{"id":129675,"date":"2025-09-09T07:36:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129675\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T07:36:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:36:06","slug":"murray-watt-accuses-queensland-government-of-taking-ideological-approach-to-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129675\/","title":{"rendered":"Murray Watt accuses Queensland government of taking ‘ideological’ approach to renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal environment minister has criticised the Queensland government over what he has labelled an “ideological” approach to the development of renewable energy projects.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Smart Energy Conference and Exhibition in Brisbane on Tuesday, Murray Watt accused the state government of cancelling renewable energy projects, “listening to local opponents”, and “ignoring local supporters”.<\/p>\n

His comments were delivered in a broader speech outlining environmental law reforms proposed by the federal government.<\/p>\n

“This seems to be an ideological approach from the LNP in Queensland \u2026 that they are wanting to block renewables projects rather than listen to the supporters of those projects,” Mr Watt said in a press conference after the speech.<\/p>\n

\"Wind<\/p>\n

The Queensland government has axed a major wind farm proposal near Rockhampton. (Four Corners: Karen Michelmore)<\/p>\n

The state government has committed to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but has cancelled multiple renewables projects in recent months.<\/p>\n

The 88 turbine Moonlight Range wind farm that was to be built near Rockhampton was axed in May.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Forest Wind project that would have erected turbines in state-owned pine plantations on the Fraser Coast was nixed when the state announced it would repeal the legislation it relied upon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"looking<\/p>\n

An artist’s impression of wind turbines in the pine plantation between Maryborough and Tin Can Bay. (Supplied: Forest Wind)<\/p>\n

In both cases, the government cited local distaste for the projects.<\/p>\n

Mr Watt said the decisions were “short-sighted” and would “only make it harder for the Queensland government to reduce power bills or achieve their own emissions reductions target”.<\/p>\n

Support for regional plans<\/p>\n

Premier David Crisafulli said he had seen Mr Watt’s comments, but believed his government was doing “exactly” what the federal government was hoping to achieve through their reforms.<\/p>\n

“Everything that Minister Watt says about the need for proper regional planning and making sure that we have areas where we welcome renewable investment, is exactly what we are doing,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

David Crisafulli says his government is already taking steps to ensure better regional planning procedures.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

In his speech, Mr Watt said reforms would aim to generate “faster yeses and faster no’s” for prospective renewables projects through the development of regional plans.<\/p>\n

The plans would consider the cumulative impact of projects across a region instead of the effect of individual projects, and mark out distinct “no-go zones” for development to protect key ecosystems and species.<\/p>\n

‘No-go’ zones to be created in overhaul of environment laws <\/a><\/p>\n

“No-go” zones where development will “simply not be allowed” will be created in the overhaul of Australia’s environment laws, minister Murray Watt says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What Minister Watt is saying, which is a proper regional planning network, is exactly what we are embarking on,” Mr Crisafulli said.<\/p>\n

Mr Crisafulli said the state was taking “the sensible middle path” to deliver cheap and reliable energy.<\/p>\n

He said Queensland had “the youngest fleet of coal-fired power stations” in the country, which would provide “the base load power we need”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state’s investment in gas is “a way of firming up that base load power as we transition to renewables”, Mr Crisafulli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The third part is we are going to deliver smaller, more manageable pumped hydros across this state,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What that does is it does enable renewables to come into the grid and be firmed up \u2014 without pumped hydro you just don’t have the capacity to do that.<\/p>\n

“That’s the three elements towards an energy system that is affordable, reliable and sustainable.”<\/p>\n

Mr Watt said the reforms would need to be negotiated with each state but would stop governments from making “last second” decisions to ensure investor confidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal environment minister has criticised the Queensland government over what he has labelled an “ideological” approach to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-129675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}