2024 Environment & Energy Forum - Dee Why RSL

Join NREN and community groups and keynote speakers including Senator Malcolm Roberts, The Hon. Barnaby Joyce MP - Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs & Member for New England, Honorable Associate Professor Tony Irwin (Nuclear for Australia), Dr. Mark Ho (President Australian Nuclear Association), Mr Grant Piper (President NREN), Mr Jim Willmott (Chairman Property Rights Australia), Ms Katy McCallum(Kilkivan Action Group) Mr Paul Vallejo (NASA Engineer), PLUS Dr. Peter Ridd, Mr Daniel Wild, and Ms Brianna McKee - all from The Institute Of Public Affairs. Hosted by Mr Steven Tripp. Connect with community activists, experts, educators, lobbyists, and leaders dedicated to informing Australia's national energy policy. Together, we will delve into the critical risks, issues, and challenges to foster a deeper shared understanding and advocate for evidence-based solutions applicable at all levels. This includes examining the adverse impacts stemming from the rapid and reckless rollout of unreliable renewable energy sources, encompassing the risks and issues affecting our environment, economy, and national security, as well as hundreds of regional and rural communities. The Forum also aims to enhance our national and international networks and capabilities. Stay tuned for updates, including details about more speakers, forum discussions, exhibitors, and sponsors. Families welcome - FREE Activity Packs for children.

NATIONAL RATIONAL ENERGY NETWORK RECKLESS RENEWABLES MEDIA RELEASE - Upcoming Environment & Energy Forum 2 June 2024

Reckless Renewables burst onto the Australian political landscape as a serious grassroots wakeup call to the Australian government that their energy transition to net zero by 2050 is failing. Emissions are up. Cost of electricity is up. Inflation is up. Productivity is down.

The transition is failing because it is rushed and reckless, devoid of any substantive strategy, lacking both empirical inputs and outputs. It is reckless with taxpayer dollars, costing unchecked billions mostly going to greenwashed foreign multinationals who will take Australian subsidies for generations. National energy security has clearly been relegated to the backseat.

The transition is failing on fundamentals, skimming over grid preparedness, engineering considerations, total system costs, risks, lifecycle management, reinvestment requirements, and time. Government propaganda and fear mongering is ever present, fostering unnecessary haste, questionable procurement practices with cozy proponents, and indifference to hard fought environmental protections. Such reckless indifference enables the government to sanction an unprecedented scale of damage to thousands of hectares of land and sea, including productive farmland, fisheries, and pristine ecosystems, many with endangered species.

The transition is failing hundreds of communities, creating "distrust, uncertainty and anxiety" across hundreds of coastal and country communities (Dyer, February 2024). Community consultation takes the form of “bullying”, “silencing”, “threatening” “bribery” or outright compulsory acquisition of land. But why would governments care? The scattered communities are small and regional; so too few votes and way too far from the cities to matter. The thousands of new massive industrial turbines, expansive solar grids, and/or high voltage transmission towers are constructed “out of sight and out of mind” for most urban Australians. So, a terrible fault line is deepening between the city and regional Australia. The price of Australia’s insatiable power demands is being met at the disproportionate expense of regional Australian communities, their homes and environments. Farmers assert that thousands of hectares of productive land will be lost to “renewables” leading to food shortages. Fisheries will become no-go zones due to turbine safety risks. This divide is threatening our national cohesion.

The transition is also a failure of bureaucracy. The government has willfully twisted their tasking to (what should be objective and impartial departments) the conflicted Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (formed in 2022), the Australian Energy Market Operator, and the CSIRO. Their response lacks integrity, with reports (such as the Integrated System Plan and GenCost,) that are flawed at best, and self-serving for government propaganda at worst. Then there is the proliferation of quangos, councils, committees, and public servants all dedicated to the transition. Layers of new laws and regulations and more green tape, all obfuscating the duplication, wastage, responsibility, and accountability.

The transition is failing to even model the rollout of nuclear power which would support a zero-carbon energy secure future with a much smaller footprint and much longer lifecycle. The current Labor government continues to enforce their ban on this proven technology, deriding any consideration as a “distraction and delaying technique”. In fact, as a proven technology it could be central to reliable, secure, and affordable electricity. This astonishingly superficial and short-sighted response fails all Australians.

At the core, this transition is corrupted by Labor Party ideology, electoral insecurities, and a deep betrayal of Australian interests and values. The government’s recent reversion to the use of gas as a “scaffolding” capacity further undermines Australia’s ability to achieve the stated goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

The transition is a disaster. It would be reckless beyond the normal human irrationality for us to stay where we are (Garnaut, 2019).

The NREN Environment and Energy Forum mobilizes the grassroots conversations about our future energy policy that happens around kitchen tables after each shocking decree of yet another politically pre-determined “renewable” project. As the announcements stack up, NREN grows, connecting hundreds of communities and perspectives. One thing unites the network: the conviction that we can do better.

The Environment and Energy Forum is reaching out to city people to provide insight into what is happening on the ground in Regional Australia. The Forum also includes conversations with the Institute of Public Affairs, nuclear experts, as well as community group leaders, conservationists, thought leaders, and supportive politicians. The Forum will feature up to 20 stalls representing regional community groups.

We can do better for our national energy system, environment, communities, and future.

The NREN 2024 Environment and Energy Forum is on Sunday 2 June 2024: 1pm – 5pm at the Dee Why RSL. Tickets are $20 Adult and $5 Concession and can be purchased at the door or Eventbrite.

Contact: 0434 151 375 OR RecklessRenewables@gmail.com