ABC Radio National – Drive Program

June 12, 2012

On Radio National’s Drive program, Waleed Aly leads a discussion about wind power with three guests. Berni Janssen is a resident of Waubra, near Ballarat in Victoria, who was one of a panel of three wind turbine affected residents who spoke at the National Health and Medical Research Council’s workshop in June 2011. Sarah Laurie is the Chief Executive Officer of The Waubra Foundation, and a former rural General Practitioner from South Australia, and Professor Simon Chapman is a sociologist, and is a Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney. Professor Chapman’s PhD examined cigarette company advertising.

Wind power has been promoted as the cheapest form of renewable energy and is vital to the Gillard government’s promise to produce 20 per cent of Australia’s entire electricity supply from renewable sources by 2020. But with more than 1,000 wind turbines now operating in regional Australia, some communities –including Waubra – have raised concerns about adverse health impacts from living near giant wind turbines.