Moonlight Range Wind Farm project axed by Queensland government
A $1 billion wind farm earmarked for Central Queensland has been axed by Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie, using ministerial powers.
The Greenleaf Renewables development was to include 88 wind turbines and a battery energy storage system over 24 parcels of land at Morinish, 40 kilometres out of Rockhampton, with a capacity of 450 megawatts to generate energy for 260,000 homes annually.
The company had hoped to start building the Moonlight Range Wind Farm in 2026, with 300 jobs during construction and 10 ongoing jobs on completion.
The project had been approved by the state planning department, State Assessment and Referral Agency, in December 2024.
In a notice dated May 22, Mr Bleijie exercised his ministerial powers to refuse the development application.
He began the process for a "call-in" to reassess the development application in January.
During the two-month call-in notice period, there were 508 representations, including 142 from local residents.
Eighty-eight per cent of residents were against it.
The main concerns in the objections were strain on the accommodation supply from the 300 construction workers, lack of community consultation, and environmental and bushfire hazard impacts.
Speaking on Monday, Mr Bleijie said if communities supported these projects, they would go ahead.
"We think an equal and fair policy is just like the resource sector, the agriculture sector, the gas sector have to get certain approvals and community buy-in and community say, so should renewable energy projects."
LNP Member for Mirani Glen Kelly, who has been campaigning for the project to be axed, said it was "exciting news".
"The communities have to have some say on these projects," he said.
"The minister's decision is final so happy days for the communities in and around Rockhampton who I know have been working hard to block this project."
The notice states a person may not appeal against the minister's decision on a call-in under the Planning Act.
Greenleaf Renewables has been contacted for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
23 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Top 10 at 11: Gallium in spotlight as ASX climbs toward new record high
Morning, and welcome to Stockhead's Top 10 (at 11… ish), highlighting the movers and shakers on the ASX in early-doors trading. With the market opening at 10am sharp eastern time, the data is taken at 10.15am, once trading kicks off in earnest. In brief, this is what the market has been up to this morning. ASX reaches for new highs Climbing 0.43% in the first hour of trade, the ASX is within spitting distance of a new all-time high, just 0.13% away. Nine of 11 sectors are driving the bourse's momentum, led by energy (+1.18%). Info tech (-0.23%) and health care (-0.33%) are dragging alongside the All Ords Gold index (-1.78%), down for a second day in a row. The ASX 200 Resources is pushing in the other direction (+0.78%), as evidenced by the glut of resources stocks on our Top 10 winners list for the morning. WINNERS Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap JAV Javelin Minerals Ltd 0.003 50% 60002 $12,252,298 VML Vital Metals Limited 0.003 50% 3000000 $11,790,134 KP2 Kore Potash PLC 0.06 36% 971577 $28,764,401 AYT Austin Metals Ltd 0.005 25% 2071330 $6,296,765 PV1 Provaris Energy Ltd 0.011 22% 450000 $6,282,012 ADG Adelong Gold Limited 0.006 20% 802466 $10,343,383 ALY Alchemy Resource Ltd 0.006 20% 200000 $5,890,381 BLZ Blaze Minerals Ltd 0.003 20% 6294900 $3,917,370 MGU Magnum Mining & Exp 0.006 20% 85000 $5,608,254 PLC Premier1 Lithium Ltd 0.012 20% 583333 $3,680,606 In the news... Blaze Minerals (ASX:BLZ) is turning heads after hitting gallium and rubidium mineralisation at its Ntungamo project in Uganda. While the mineralisation isn't particularly high grade in this first pass of drilling, the price of gallium has surged 23% since January last year, marking the critical mineral as a lucrative exploration target. BLZ's drilling also encountered scandium mineralisation, but no neodymium or praseodymium of any economic significance. LAGGARDS Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap PAB Patrys Limited 0.001 -33% 9426236 $3,086,171 G50 G50Corp Ltd 0.14 -26% 225759 $30,513,555 CRR Critical Resources 0.003 -25% 2829838 $10,456,885 CHM Chimeric Therapeutic 0.004 -20% 100000 $10,075,971 CZN Corazon Ltd 0.002 -20% 45143 $2,961,431 TMX Terrain Minerals 0.002 -20% 71000 $5,621,392 VRC Volt Resources Ltd 0.004 -20% 1250000 $23,423,890 CF1 Complii Fintech Ltd 0.018 -18% 60481 $12,570,660 CCO The Calmer Co Int 0.0025 -17% 28571 $9,034,060 IFG Infocusgroup Hldltd 0.005 -17% 21500 $1,655,771 In the news... G50 Corp's (ASX:G50) has also released a gallium-based announcement, although the market wasn't quite as impressed with the results as in BLZ's case. While G50's mineralogy study has confirmed the presence of gallium in three types of mineral samples at its Golconda gold-silver-zinc project, the content is fairly low, represented in just 38% of the host rock. The mineral type with the best gallium content of 55 parts per million accounts for just 7% of the rock content, meaning G50 will need to extract and concentrate the critical mineral before it can be sold on to off takers.
ABC News
33 minutes ago
- ABC News
ABC to discontinue Q+A after panel show's 18 years on air
The ABC will discontinue its weekly panel show Q+A after 18 years, the public broadcaster has announced. The show, hosted by Patricia Karvelas since 2023, will not return after its hiatus, which started last month. The ABC's news director, Justin Stevens, said Q+A had made a huge contribution to the national public discussion. "We're very proud of Q+A's great achievements over the years. The team has done a terrific job, including a strong performance during the federal election campaign," he said. "Discontinuing the program at this point is no reflection on anyone on the show. "We always need to keep innovating and renewing and, in the two decades since Q+A began, the world has changed. "It's time to rethink how audiences want to interact and to evolve how we can engage with the public to include as many Australians as possible in national conversations. "We'll be working on how we can continue to foster engagement of this nature in an innovative way." Karvelas will continue hosting Afternoon Briefing and the popular Politics Now podcast along with writing her column for the ABC News website. "Patricia also recently reported for Four Corners, and we've now asked her to do more for Four Corners as time permits," Stevens said. The Q+A proposal would result in some redundancies, Stevens told ABC staff in an email. The ABC also announced it would invest in producing more news documentaries, with a new position of executive producer, documentaries and specials to be advertised soon. It will also make the Your Say project — launched during the recent federal election — a permanent initiative to drive audience engagement in communities around the country. "Your Say ensures we have a strong framework for putting the public's views, concerns and questions at the heart of our journalism, complementing our daily commissioning and reporting," Stevens said. "We're keen to see what else we can do with this." Launched by founding executive producer Peter McEvoy and host Tony Jones in 2008, Q+A was an agenda-setting program that pushed politicians beyond their standard talking points. Then-prime minister Kevin Rudd appeared solo on the first episode, before the second episode introduced the regular format of five panellists, including politicians from across the spectrum and others in public life. What made it stand out from other panel shows was the role of the audience, who led the questioning in the studio or via video and social media. McEvoy said in 2019 that the audience was the show's biggest challenge and its strength. "An ordinary panel program just has to wrangle four or five guests," he said. "Q&A has to manage 300, 400 — up to a thousand audience participants — recruiting, registering, checking identities, keeping them informed, generating and choosing questions." With the audience asking the questions, the conversation could go in unexpected directions, giving a platform to people who were not being heard in other areas of public life. But not every question took the conversation forward, earning Jones's signature line, "I'll take that as a comment". When Jones left the show in 2019, Hamish Macdonald joined as host for 18 months, before resigning. He was replaced by rotating hosts David Speers, Virginia Trioli and Stan Grant, before Grant took the role on solo. Grant resigned from the program in May 2023 after sustained racist abuse and trolling, saying on his last show: "To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say — if your aim was to hurt me, well, you've succeeded." Stevens paid tribute to the many people who had worked on screen and behind the camera over the show's 18-year run. "I want to call out current executive producer Eliza Harvey and presenter Patricia Karvelas. They are hugely talented journalists who have done an outstanding job with Q+A in recent years," he said. "Many extremely talented and dedicated people have worked on Q+A, as presenters and behind the scenes. "I extend our sincerest thanks to them all, and to everyone who has contributed as audience members and panellists." Karvelas said she had immensely enjoyed being part of the program. "Spending time with the audience members who came to Q+A late on a Monday night has been the best part of this job," she said. "They have always been the reason for this show and I'm forever grateful to them for coming on national TV and having the courage to ask questions of powerful people." The news comes in the same week Channel Ten has axed its long-running nightly panel show The Project, after almost 16 years and 4,500 episodes. The show's hosts, Waleed Aly, Hamish McDonald and Sarah Harris, will leave Channel Ten after the final episode airs on Friday, June 27. The network announced a new national "news, current affairs and insights" show that will air for an hour from Sunday to Friday.
ABC News
33 minutes ago
- ABC News
Australian designers tackle fast fashion with eco-creations
Regional clothing designers are stitching a place in the fashion world by turning their isolation into eco-friendly opportunities. But they say more needs to be done to keep them and other small designers sewing. From vintage Indian silk saris and high-end fashion fabric offcuts to op shop curtains and linen, regional designers are thrifty in sourcing materials because of the distance to city suppliers. The recycling focus is also better for the environment in a market flooded with fast fashion, against which smaller designers struggle to compete. According to the South Australian government, Australia is one of the world's largest consumers of textiles, purchasing an average of 53 clothing items per person a year. More than half of the nation's unwanted clothing — about 222,000 tonnes — is sent to landfill each year. It causes resource wastage, increased greenhouse emissions, and significant financial costs for local councils. Horricks Vale Collections designer Nikki Atkinson, who was named South Australia's AgriFutures Rural Women's Award winner in 2024, is passionate about addressing clothing waste and champions natural fibres. She watches her fabric growing on the lambs outside her window. The farm's wool is manufactured into a soft fibre for high-end wedding dresses. Her rural location, while isolated from a large customer base, gives her a marketing edge. "Living on the land and seeing what my husband and his family do every single day and just having that deep connection to the land is where the whole story's come from," she says. However, she says it is difficult to find skilled workers because there is no longer an Australian manufacturing industry. "[When tariffs were lifted 30 years ago] it was cheaper for us to make things overseas, so that's when the skill level dropped," Ms Atkinson says. "People do want Australian Made and they do want quality, but we've got nobody that can make it." There is optimism about more people embracing slow fashion. Former Vogue magazine contributor, writer and stylist, Joanne Gambale, runs a fashion consultancy and education business that aims to reduce fashion wastage and help independent designers. She says regional designers are unique, but it is hard to compete on price with fast fashion. "You're competing with crazy margins that are being achieved because of offshoring the whole process, the making as well," Ms Gambale says. "That will always, if it is cheap prices, involve unethical practices, like below poverty wages. Her company focuses on op shop stylist advice and sewing lessons and camps for tweens, mentoring them in upcycling pre-loved clothes that would otherwise end up in landfill. She says the previous generation of consumers bought less clothing and saved up for major, higher-quality purchases. "[Now] no-one wants to pay because they've been kind of brainwashed into thinking fashion should be cheap," she says. To the Power of You, started by Anastasia Gazis in Perth, aims to establish shared community-based fashion spaces called Slow Fashion Hubs with equipment and a digital online presence to reduce costs. Ms Gazis says there is no point trying to tackle "Goliath" fast fashion, but rather develop a national network of micro producers to share knowledge, education and a digital presence. "So many of us are working in pockets doing brilliant, community-based work, but we lack shared infrastructure, shared systems, and a way to amplify each other's efforts," Ms Gazis says. "Together we're a lot stronger, we would have a national reach. "The plan is to offer communities access to equipment like sewing machines and drafting tables where it doesn't exist, and foster a co-working environment for designers, fibre artists, menders [and] educators where they can share knowledge, reduce isolation and grow their impact." Port Lincoln designer Sue Catt worked part-time to support her dressmaking up until 18 months ago when she went full-time, balancing sewing alterations, dressmaking and creating her own fashion label garments. She taught dressmaking classes and encouraged students to not just buy retail fabrics, but to explore op shops and household linens. She says most regional designers work in their own spaces, but there is merit in coming together occasionally for sharing ideas, techniques, materials and support. Ms Catt says slow fashion is important for saving the environment, cultural histories and general skills and education. Based in Whyalla, FreetheRip designer and maker, Emily Parker, uses vintage fabrics from op shops for her clothing. She says a lack of access to customers and trying to compete with fast fashion means she can only pursue her fashion dreams part time. "My aim is to get more people interested in sustainable fashion and to just think about what they're purchasing," Ms Parker says. The university graduate started her own business two years ago and says it is a tough gig. "I work on the weekends [at another job] and then through the week I focus my energy on my designs and sewing," Ms Parker says. Port Lincoln Raff-A-Ella designer Raffael Veldhuyzen uses vintage silk saris from India. She says she first sourced them when she studied yoga there 10 years ago, as well as remnant pieces that might otherwise end up in landfill. "Some plain silk I get from a bridal designer in Melbourne, and they're her offcuts essentially, so it's really sustainable, dead-stock fabric, and then I plant dye it," Ms Veldhuyzen says.
