“Every component of my life was attacked”: How misinformation generates fear and anxiety
The government says it wants to guard against false claims around renewable energy and climate change.
Jacob Wallace
March 26, 2026
The years have rolled by - 25 of them, in fact - but Gippsland farmer Lindsay Marriott hasn’t forgotten the insults and the accusations.
At a community meeting in 2001, Marriott was told his decision to allow 12 wind turbines on his Bald Hills property would mean that “before dawn every day, [I would have to] go around and hoover up all the dead birds”.
The matter caused serious rifts in parts of the community. Marriott says friends and family were also targeted.
Aside from the bird graveyard, the farmer was told the turbines would lower the district’s property values and negatively impact his farm’s productivity.
None of it was true.
In November last year, Marriott told a Senate inquiry into misinformation and disinformation around climate change and energy that ibis, swans and ducks have been living on his property and navigating the turbines for more than a decade.
Plans for the turbines were approved in 2004, but construction didn't start until 2012.
Lindsay Marriott’s farm at Bald Hills with a flock of birds flying in the distance.
What happened: A parliamentary inquiry - backed by Labor, the Liberals, the Greens and Independent senator David Pocock, found that there are coordinated misinformation campaigns actively working to mislead Australians. Their aim is to delay action to reduce climate pollution, erode trust and inflame community conflict.
The inquiry’s report identified “climate obstruction” as a systemic problem that is shaping public debate and policy outcomes.
Marriott told the Monitor the opposition to his wind turbines came from a “driven, small group of people”, but locals now considered it “overwhelmingly a benign thing”.
Fact check
Power production: Marriott said some locals claimed his wind farm wouldn’t produce a meaningful amount of energy. The farm now produces enough electricity to power 62,000 homes.
Animal productivity: Naysayers told Marriott his animals wouldn’t be able to graze under the turbines.
“It has had absolutely no negative impact on animal production. My farm has increased in productivity,” Marriott said.
Sheep grazing on Marriott’s farm.
Fear and loathing in Gippsland
The National Director of RE-Alliance, Andrew Bray, also submitted evidence to the inquiry.
RE-Alliance is a not-for-profit that advocates for regional communities as they shift to renewable energy.
Bray told the Monitor: “One of the biggest contributors to community anxiety is not being able to access easy, factual, locally relevant and trusted information.”
According to the News and Media Research Centre (NMRC) survey from 2025, nearly three quarters (74 percent) of Australians are concerned about misinformation, the highest percentage of any country in the survey.
“When there's an information void, we just see it filled time and time again by false and exaggerated claims,” Bray said. “It's important that the government step in and support the work that's happening at the local community level to get accurate information out.”
Trusted institutions
Bray said he was disappointed when politicians talked down organisations like the CSIRO, which were “widely acknowledged as the experts in these areas”.
He is in favour of setting up hubs in renewable energy zones around the country to provide information to locals.
The minority
“I went through a pretty intensive anti movement 20 years ago,” Marriott told the Senate inquiry. “Anti programs can’t be happy. They demand unhappiness, and they demand anger, and the anger develops into hatred and they can inspire people that otherwise would never think of doing the things they did.”
He said “every component of my life was attacked” by some of those against the turbines, and that people spreading false narratives “need to be called out”.