The former prime minister Tony Abbott has continued his crusade against wind turbines, labelling them the “dark satanic mills of the modern era”.
Abbott, who was dumped at the 18 May election as the member for Warringah, had previously questioned the health impacts of wind turbines, despite there being no “consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects”. He has also previously dismissed them as “ugly”, “noisy” and “visually awful”.
Abbott lost his Sydney seat to the independent MP Zali Steggall, who campaigned on taking action on climate change.
Asked by the Sydney radio 2GB host Alan Jones on Friday morning whether his successor had been “sticking them [wind turbines] up there” in his former electorate, Abbott replied there had been “a lot of wind, but not too much action”.
“And thank God,” he told Jones. “Because the last thing we want is what I regard as the dark satanic mills of the modern era spoiling our landscape.”
“Absolutely,” Jones said. “Absolutely.”
Abbott said he was comforted by the energy minister Angus Taylor’s pledge to keep Australia’s coal-fired power stations open.
“The great thing about Angus Taylor, Alan, is Angus wants to try and keep our existing coal-fired power stations like Liddell open, because we’ve got more and more wind and solar flooding into the system, and that is great when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, but it doesn’t always blow and it doesn’t always shine, but we still have to be able to flick the switch and have the lights come on,” Abbott said.
“That’s why keeping existing coal-fired power in the system is the vital first step in trying to avoid the disaster that will otherwise befall us, the de-industrialise disaster that will otherwise befall us.
“This is why the re-election of the Morrison government has been in some respects, I think we have dodged a bullet.”
Batteries were not mentioned as part of the conversation, but Jones did remark on “irrelevant” people interjecting into national debates who “exercised a lot of power” in regards to Steggall and the former Greens leader Bob Brown.
Abbott did not go into detail about his plans post-parliament in Friday’s interview. As a former prime minister, he automatically receives an annual pension of $296,000, $90,000 more than the backbencher salary he earned in his final years in parliament.
Steggall, who won the seat Abbott held for 25 years, has not proposed wind turbines for the Warringah electorate, but was named in some spoof petitions calling for wind farms along Manly beach.
Abbott declared in 2015 he wished the Howard government, of which he was a member, had never implemented the Renewable Energy Target. He then signed Australia up to the Paris agreement while prime minister but later campaigned for Australia’s withdrawal when he was returned to the backbench following a leadership coup.
