Newsroom

November 5, 2025

WINDFARMS will be banned from being built in state forests and in “nature wonderlands” if the House of Representatives supports a Bill introduced by Hon Andrew Gee, Member for Calare and KAP Federal Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter.

The ‘Stopping Wind Farms in State Forests Bill 2025’, if passed, will enable the federal government to use its constitutional powers to make laws to stop turbine developments in state forests.

Mr Katter said it was lunacy that approvals for wind farms were taking place all over Australia in some of the nation’s ‘nature wonderlands’, citing the Chalumbin windfarm case in Far North Queensland which was successfully blocked.

“The case of Chalumbin, which featured in a national magazine, the Spectator, was most notorious. The biggest wind farm in Australia was proposed to be put within a few hundred metres of some of the last remnant jungle on earth,” Mr Katter said.

“There is very little jungle left on earth, and they were going to put this giant wind farm a few hundred metres from it. Madness.

“We praised then Minister Plibersek from stopping that proposal from going ahead.

“The university professor who was leading the battle against Chalumbin had said, 'You've got to stand back and say, "What is happening here?"' What was happening was that a beautiful nature wonderland was being turned into an industrial wasteland.

“The developers want to put these wind farms and their 70-meter-wide access roads on the tops of mountains which causes erosion.

“They are placing the wind farms here because it is on the existing transmission lines and cheap for them, but it sure is expense for nature and our wildlife. The people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane might not care about our wildlife but we certainly do.

“We will not allow the destruction of our forest’s wildlife, for what – maybe a 15 or 20-year life in these wind turbines.

“So, I thank my crossbench colleague for introducing this Bill and a I am delighted to support it.”

 

Photo: The Hon Bob Katter MP supporting his crossbench colleague Andrew Gee MP in the house with ‘Stopping Wind Farms in State Forests Bill 2025’