the table with the UN. Unelected in Australia, they operate hand in hand with the UN and financiers to get control of national energy grids globally. Larger than national governments, they’re often one and the same at the top.
We have been pushed by the UN into Deregulation, Privatization, Trade Liberalisation, and the Commodification of our entities such as energy, water, and the separation of the profitable sections from the unprofitable, like poles and wires, leading to structural adjustment. Mug taxpayers then pick up the bill for the “unprofitable” sectors, when in fact, they should NEVER have been “unbundled”, as they work together for the BENEFIT of consumers, who are also the VOTERS, and supposedly, the OWNERS. But we are the DISPLACED OWNERS; displaced by UN dictates. Our politicians made policy kow-towing to IPCC[1] /Paris etc. This then leads to OUR “structural adjustment” in many ways. We’ve seen it in our energy and water markets over the years; we’re about to see it with transmission lines and BESS systems.
“Claytons consultations” work for proposers, but not for the wider general public, who don’t get to hear about it. Media is in on the gig, benefiting from advertising, perhaps holding shares, so the community doesn’t get to hear both sides, just the government line. It’s happening everywhere. Pottinger Wind and BESS is no different.
At the “local level” we are very concerned that the following issues have not been given due consideration.
Wind turbines generate heat raising soil temperature significantly, scientists say. This is already a HOT region, so killing vegetation and making the surrounding areas hotter is ridiculous and counter-intuitive. It’s not just an individual impact – birds and bats the turbines kill will attract feral pigs, foxes, wild dogs and cats. The impact will be cumulative then because the ferals will hang around, hunting the killing fields to vary their menu putting calves, lambs and birds in danger, along with the financial viability of primary producers.
- I can find No Bonds or Conditions of Consent to overcome this.
Turbines are catching fire as BESS systems will too, and Australia hasn’t escaped this. A fire on the Hay Plains in a good year will go for miles.
It’s hazardous because emergency services aren’t allowed to attend fires at the source, and that’s a VERY high risk. Toxicity will contaminate our environment. We live in a relatively toxic-free region and don’t need toxic fire risk, PFAS contamination or toxic smoke travelling for miles and miles on a breath of wind to cause health problems in thousands of people years later. It’s the “asbestos” for which these companies will NEVER be liable.
- I find No Bonds or Conditions of Consent to overcome this.
On that note, landholders, NOT the energy corporates, will be held accountable. At the rate of corporates changing hands, all liability from the original agreements will have been watered down, and it WILL all come back to the landowners. This is a deliberate ploy, and landholders will get a rude shock when they find they have nowhere to go.
Just as EV’s in Europe and the US aren’t being insured now, when turbines and BESS systems catch fire, landholders will have trouble with insurance. They’ll end up possibly losing the farm over it, because all the neighbours for a hundred miles could sue them. EVEN SHIRE COUNCILS could be sued. I just don’t think this has been given due credence.
- I find No Bonds or Conditions of Consent to overcome this.
Already underwriters are building sneaky questions into farm insurance, such as excluding silica dust. Of course, PFAS and forever chemicals which turbines are coated with will break down. When it’s in our water supply, artesian basin, soil, and food chain via livestock, it’s a FUTURE PROBLEM not considered. Who is going to pay for this asbestos of the future when the whole thing blows up in 25 or so years time?
- There are No Bonds, or Conditions of Consent to overcome this.
Livestock producers, (Hay being a large contributor), are currently having to tick off on whether their stock is grazed near solar panels. Is it the same for turbines? Are they worried about silica dust? Forever chemicals? Shedding from Wind turbines? These underwriters, at the top of their companies, also own cross shares in energy companies, so they KNOW, and don’t plan to carry that liability, — prepping for it already. We won’t get told until it’s too late.
- Again – No Bonds, or Conditions of Consent to overcome this.
We have to ask why no-one cares about livestock? Perhaps because there’s been a sustained GROF Policy – Get Rid Of Farmers — since the late ‘80’s when I coined that term. It’s reaching a global crescendo now. Fake meat has just been legislated in April by Food Standards ANZ for quail “cultivated meat”. It’s just a matter of time. Bill Gates will have his way, and Voila! There will be “replacements” for our healthy well-produced livestock which have been tainted by wind and solar.
- There are No Bonds or Conditions of Consent to overcome this, because no-one wants to know about it until it will be too late. It’s a case of create a problem, then come up with a solution – in this instance, fake meat. Another UN GROF policy implemented here!
Our NSW Premier has just said that the LANDOWNER will be responsible for de-commissioning wind and solar sites, or it’s up to them to make an agreement with the developer. This is like complaining to your mother-in-law about your spouse!
The developer is the financial heavyweight getting a heap of taxpayer subsidies, so it’s difficult for one little farmer or small group to get anywhere, because the balance of power is so heavily stacked against them. It’s a case of divide and conquer – landholders feel they have nowhere to go and are powerless to fight it. Banks often help that situation by putting the squeeze on. It’s open slather out there, and only lip service given to it.
- No Proper Guidelines or Conditions outlined to overcome this either.
Has a bond of any kind been taken for Pottinger? I can’t find it? Why isn’t it government policy to make the purveyors of PFAS chemicals and soil contamination provide for their future damage? This is NOT taken into consideration as a COST of renewabulls, but it should be, along with the unreliability of intermittent un-viable wind and solar of course, but we can’t talk about that today.
- There are No Bonds, or Conditions of Consent to overcome this. There should be Governmental policy amendments to protect the future of all Australians.
I want to make people aware of one more thing where there are no Conditions in place to overcome it.
Generally, there are a lot of energy companies with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ownership, and in many cases, they change hands, being sold or bought down the track. In the power generation space, I think 80 or 90% of wind and solar towers, panels and components are made in China. In mid-May, Reuters reported that China has a kill-switch embedded into the components, that sensors have been discovered in solar panels and power transformers (so no doubt turbines) which would allow the CCP to shut down the whole grid remotely.
We don’t understand war, but this is no way to go into one if it ever happened!
This is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY, and I see NO CREDENCE given to it in any way shape or form. NOW it’s BEEN EXPOSED in Mainstream Media, WE NEED CONTROL OVER THIS, BEFORE ANY FURTHER APPROVALS CAN GO AHEAD. WE CANNOT HAVE SUCH HEAVY FOREIGN OWNERSHIP – AND CONTROL – OF OUR POWER GRID.
Currently modern slave labour in Australia is an issue, but WE are being made slaves to foreign powers via high energy prices, which they’ve just told us WILL rise exponentially BECAUSE OF RENEWABULL POWER!!! And, who cares a jot about all this “renewabull equipment”being made by Uyghur slave labour in China? There is supposed to be “proof” provided it’s not ….. but really????
National security for Australia should be to crank up reliable, affordable coal-fired power stations. China is – with our coal!!! Coal, oil and gas are currently the only sources of CHEAP, stable and continuous base-load energy, and would mean that our governments and energy companies would NOT be wilfully ignoring it’s own NATIONAL ELECTRICITY RULES. At the moment, they are all operating (unlawfully) outside of these rules! Rules state that we must have an energy grid and service that is secure, reliable, safe and affordable.
Individual and cumulative impacts of Pottinger and other renewabulls are being willfully ignored. They put not only the future of agricultural land at risk, but our health, environmental health, and most particularly, our NATIONAL SECURITY.
- I can see No Bonds, or Conditions of Consent to overcome or address this, or that mitigate power prices in line with the National Electricity Rules.
[End address to Hay Pottinger ICPN inquiry 5/6/25]
Since this, readers possibly know that an Australian expert has warned about the ability to “switch off” multiple devices due to kill switches in in-built software. See here. Also here, and here.
Secret Energy Business indeed.
