Antinuclear

Waubra Foundation no longer gets charity tax subsidy for anti wind farm activities

Waubra Foundation, prominent anti-wind farm lobby, stripped of health promotion charity status ABC News By environment and science reporter Jake Sturmer 18 Dec 2014, Government regulators have stripped a prominent anti-wind farm lobby of its health promotion charity status.

The status allowed the Waubra Foundation to receive tax deductible donations, concessions the Greens described as “enormous public subsidies”.

A year ago the ABC revealed the Greens made a complaint to the Taxation Office and Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC), claiming there was no credible evidence to suggest a direct link between wind turbines and health problems.

University of Sydney Professor of Public Health Simon Chapman supports that view.

“There’s very, very poor evidence of any direct effect – in fact there have been 22 published reviews since 2003 which have all reached that conclusion,” Professor Chapman said.

“So in other words there’s nothing intrinsic that’s emitted from wind farms – sound etcetera – which in itself can cause human health problems.”

Four months after the Greens made the complaint, the Commission sent a show cause notice to the Foundation.

“It is not possible for me to find that the Foundation’s principal activity promotes the prevention or control of disease in human beings,” Assistant Commissioner David Locke said in February.

“My current view is there is that there is insufficient evidence that ‘wind turbine syndrome’ or ‘vibroacoustic disease’ caused by proximity to wind turbines are recognised as human diseases or that the health problems that have been perceived by the complainants as being associated with living or working close to wind turbines are a disease.”………..  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-19/waubra-foundation-stripped-of-health-promotion-charity-status/5977530

December 20, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, legal