The conversation about wind farms is making waves in the community again, with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water yesterday publishing four visualisations.

The images show what turbines at 10km and 20km offshore in the proposed Illawarra wind area may look like from Bulli Lookout and Bulli Beach. The government has also shared details of the calculations behind the graphics' creation on its website. 

"These visualisations and myth busting FAQ from the Department are a direct response to questions and requests from our community during the consultation sessions and town hall forums held over recent weeks," Federal Member for Cunningham Alison Byrnes said in a statement. 

"It is information from reputable sources, not faceless blogs, websites or social media which are seeking to sow seeds of doubt and fear and spread misinformation."

The visualisations come ahead of a No Offshore Wind Turbines rally at Flagstaff Point in Wollongong this Sunday, October 29. 

The rally against "the industrialisation of our oceans" follows an online petition and an acrimonious town hall forum in Thirroul on October 7. 

Facebook posters describe Sunday’s gathering as a “peaceful protest” but is it the best way to be heard?

Thanks to Alison Byrnes for answering questions during a phone interview from Canberra last week.

There is a lot going on, with petitions, a rally and all kinds of groups on social media. What is the best way for residents to be heard?

The absolute best way for residents to be heard is to put in a submission to the process, which is up on the Department of Climate Change's website. And if they would like, they can absolutely send me an email.

Get me through your questions. We are happy to try and answer whatever questions that the community has to the best of our ability at this point in time, given that we are only talking about a footprint and there is still a lot of work to be done for any future proposal – around marine life, around bird life, around shipping.

People have a lot of questions and that's a great thing. It is great that the community is engaged.

One of the No Offshore Wind Farm rally flyers states that “the overwhelming majority of power generated will go directly to heavy industry at Port Kembla and will not reduce our power bills”. Could you comment on that, please.

Yes, I think there has been a lot of misinformation that has come through in this campaign.

So, there are no development applications in the system at the moment.

One of the things that I have talked about is what BlueScope will need into the future, if they're to produce green steel. So they will need 15 times the energy that they are using at the moment. So they use approximately 150,000 households’ worth of energy to produce steel at the moment. Going forward, they're going to need 15 times that, which will be about half to two-thirds of the current footprint, for the current proposal that we're talking about for offshore wind in the Illawarra.

But what would generally happen with any of these development applications – and as I said, we haven't got any in the mix at the moment, we are not up to that stage – basically the energy feeds into the grid.

We have to see what the development applicants come up with and we have to be making sure that the Illawarra, in this process, is lobbying for – as Saul Griffith has mentioned and one of the things that I have backed – is a community benefits dividend to see what our community can get out of some of these proposals that a future developer may put in to the government.

Is a petition powerful, or not?

There have been a few concerns about incentives and directions given on this petition. So I would say the very best way for you to have your views heard is to put in a submission through the proper process and also pop me through an email.

There are concerns about ‘Big Wind’ and large international companies coming in. Can you reassure readers on this process and how it will be regulated?

Anything that we put out into our ocean will be regulated. There is a lot of work to do. You will not see anything go into the ocean for at least five to seven years.

We need to do marine studies, we need to be looking at community benefit dividends, we need to be doing bird studies, there’s reef studies as well. There is a lot of work as part of this process.

But I completely understand that offshore wind is a very new concept for Australia.

It is very new and a lot of the people that I've been talking to are quite excited about the opportunities that this can bring for our community, for our local industry.

BlueScope employ about three and a half thousand people and across the steelmaking industry here locally, [including] manufacturing, it's about 9000 all up. And we need to be looking at ways that we can be helping our local industry to have access to clean, reliable energy into the future to make sure we have those good manufacturing jobs here in the Illawarra.

What are some of the other exciting opportunities?

The supply chain – seeing what parts of these turbines we can make here in our region and in Australia.

There’s a lot of opportunities for us to be part of the clean energy revolution. So I'm really excited about the opportunities for our region.

The opportunities that this can bring for local workers are endless and I'm really looking forward to learning a little bit more about that and working out what we can do here locally, as well as across the nation, to actually make some of this stuff here. It's really exciting.

One question keeps coming up: will offshore turbines affect property prices?

There's certainly no evidence. When I visited Denmark, I visited Middelgrunden [wind farm] and they were the first one in Denmark, in Copenhagen Harbour. And there was no effect on property prices, but certainly that's something we will need to have a look at going forward.

Are you engaging directly with any anti-turbines social media groups?

They haven't approached me in any capacity like that. I certainly get a lot of their members emailing me. The more community discussion, I think, the better.

It's a big new proposal, it's really exciting. And I think our community should be having these conversations and I think the more that people talk about it, it sort of balances some of that Facebook stuff.

They're more than welcome to pop their questions through to me.

To contact Alison Byrnes, call her Wollongong office on 4228 5899 or email alison.byrnes.mp@aph.gov.au.

Look out for another Q&A in the Flame's November print edition. 

To read Alison's speech at the UOW town hall forum on October 11 click here and to read her office's offshore wind FAQs click here.

Have your say on the proposed 1461sq/km Illawarra offshore renewables zone by November 15 at consult.dcceew.gov.au/oei-illawarra