Calls across the board for civil conversations about offshore wind have emerged after Sunday’s “peaceful” local rally made national headlines for a violent metaphor.

On Monday, the ABC reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had called for Nationals frontbencher Barnaby Joyce to be sacked after telling the crowd to use their ballot paper as bullets to say "goodbye" to the PM, Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Whitlam MP Stephen Jones.

The event’s organisers, Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter), had promoted Sunday’s gathering – held at Reddall Reserve on the shores of Lake Illawarra – as a “Peaceful Family Rally Against Offshore Wind in the Illawarra”.

The group’s media spokesperson, Alex O’Brien, said: “It was not confrontational, it was not aggressive or insinuating any violence. We've always said it's a peaceful rally, and that's what it was.”

Regarding Barnaby Joyce’s comments, Alex said: “He has come out and apologised straight away.

“It shouldn't distract from the rest of the day, which was a really good conversation, a very clear message that there's a number of concerns with this project, the Labor party's not listening and therefore we need to take this to the election in a peaceful manner.

“We want to encourage conversation. We obviously want to give politicians from a range of different parties the opportunity to speak and engage with our community. But of course we do not condone any violence or encouraging of any violence.

“Overall, it was a very, very peaceful, mature rally.”

Why metaphors matter

Dr Shoshana Dreyfus, a linguist and Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at UOW, said words matter, as language is how we make meaning in life.

“We create the world with language. So language is incredibly important because it not only reflects the way we see the world, but it actually creates the world that we live in.”

Shoshana said while it’s common to use fighting metaphors to simplify a complex message, Barnaby’s comments on Sunday lowered the standard of public discourse.

“We use war metaphors and fighting metaphors a lot in public discourse. We have war on crime, we have war on terror, we have war on Covid-19, we fight disease.

"It's really simple when you want to fight something or you have a war on something because it creates an ‘us and a them’ or an ‘us and an other’ – and the other is usually bad and we're usually good. So it crystallises and simplifies what is possibly nuanced stuff and complicated stuff.”

But when a general metaphor targets particular people, we have a problem, she said.

“When it starts to get personal, it, it usually gets apologised for because people know that it's inappropriate to use killing as a metaphor for voting. It's too extreme and it also kind of lowers the level of public discourse to something that we would not necessarily admire or look up to.”

“Because once upon a time we used to look up to politicians as states people, as people who we could admire as having exemplary behaviour and exemplary language.”

'The crowd just loved him'

Housing advocate Phill Balding, the Sydney Yimby member who founded the Greater Gong and Haven group to spark discussions about development, attended the rally as a resident, curious to hear what politicians had to say.

Phill said Barnaby’s speech used words like “molested”, with turbines dubbed “big turds”. “It’s really bizarre… He was basically just trying to make people laugh and just hate them, the wind farms. It was not about facts.

“The crowd just loved him. He's unreal, I don't know why he hasn't been cancelled yet, but I think, like Trump, he just gets away with it.”

Speaking on behalf of local association Good For The Gong, clean energy jobs advocate Darryl Best questioned Responsible Future’s choice of speakers.

“The line-up of speakers were from the LNP climate change denier’s bloc, with the headliner being Barnaby Joyce, ” Darryl said.

“This is a man who campaigns against all renewable initiatives at every opportunity and denies all the science. This isn’t just offshore wind farms, but also onshore wind farms, solar farms, EVs and pumped-hydro schemes. He is hardly representative of a responsible future.”

Damage is done

The Nationals Member for New England, an experienced politician who has served as deputy prime minister, publicly apologised on Monday morning.

Yet the damage to discourse is done, UOW's Shoshana Dreyfus said.

“I think people don't realise that doing something bad and apologising does not equal not doing it.

“He's already done it. He's already said it. He's already lowered the standard of public discourse by comparing voting to shooting.”

Shoshana said the comments were particularly shocking, coming a few weeks after the attempted assassination of US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“Given that there was just an assassination attempt … it's really inappropriate for one of our high-profile local politicians to be talking about voting as if it's killing. There's no call for that,” she said.

“The standard of public discourse has really been lowered.”

Words echo across the nation

Shellharbour Council provided Sunday's event with a permit and NSW Police attended with “nil crowd issues”. Neither could provide crowd numbers – Responsible Future estimated there were 1000 people.

Millions of Australians, however, may have heard Barnaby Joyce’s comments, which have been reported in every national media outlet from Sky News to the Sydney Morning Herald.

"The bullet you have is this little piece of paper, it goes in the magazine called the voting box and it's coming up," he said. "Get ready to load that magazine. Go, goodbye Chris. Goodbye, Stephen. Goodbye, Albo.”

Darryl said: “His language was provocative and disrespectful to the many people in the Illawarra who are trying to find ways to ensure our future. He has no place here in this debate. Referring to wind farms as 'wind turds' is juvenile and divisive.

“But the worst was yet to come. Load your magazines with bullets? Really? Surely in light of what happened recently in the USA or worse still, the Port Arthur massacre, this is disgraceful language and has no place in any conversation.

“The fact that he was not called out on this by anyone there was very disappointing.”

Council elections ahead

Local government elections are coming up on September 14.

While the Federal Government declared the Illawarra's Renewable Energy Zone and councils typically focus on the ‘three Rs’ – roads, rates and rubbish – wind farms are shaping up as an issue for some council candidates.

“I think the message at the event on Sunday was pretty clear that the local elections are going to be a focal point for opposition to wind farms,” said Alex, who, along with Responsible Future’s Amanda De Lore and Grant Drinkwater, spoke against the Illawarra wind zone.

Local politicians at Sunday’s rally included Shellharbour’s Deputy Mayor, Independent Kellie Marsh; Liberal candidate for Gilmore, Andrew Constance; and Liberal mayoral candidate for the City of Wollongong, Councillor John Dorahy.

“A lot of the politicians were quite encouraged by the large turnout, and they were very passionate,” Alex said.

“The Liberals are taking this to the local elections … Liberals can see that this is an issue. So look, it is going to be a local election issue.

“Obviously Shellharbour has strongly opposed it, so very much a local council issue.”

Alex said Labor MPs had been invited.

He encourages people “to just come to an event, understand what we've learned, maybe listen or raise some questions that you haven't thought about before”.

“We want peaceful elections,” Alex said.

Darryl said Good for the Gong would like the conversation about wind zones to be held sensibly and respectfully. 

“We need to get together to talk about ensuring the government seeks out the best independent organisation to carry out a thorough environmental impact study,” he said.

“By working together, as successful communities do, we can pressure the government to ensure this happens.”

Darryl said it was disappointing to see people running for local government speaking at the rally.

“Everybody is entitled to an opinion around our future, but it should not be a platform to push your political opportunism.”

For anyone standing in the upcoming council elections, Shoshana's advice is to keep the standard of public discourse high.

“I personally don't want my public figures who are going to represent me and be voted into significant positions of office speaking in language that is inflammatory and that is polarising. I want my elected politicians' behaviour to be beyond reproach.

"So my advice to them would be ‘be beyond reproach’. Don't say things that are inflammatory. Don't say things that are polarising.”

Have a say

The Upper House committee for regional New South Wales has established an inquiry into the impact of Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) on rural and regional communities and industries in NSW. The online questionnaire will be available online soon, feedback closes 31 January 2025, visit the website for more information.