Rally for renewable energy, jobs and regional communities - Melbourne 29 September 2011

There were protests on Thursday 29 September in Melbourne,Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo at the Baillieu government's policies on renewable energy development in Victoria, with the slashing of the solar feed tariff and prohibitive restrictions on the location of new wind farms.

'The laws give landholders the right to veto any wind development within 2 km of a dwelling and ban them completely within 5km from regional cities. Other whole regions like the Macedon Ranges are excluded from any wind farm developments.

'“We don’t know of any more restrictive laws on wind farms in the world” Courtice said.

'“Baillieu is currently approving extensions to coal mines less than 2km from residential areas. All Victoria’s coalmines are inside the exclusion zones where you can’t build wind farms. This is not what Victorians want in the 21st century.”'
(FoE media release http://yes2renewables.org/2011/09/29/communities-rally-to-save-vic-renew... See also http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/?q=node/1008)

The protest in Melbourne was at Parliament House, and featured a gigantic power plug, which MC Ellen Roberts of Friends of the Earth assured us had been dumped earlier by the Premier and Energy Minister Michael O’Brien … There was also a good turnout of turbines, banners and placards. Speakers were Ben Courtice from FoE, Mick Lewin from the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group, Steve Dargavel, AMWU state secretary, and Mark Wakeham of Environment Victoria.
See report also on Yes to Renewable Energy - http://yes2renewables.org/2011/09/29/community-protests-we-are-not-going...

(Text and photos from Melbourne Protests: http://melbourneprotests.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/protest-at-baillieu-go...)

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