Further Criticism of the Gawara Baya Wind Farm Approval

I’m sorry, my patient readers, to provide another article on this, but I will at least provide some new content, a “Preface”, as a background.

I have a considerable backlog of proposed and half-written articles which I will get back to soon. Hopefully I can publish at least one in the next few weeks.

I am publishing this letter as another public record providing documentation on what I perceive to be a disgusting and disgraceful corruption of environmental protection by the Federal Government and specifically the DCCEEW.

This matter is urgent as I am told the Gawara Baya Wind Farm will commence construction by Windlab Pty Ltd, next month, in September 2026.

PREFACE

This is a letter I recently wrote to the Post Approvals Section of the DCCEEW – Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water. I sent the same questions and documentation to NEPA – the newly-formed “National Environmental Protection Authority”. The NEPA is supposed to be an independent body designated with environmental protection but of course it is likely highly politicised and the CEO was appointed by the Governor-General on recommendation of the ALP Government. The Governor-General herself was also appointed by the ALP government. So I expect no impartiality, objectivity, and reasonable investigation of claims from them. Maybe John Bradley, the CEO, could prove me wrong. Despite supposedly being independent, the CEO answers directly to the Minister For (Against) the Environment, the right honourable Murray Watt, an ALP Senator, who has exhibited zero environmental sensitivities and sympathies in his political career. He is pro-development and destruction of the Environment, which I would surmise to be the reason why Watt replaced Plibersek, who at least had vague environmental sensitivities, as proven by the fact she cuddled captive koalas in zoos (sic).

Mr John Bradley PSM has no environmental or ecological science background. He appears to be a career bureaucrat, and most likely has drunk copious amounts of the “green energy” Kool-Aid, having most recently (perhaps concurrently) worked as Secretary in the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. ¹

John holds an MBA from QUT and BA from the University of Queensland. Many roles as Director in multiple government and non-government agencies. An insider.

So why would I expect any environmental sympathies from this man? He presumably genuinely believes the lie that “green energy” will solve climate change and that species are more at risk from climate change (with the implication that green energy will “fix” climate change) than direct destruction from habitat loss including that from green energy²³. Because of various reasons, not the least is overshoot of planetary boundaries, including loss of biosphere integrity, green energy will only add to climate change⁴. Renewables are just an addition to ever-expanding energy requirements from population and economic growth, and their supply chains are absolutely dependent on fossil fuels at every step⁵. “Green growth” simply cannot deliver sufficient emissions reductions⁶ and attempting to add “renewable energy infrastructure” in the context of growth is exerting a massive additional and unsustainable cost on the functioning biosphere⁷⁸. Peer-reviewed science shows that emissions rise 0.9% with every 1% increase in green energy⁹, and the “low emissions” analyses are fundamentally flawed as the emissions of storage and massive 2-10x overbuild to replace baseload sources are not included in comparative gCO2/kWh analyses¹⁰, and neither are impacts on carbon sequestration due to mining¹¹¹² and massive land area requirements.

Our current Governor-General, who appointed Bradley to the role of NEPA CEO, has a background which includes being a board member of property developer Mirvac for ten years or so. During her tenure with Mirvac, Mirvac destroyed habitat including that of endangered species (for example, Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos and Koala) as well as endangered ecosystems, at West Pennant Hills (Sydney), Greenbank/Everleigh (Brisbane/Logan), and Bullsbrook South (WA). In typical fashion of property/land developers, Mirvac greenwashed this destruction by “setting aside” some habitat for preservation and buying habitat elsewhere as an “offset”. Of course, there was net destruction and fragmentation of habitat. There always is. We relentlessly chip away at the functioning biosphere everywhere.

More recently, Samantha Mostyn, the Governor-General, seems to have attempted to “green” (greenwash?) her image by becoming the Official Patron of WWF-Australia. WWF globally has somewhat of a chequered background, having actively greenwashed the palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia on behalf of big corporates such as Unilever (how’s that worked out?)¹³, legitimised the elephant ivory trade, resulting in the poaching deaths of tens of thousands of African elephants¹⁴, and greenwashed China’s environmentally destructive “Belt and Road” initiatives¹⁵¹⁶, among many other dubious efforts. (Not saying everything WWF does is bad, but they aren’t exactly environmental saints.) In Australia, WWF works actively to distract from the impacts of rampant population growth on the environment and biodiversity in Australia, and backs rampant renewable energy, also being silent on the gross environmental impacts of this industry and its required massive increase in critical minerals mining. In my book, hardly a feather in the G-G’s environmental cap.

WWF routinely prioritises its funding, and inevitably the interests of its major funding sources, above the interests of the environment and biodiversity its grassroots donors expect it to save. Its their business model, same as that of all big environmental NGOs. Of course, many people who work for WWF mean well and often have the best interests of the environment at heart, but their work is inevitably constrained by funding imperatives. The capitalist system which relies on endless expansionism ultimately will fund only token environmental resistance to that expansionism.

Having said that, WWF involvement did result in pressure being exerted on Apple causing it to withdraw its involvement in Gawara Baya Wind Farm over biodiversity concerns. ¹⁷

The DCCEEW was formerly called, “The Department of the Environment” and it was supposedly specifically tasked with environmental protection. The ALP government, like the LNP government before it, has bastardised everything. Although the ALP appears to have made this an art form.

Now “the environment” has been relegated in importance to be beneath that of “climate change and energy”, as the name suggests, and there are in fact two ministers which have jurisdiction over this department. The other minister is the right honourable Chris Bowen who habitually lies both publicly and in Parliament. He even claimed in Parliament that if renewable energy infrastructure was adversely impacting the environment, it wouldn’t be built in that area. There is plentiful evidence, including the Gawara Baya Wind Farm, Lotus Creek Wind Farm, and Robbins Island Wind Farm, in particular, that this is simply not the case. And there are many, many, others. I have posted a (partial) summary of his lies at the end of this article (See “Addendum”).

Murray Watt, the Minister For (against) The Environment also appears to have a history of lying, both in public and in parliament. Most of the lies that the opposition and minor political parties have attacked him for are not over environmental issues, because it appears they also have little environmental sympathies, and that includes the Greens. I have provided a short partial summary of his lies to at the end of the article. Outrageously he claimed in a public TV interview that the Robbins Island Wind Farm approval was reasonable because it contained “approval conditions which would safeguard endangered species” (It contains similar Approval Conditions to the Gawara Baya WF – essentially greenwashing of unsupervised environmental destruction and extinctions). Also, he is the main figure behind the recent EPBC Amendments Bill which has fast-tracked renewables, housing and critical minerals mining. I might add that he appeared to gain the full support of the Greens Party for these amendments. The Approvals Process is already incredibly corrupted and bastardised, but at least the proponents and Ecological Consultancies at least had to go through the motions and pretend to take into account environmental issues – now even that requirement has been largely removed for those industries.

The DCCEEW’s boss is “the Secretary”. The Secretary of the DCCEEW is Mike Kaiser who is essentially an ALP political appointee, a political stooge or crony – you choose the terminology that fits. He was appointed by the ALP government to carry out the whims of the ALP and their political policies, for which he receives remuneration which would be for normal people the equivalent of winning the lottery every year, close to $1 million. So, what does the environment get for this? Rampant destruction.

I will mention here that there is another catastrophically bad “green energy” project which has destroyed huge areas of a national park, the Kosciuscko National Park, has overblown its budget by about 10x the initial forecast by Malcolm Turnbull¹⁸. Turnbull has since decided to invest in “green energy” and new pumped hydro dams after leaving politics and thinks of himself as some sort of “climate messiah”. It is also likely the cost will escalate to $40b if indeed it is ever completed, and it looks like that is becoming an ever more remote possibility. A 800m fault line which the drilling equipment thus far has been unable to get through and was forecast to be problematic in the initial feasibility studies (which were ignored) may well spell the end of the project, if the new even more expensive drilling equipment is unable to make significant headway. Of course, the fossil fuel requirements (and loss of biodiverse carbon-sequestering habitat) of constructing this catastrophic project have exponentiated along with the financial cost. But who cares, its “green energy” and will “save the climate” apparently? How did this project ever get environmental approval I wonder? Well, look at the shenanigans involved with the Gawara Baya Wind Farm and many other wind farms, and you can see environmental approvals are basically a formality.

The DCCEEW’s function is now basically not protecting the environment but greenwashing its destruction. The DCCEEW and The Environment Minister are by far the worst greenwashers in Australia, despite greenwashing being supposedly criminalised by the Federal Government’s ACCC, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. One rule for them and one rule for everyone else.

Instead of demanding fully independent and rigorous environmental surveying of many areas where destructive projects are planned, which are often on private land, and have never been surveyed, the DCCEEW is happy to have the proponents, the developers, commission their own non-independent surveys and these form the basis of all analysis of environmental impacts, and the suggested remedies.

It is never suggested and allowed that other concerned scientists are able to obtain access to these proposed development sites, and citizen scientists aren’t allowed access either. And often no-one is aware of these projects until they are well down the approvals pathway, when there is no scope for input, or when they have been actually approved.

The Environmental Consultancies who actually do the surveying and assessment of impacts on behalf of the proponents, actually advertise themselves to prospective developers on the basis of their ability to “get the projects across the line of the environmental approvals process”. It’s become a game, and in fact a lucrative game for the “ecologists” involved. Appear to have performed rigorous surveying, downplay the occurrence of species and ecosystems impacted, and downplay the impacts of the development, and make it all seem kosher to uncritical outside eyes and the DCCEEW. The DCCEEW actually make it easy for them. For example, instead of expecting unbiased and rigorous analysis of the effectiveness of the offsets in compensating for destroyed habitat, they have devised checkbox systems and simple metrics and tools that developers simply have to comply with in devising what are legally “sufficient” offsets. No evidence and deeper analysis is actually needed in order to declare that the offset requirements have been met. As stated below, there is simply no objective and peer-reviewed evidence that biodiversity offsets function as stated and expected.

The environment minister or a delegated senior public servant (“The Delegate”) must then decide whether a development which has been deemed a “controlled action” is to be approved or not, and what approval conditions are attached to it. A controlled action is essentially a development which will “significantly” impact Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES). MNES are Commonwealth EPBC- listed endangered species, migratory species covered by at least one international migratory species agreement, Threatened Ecological Communities (of which there are remarkably few, surprisingly - or unsurprisingly), conservation areas such as national parks and World Heritage Properties, and National Heritage Sites.

Who decides what a “significant impact” is? Normally the developers themselves do, and the DCCEEW seems to automatically agree with them, avoiding the need for full surveying and “remedies” of environmental harm via “avoidance, mitigation and/or offsets”. Again, what can go wrong? The vast amount of environmental destruction occurring in Australia has never been authorised by the DCCEEW and if it has, has been deemed to not be of “significant impact to MNES”, therefore approved without the need for “controlled action” status. For many species, most of their habitat loss has occurred via a multitude of developments deemed to have “insignificant impacts” – one species where this has occurred is the endangered Spotted-Tail Quoll. If the Thylacine was still around, it would likely be suffering the same fate.

The Delegate, as a member of the Australian Public Service, is bound by the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct places the Delegate in a sticky situation, as it is expected at all times that public servants perform in an objective and impartial manner. It appears however, that they do not function in such a manner in approving developments and deciding what conditions the development must abide by. The Delegate is expected by the Environment Minister to take his place and approve developments which are mandated by political policies, and they appear to perform as expected. This happily removes the Environment Minister from the criticism and repercussions and paperwork involved in such approvals. For example, the person approving a development is expected to supply a “Statement of Reasons” on demand – this can involve lengthy statements and justifications of every aspect of an approval and attached conditions. As far as I am aware, no Delegate has ever been personally challenged over their clear lack of objectivity and impartiality in approving and providing approval conditions for developments. Neither have the multitude of other public servants involved in the assessment and approvals process of development projects. How can they be behaving in an objective and impartial manner at all times? The APS’ Code of Conduct are simply guidelines, not reality.

The EPBC Legislation, which governs approvals of developments which affect what is deemed significant biodiversity and other MNES, has been deliberately legislated to provide only very limited legal opportunities for challenge. No direct challenge is permitted over “merits”. There is absolutely no opportunity for anyone to challenge the DCCEEW over the approval and conditions in terms of impacts to, and protection of, MNES. This is outrageous in itself. There was an opportunity in the recent EPBC Amendments Bill to rectify that short-coming but of course this didn’t happen and the “environment party”, the Greens, did not request this. They are of course happy with ongoing and increasing rampant environmental destruction, particularly for housing and other infrastructure, renewable energy, and critical minerals mining – it’s part of their political platform.

The EPBC Legislation only allows what is termed a “judicial review”. A Judicial Review of an approval can only be demanded by a person or organisation which has a history of at least 2 years of documented environmental work. This immediately removes almost all parties from the capacity to challenge approvals on this basis. Additionally, it must be demonstrated by the plaintiff that they have sufficient financial capacity to pay for all legal teams involved in the court action should the plaintiff lose. Think upwards of $100, 000. In a recent legal case, the defending legal teams comprised numerous solicitors and barristers - $600, 000. So, this further almost eliminates any possibility of legal challenge.

And the Judicial Review challenge is actually against the approval decision by the DCCEEW, not the approval-holder (proponent/developer). However, it is customary for the approval-holder to be able to contest the legal case as well, and they can bring as many legal counsel as they want. The whole thing is absolutely rigged against environmental defenders, and this is deliberate.

The initial grounds for appeal are decided by legal teams seemingly in collusion with each other - in a case I was involved in, the actual plaintiffs were not involved in the discussions. Some grounds were struck off and we were not informed why… then the court case was held and our lead barrister did not even turn up and we were not told by our solicitor until we were all seated in the court room that the barrister was not turning up, even though she knew the night before; she suggested that the junior barristers were capable of handling the case and we were not advised to defer it even though this was a possibility - but this is all another story…

A Judicial Review is not “merits-based”, it’s only based on whether the DCCEEW and Minister/Delegate followed procedure. And “procedure” for the most part is whether they “considered” various factors. They can approve and decide what they want provided they can say they “considered” the factors they are required to be considered. For example, in the Statement of Reasons for the GBWF below, the Delegate was at great pains to point out that for every species, the relevant Recovery Plans and Conservation Advice “was considered”, even if the GBWF has impacts totally against the recommendations of the Recovery Plans and Conservation Advice, which he did not acknowledge.

It makes a complete joke of Recovery Plans and Conservation Advice – the Wilderness Society recently won a legal challenge against the DCCEEW over lack of recovery plans and Conservation Advice for many species – what was the point when they can be simply ignored anyway, provided the decision-makers say they considered them?

Another issue is that various aspects of the EPBC Legislation demand that decisions “must not be inconsistent with” various agreements and principles. Well that seems to be corrupted too. Apparently, this permits “wiggle room” according to a recent High Court Judicial Review judgement which declared that the wording “not inconsistent with” in reference to International Migratory Species Agreements means that the Minister or Delegate still has the capacity to make decisions which are inconsistent with… (Ministers apparently “have the latitude” to juggle competing interests – well you know of course in that scenario the environment and biodiversity always loses…) I won’t go on because apparently if you criticise legal judgements that constitutes “contempt of court”. Yes, everything is rigged against the environment and environmental defenders, and it’s rigged such that judges are not publicly accountable for their decisions - the only recourse is an appeal and we can probably easily double the expenses involved in that. And again, judgements are difficult to appeal when judges “follow procedure” and can provide justification for their decisions, however contorted… (this is essentially what I was told by a barrister who reviewed a judgement).

Additionally, the decision-maker must consider submissions made. Submissions made are normally sent to the proponent, not the DCCEEW. The proponent has the opportunity to review and potentially “lose” submissions before anyone from the DCCEEW even sees them, and essentially make counter-allegations, attempting to debunk and discredit the content of the submissions, and even the submitters themselves, for example, if they do not live nearby. These types of what are essentially “ad hominem” attacks are apparently quite legitimate and authorised by governments, especially in relation to renewables projects. The submissions and the proponent’s responses are then bundled together and sent off to the DCCEEW for review.

Outrageously, in the Statement of Reasons by the Delegate in the case of the Gawara Baya wind farm, the delegate chose to accept almost everything the proponent stated as being the absolute truth, in effect siding with the discrediting of the content of the submissions written by 300 people who wrote submissions against this project, including many experts and the Wet Tropics Management Authority. And apparently it is quite within his rights to do so provided he states that the submissions “were considered”. The only differences of opinion from that of the proponent/ecological consultancy were that the Delegate considered, for example, that the area of suitable habitat for the Northern Masked Owl in the project area and offset areas had been underestimated, which itself was contrary to actual records of this species. This “difference of opinion” appears to be purely performative (and made zero impact on the approval and approval conditions), to attempt to demonstrate that everything that proponent’s ecological consultancies claimed has been properly analysed and scrutinised.

The Delegate even outrageously claimed that in his consideration, the use of offsets by the Gawara Baya wind farm would provide “a conservation gain” for the endangered species, despite all peer-reviewed scientific evidence showing that offsets routinely fail to avert biodiversity loss. This may rest on ambiguity - perhaps a gain compared to not designating offsets altogether? But certainly not an overall gain for the affected species - net loss of habitat, populations, and ecosystem integrity is assured.

The Delegate was also at pains to point out that he claimed to have invoked the Precautionary Principle (clearly to attempt to avert legal action) in demanding the monitoring of Northern Greater Glider usage of glider poles, and the proponent’s surveying of Northern Greater Glider occupancy of “habitat islands’ which elsewhere he claimed had been prevented by restricting clearing widths to 25m for every 100m, and the use of glider poles (both measures had been deemed ineffective in the DCCEEW rejection of the Wooroora Station Wind Farm). The Precautionary Principle essentially states that lack of full scientific certainty of what may be a severe impact on a MNES should not delay its prevention or remedy. The Precautionary Principle seems to not have been utilised, but what would I know?

The decision-maker must also consider concepts such as “ecologically sustainable development” and “intergenerational equity”. These are deliberately nebulous concepts. Whilst for me, these environmentally destructive projects are clearly counter to both concepts, not so for politicians, public servants and the legal fraternity (and most of the mass media). Apparently for them, “ecological sustainable development” provides no absolutes, as the concept also considers social and economic factors, which are balanced against environmental factors – of course the environment always loses out in that falsely-constructed paradigm. They appear to have only a tenuous grasp of “sustainability” – whilst for me the destruction of the functioning biosphere is absolutely unsustainable, for them, that appears to be fine provided it provides jobs, economic growth, and supposedly provides nominal and speculative reductions in fossil fuel carbon emissions, which are obviously negated (and more) by other factors, including of course economic and population growth, which I mentioned above but won’t go further into here.

As for “intergenerational equity”, how can the destruction of biodiversity and carbon sequestration provide “intergenerational equity”? Obviously, it cannot but I expect a judge would agree with barristers claiming that a new wind farm or a pumped hydro project or housing estate or critical minerals mine does in fact provide “intergenerational equity”. Having a legal degree does not automatically impart understanding of sustainability issues, the significance of biodiversity, the functioning biosphere, and climate science. We must have very low expectations… otherwise profound disappointment awaits.

All these factors are simply “considerations” in any case, factors that the decision-maker apparently must state he or she has “considered”. That’s it.

There is also a requirement that all “significant residual impacts” must be assessed and dealt with via “avoidance, mitigation, and offset” pathways. It seems a fourth remedy, “restoration” has also been recently added, which for the most part does not apply. Or does it? For potentially “temporary” projects such as wind farms, which have a limited life expectancy of at most 25 years, this might provide another “get out of jail” card. However, how is it possible to restore ecological integrity in sufficient timeframes on rugged erosion-prone landscapes? How do you “restore” locally and completely extinct species? You can’t, but of course that won’t stop the mendacious DCCEEW and ecological consultancies claiming that such an approach is feasible.

As I have stated below and elsewhere, significant residual impacts have been essentially ignored altogether, making the GBWF and many other projects illegal. But I have no possibility to legally challenge the DCCEEW on this, as much as I’d like to. Does anyone else have this capacity? Please?

Even the designation of MNES, endangered species, has been corrupted. Normally this happens via submissions to a bureaucratic bunch of academics (The Threatened Species Scientific Committee) who themselves are on a fabulous junket, having been appointed by the Environment Minister to give the illusion that endangered species are properly added to the list of endangered species. Hundreds of state-listed endangered species have never been assessed by poorly-funded scientists, and the DCCEEW will never commission scientific studies to ascertain their inclusion in the federal EPBC list. It is likely that many will go extinct before they are ever assessed. Even if you have a suspicion that a species is threatened, you cannot make a submission unless you do the environmental surveying, most often on private land on which it is mostly impossible to gain legal access, and you must furnish a full scientific report to the TSSC who adjudicate on this using totally arbitrary criteria which does not take into account many species-specific factors such as fragmentation of existing populations (e.g., functional extinctions) and proposed and current destructive developments.

Everything is rigged against the environment and biodiversity, and this is absolutely deliberate.

This is a war on nature, no doubt, and this is the title of a future article.

More can be found here: https://substack.com/@michaelseebeck/p-212937310