Article by James Willis and Matthew Benns, courtesy of The Daily Telegraph.
28.08.2025
The latest battle in Australia’s energy wars played out in Wagga Wagga on Wednesday at the 2025 Daily Telegraph Bush Summit, between two men from polar opposite sides of the debate.
In one corner – Chris O’Keefe, former Nine media personality-turned spokesman for the Clean Energy Council, which represents 1000 members in the booming sector.
In the other – Barnaby Joyce, the firebrand MP who recently called for Net Zero to be scrapped.
The pair traded barbs over the ongoing struggle between farmers and green energy companies, as the state attempts to support the private sector in building dozens of large-scale projects across regional NSW.
Dominating the 25 minute conversation was the issue of “decommissioning”, and the plan for wind turbines and solar farms when they expire in 20 to 30 years.
Mr O’Keefe said “it’s part of the planning process. You don’t get a project approved unless you have a watertight decommissioning plan.”
“But who pays the clean-up bill?” Mr Joyce interjected, “the companies do” Mr O’Keefe claimed.
“No they don’t Chris! Get across your facts! Why doesn’t the government underwrite your truth and say – if it all falls over the government is responsible for pulling them down?” a fired up Mr Joyce responded, claiming this occurs with new mining projects.
The Nationals MP then referenced figures from the former Wind Farm Commissioner that a “structurally sound” turbine costs $600,000 to pull down.
“That means we will have farms with negative equity – they will just stand until they fall over. It’s like a sale and lease back arrangement and it falls back on the farm for the rehabilitation,” Mr Joyce said.
“That is a bald-faced lie” Mr O’Keefe said. “We have something in Australia called contract law. We have had wind farms since 1998 and we have not abandoned a single wind farm in Australia,” he said.
The conversation turned to the belief in some regional towns that they have been “saturated” and already played their part by contributing to reducing emissions.
Yass Valley Mayor Jasmin Jones, whose local government area has hundreds of turbines already constructed or in the pipeline, jumped to her feet from the crowd.
“Our community has said no. We have decided no more. The government is riding roughshod over regional Australians. We have had a gutful,” Ms Jones declared.
“You say that communities say, enough is enough” Mr O’Keefe said, responding to a question by The Daily Telegraph, “that is a generalised view of this entire transition if I’ve ever heard one.”
Mr O’Keefe went on to outline examples of where farmers are comfortably playing host to turbines across the country, and also spoke up about the 40,000 new jobs tied to the green energy sector.
He warned that 90 per cent of coal-fired generation on the east coast was switching off over the next decade.
With seven Coalition MPs now calling for a debate on whether the party room should support Net Zero, Mr Joyce was asked why he’d performed such a backflip – back when he was Deputy Prime Minister four years ago when the Nationals supported the 2050 emissions targets.
“We were wrong. That’s what happened. Personally I never backed Net Zero. I always thought it was a crock,” Mr Joyce said.