Palmer United Party (PUP) Senator Zhenya (Dio) Wang toured Bindaree Beef this week with former Member for New England, Tony Windsor and Bindaree development officer John Clements.
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He spoke with Bindaree owner John McDonald, and was particularly interested in the company’s bio-fuel plant.
Senator Wang planned the visit about a month ago and said he was impressed by Bindaree.
“Any technology that is renewable, I am in full support of,” Senator Wang said.
“I think the technology needs to be advanced. I think coal has served its role in history and gradually I think it will be phased out, and renewable energy will pick up. It’s a trend that nobody can defy.”
Senator Wang said PUP had achieved two of its key election promises in the first few sitting months of Parliament, the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes, but denied his views on renewable energy were at odds with those actions.
“I find it really interesting. The debate is all about climate change. But in the end, does it really matter?
"You’ll find more people who will agree on renewable energy, so let’s just focus on what we can agree on and move on there,” Senator Wang said.
Senator Wang had travelled with Mr Windsor between Caroona and Breeza Plains, and attended a community meeting before he arrived at Inverell.
“The Liverpool Plains is the most fertile agricultural land in Australia, so it’s obvious that this is the place to go to learn some pure agricultural farming,” Senator Wang said. As far as Mr Windsor is concerned, the Western Australian Senator has a lot in common with this area.
“Dio was responsible for saving the water trigger in the Parliament,” Mr Windsor said.
“The federal government wanted to gut the water trigger, and I’d spent seven years in the Parliament trying to devise an arrangement where you could get some objective scientific assessment in terms of the water and mining and coal seam gas projects.”
Mr Windsor said the federal government wanted to give the powers back to the states, the very place where policy and politics had been the problem all along.
“The Coalition state government designed processes that actually funnelled towards one answer. So the Commonwealth becomes important,” Mr Windsor said.
“I wanted to show Dio that area and thank him. I also wanted to show him what’s happening here in terms of the bio-digester. It’s a breakthrough in terms of energy production, and John was a big part of both the water trigger and the bio-digester when I was in office.”
