Associate Professor Michelle Voyer, of the University of Wollongong’s Blue Futures Energy Lab, supports offshore wind if it’s done to the highest standards. At the same time, she empathises with protestors because, when all is said and done, Michelle and the ‘No Turbines’ campaigners share something powerful: a deep love for the ocean.
Michelle’s PhD, which she did 10 years ago at the University of Technology Sydney, investigated exactly this sort of situation.
“My PhD research was looking at social acceptability of marine protected areas and how different people respond to things like protected areas in very different ways, but often all driven by fundamentally the same values – this kind of love and care for the ocean,” she says.
“There's a massive global movement of marine social sciences.
“People have realised how deeply connected people are to the ocean and how important it is that we consider that and think about that in terms of how we manage and use ocean spaces.”
Michelle was born in Sydney and grew up in Maitland, on the banks of the Hunter River. Most holidays, her family would head for the ocean. “My grandparents had a holiday house in Boat Harbour in Port Stephens, and they'd had it since the 1940s,” she says. “So it was always a really big part of our childhood to spend weekends and holidays on the coast. And that to me was my favourite place in the world, growing up, was to go there and just hang out by the coast and in the water, on the water with my cousins.”
Arts and humanities vied for her interest during high school and she wound up doing a degree in both marine science and the arts at the University of Newcastle. After that, Michelle spent 10 years in government departments in NSW, Tasmania and Queensland and NSW. She’s worked for Fisheries, Parks and Wildlife as a ranger and for the National Oceans Office.
“I've always been interested in the governance space and managing human uses,” she says.
“The way I came to my PhD was having worked in government for 10 years and really feeling like science sometimes took a backseat in decision-making, and I got quite frustrated with that.”
The heated discussions about the offshore wind zone come as no surprise to Michelle, whose 25-year career has included its fair share of controversial projects, starting with her first assignment out of uni.
“I went to work for New South Wales Fisheries, at Taylor's Beach in Port Stephens. And the very first project I did was looking at establishing new aquatic reserves up and down the coast. I was 22 years old and I was sent out with a team to talk to communities about how they felt about having a proposal for an aquatic reserve in their backyard.
“I got yelled at a lot; people weren't happy.
“Not long after that, I did another project on Grey Nurse Sharks. Very similar. Then there was a proposal for marine protected areas – the South-East Regional Marine Protected Area Network.
“A memorable part of that was being told that if I had been a man, I would've been tarred and feathered.”
Michelle says this kind of intense response is surfacing again as the Illawarra region grapples with the idea of a zone for offshore wind developments.
“People are really, really passionate about their ocean spaces and any kind of activity or change of use or management action in the oceans, people respond really strongly to them.”
She takes heart from the fact that we are united in caring for the ocean. “I would say the majority of people engaged in this debate recognise that climate change is a huge threat, including a huge threat to our oceans, and that we need to transition as quickly as we can to a renewable energy future.
“So I think that's a really solid base for us to work from.”
Outside of her day job at UOW, Michelle is equally passionate about spending leisure time in the sea. The family first came to the Illawarra about 14 years ago, when her husband took up a job with Maritime NSW. At the time, Michelle had a baby boy, was pregnant with her second son and keen to be closer to family. They moved to Kiama and fell in love with the coastal lifestyle.
“We're big campers. My husband's an avid fisherman, so we've had lots of boats over the years.”
Almost all their recreational time is spent on the coast. “Surfing, fishing, diving, snorkelling, paddle boarding – between us all, we cover off on most of those things. I sometimes joke that we're not allowed to leave the coast even on holidays.”
Although Michelle has worked in and around oceans for all of her 25-year professional career, when she started out as an under-grad in Newcastle, marine science was a relatively new program. Even so, she remembers the subject attracting an even mix of men and women. “It was only a small cohort and I would say it was pretty evenly matched actually, between men and women. When I went into government, it was probably a little bit more male-dominated.
“There’s a lot of women involved in marine sciences. It's something that women are quite passionate about – lots of women feel very connected to the coast and want to work in caring for the coast.”
Independent research is a vital next step in the offshore wind process, she believes.
“We [the Blue Energy Futures Lab] certainly put in some recommendations in our submission that there needs to be more independent research in this process. At the moment it does feel like it's quite developer-centric.
“But I think we also need to push for some more community discussions and collaborations in a bit more of a respectful environment.
“The concerns that have been raised are very valid … we need to determine whether those concerns are deal breakers or whether they're things that we can manage and accommodate and mitigate.”
Back home, her sons, now aged 14 and 16, are mostly mystified by the furore.
“To be honest, they don't get it. They go, what's all this fuss about? It just seems to them to be a no-brainer. And I think that's quite common in the younger demographic – the ‘we just need to get on with this’ kind of thinking.”
Like many young fans of renewable energy – including the grassroots Tomorrow Movement currently calling for supportive offshore wind submissions – part of the appeal for Michelle’s sons is the future job opportunities and economic security it’s predicted to bring.
“My oldest, in particular, is interested in the engineering aspects of it. He's one of these kids that likes to pull things apart and understand the mechanical aspects of it. It’s interesting to him to think about that scale and size of it.”
Yet, as many working parents will know, adult careers are less than impressive to one’s offspring and even being the Keira Endowed Chair in Energy Futures, a Research Fellow with the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security and a spokesperson for UOW’s Blue Energy Futures Lab is nothing to boast about at home.
“They’re teenagers,” Michelle says, laughing. “Mostly that's just mum's work and they're not that much interested in anything mum does.”
Have your say
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is calling for feedback on the Illawarra offshore area proposed for future renewable energy projects. Click here to have your say by November 15.
FAQ at UOW
UOW researchers support the development of offshore wind in the Illawarra, provided the developments are done to the highest environmental, social and cultural standards. They have drawn up an independent list of FAQs, which can be read on the Blue Energy Futures Lab website.
Questions welcome
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Read more from Michelle Voyer and Ty Christopher, the spokespeople for UOW's Blue Energy Futures Lab:
