Bunbury offshore wind farm sessions produce very different outcomes

Two drop-in info sessions about a proposed offshore wind farm in Bunbury produced very different results on Tuesday, with one descending into chaotic scenes while the second session was much more controlled. The first session of the day was held at 12.30pm, with hundreds of people arriving at the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre to have their voices heard. But chaos ensued after members of the public found out it was not a community town hall style meeting with small one-on-one sessions where those in attendance were able to ask questions individually. This sparked an impassioned call out from one member of the crowd, who gained the attention of the raucous crowd by banging on the walls. She asked others if they were happy with the format. The question received a widely negative response and at one point an audience member’s suggestion to bring a microphone for the crowd to ask questions gained traction. Martine Shepherd was one of the loudest voices at the event and helped spark the push for a microphone. “The way that the Government has put this through today is incredibly disappointing,” she said. “I think that to conquer and divide and tell us to go see different experts, when everyone wanted a presentation to explain very clearly to all of us and answer the same questions. “You only have to look around this room and see everyone’s confused.” Event facilitators contested with members of the public and did not allow banners or microphones into the room. There was a remarkably different tone at the second session, with a tighter control over how many people were coming through the door so the room did not become overfilled like before. The sessions followed on from a heated Binningup community meeting on Saturday, where tempers flared and it concluded more than 30 minutes late after an audience member called one of the female presenters from the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy and Environment a “stupid b....”.