Barnaby Joyce weighs in on controversial Nundle wind farm proposal

He's labelled controversy surrounding the $600 million project an example of the "political cost" of renewables.

Residents of Sydney wouldn't like a wind farm near their house, the New England MP said, and it wouldn't be fair for them to ask regional people to live near one either.

"Why don't you have them at Palm Beach and Manly and Waringah? We could have them in golf courses? They'd work perfectly well, [there would be a] good sea breeze," he said.

When he puts the idea to Sydney residents they tell him it's "outrageous", he said.

"But apparently it's not outrageous if you put them in our electorate," he said.

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Mr Joyce said renewable developments were popular with landholders who benefit financially but not their neighbors

"You know who doesn't like solar farms? The people next door who have to stare at it," he said.

The Hills of Gold wind farm project proposed to be built outside Nundle is controversial in the town. Residents formed a group to campaign against approval of the scheme in 2018.

The Hills of Gold Preservation Society, which opposes the development, claims a majority of the community shares their opinion.

Nundle got its first look at the project earlier in May with the release of photomontage images the society say show the turbines would "dominate the village", driving away tourism.

Landholder Jim Robinson, whose property would house most of the 78-turbine wind farm, talked up its benefits for the first time on Monday

Asked if he thought opposition to the polarising wind farm was reasonable, the former Deputy Prime Minister said there was no kind of power generation that will keep everyone happy.

"I think you have to understand people's concerns, absolutely. That's politics. If you say it's not reasonable then you're disregarding people's concerns about an issue," he said.

"If you just say let's be a realist about this, we have to build a high efficiency low emission coal-fire power station, we've got to sell that technology to the world, we've got to get a huge volume of power onto the grid, get a cheap price and then we can build up Taminda and say let's go."

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