THE Newcastle Port Stephens Game Fish Club (NPSGFC) has joined community groups in accusing Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen of attempting to revive the region’s failed offshore wind proposal by rebranding it research and demonstration (R&D).
Mr Bowen announced on Friday that he had opened applications for R&D licences in Australia’s six offshore wind zones, including off Port Stephens.
While research “development” is largely theoretical and focuses on acquiring new knowledge, “demonstration” involves project-based testing in realistic or near-operational environments.
“These licences will give certainty to domestic and international developers, universities and research cooperatives to pioneer new technological advances in Australian waters,” Mr Bowen said.
NPSGFC President Troy Radford said the minister’s announcement confirms the government is determined to push industrial-scale energy projects into sensitive marine environments, regardless of evidence or community opposition.
“The offshore wind farm off Port Stephens didn’t stack up – full stop,” Mr Radford said.
“It failed on environmental risk, economic justification, and social licence.
“Calling it ‘R&D’ doesn’t magically fix those failures, it just tries to disguise them.”
The Federal Government had offered a feasibility licence to Norwegian Energy Company Equinor and Australian firm Oceanex to build the $10bn Novocastrian Offshore Wind Farm.
But Equinor pulled out in August 2025, declining to take up the lease.
Despite the project being shelved and years of community protests, the 1,854 km² area off the Hunter Coast between Norah Head (Central Coast) and Port Stephens, remains a designated offshore wind zone.
Mr Radford said the government has produced no credible explanation for how offshore wind infrastructure, even at an R&D stage, would avoid the same impacts that doomed the original proposal, including exclusion zones, disruption to marine habitat, and serious risks to navigation and fishing access.
“You don’t get a different outcome just because you change the label,” he said.
“Industrial structures in the ocean have industrial impacts. Anyone pretending otherwise is not being honest with the public.”
Port Stephens is one of Australia’s most significant recreational and game fishing regions, supporting tourism, small business, and a marine ecosystem that has been responsibly used and protected for generations.
Mr Radford said treating the area as an experimental zone showed a profound disconnect between Canberra and coastal communities.
“Port Stephens is not a laboratory, and our community is not a guinea pig for energy policy experiments.”
The club has called on the minister to release all environmental modelling, economic assumptions, navigational risk assessments, and stakeholder impact analyses used to justify the R&D proposal.
Nationals Member for Lyne Alison Penfold noted how the announcement was “buried in a media release, late on Friday”.
“The Minister is back at it again, trying to force a wind farm against the community’s wishes”, Ms Penfold said.
“Offshore wind is simply not feasible or wanted off the Myall [or Hunter] Coast.
“Our community has made this blatantly clear.
“The fact that the Minister is doing this without any consultation with affected communities smacks of… arrogance and disregard.
Followers of the “Save the Myall Coast Save Port Stephens” community group have pledged to make this an election issue.
“Have no doubt, we will turn the protection of our precious beaches into a red hot issue at the impending NSW state election – and take out our frustration on Labor there,” wrote Ian Roberts. “We will also maintain the rage into the Port Stephens council election.”
Theresa Green wrote: “Only the polls can fix this.”
“Plenty of city people holiday in this area, perhaps they may have some interest in their future recreation locations not being contaminated by this rubbish.”
By Sue STEPHENSON
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