In the battle against wind industry corruption and government malfeasance, few compared to the late John Madigan.

John Madigan was a rare breed; a politician who was not only honest, decent and honourable, but whose integrity was matched by his courage. His fearless and dogged pursuit of the wind power outfits that made his Victorian constituents’ lives misery was second to none.

As Federal Senator for the State of Victoria, John pushed for and led the 2015 Senate Inquiry that exposed just how rotten the wind industry is, as well as those facilitators within all levels of government – who have been running a protection racket for the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time for almost 20 years.

The inquiry was set up to give rural residents their first opportunity to be heard in a public and open forum; a chance for their noise complaints to finally be taken seriously, rather than dismissed as figments of their imaginations.

STT and its operatives watched in awe as John headed off repeated efforts by public servants to derail the process; characters who were hostile to the idea that their beloved wind turbines could so much as harm a fly and who sought to sabotage the inquiry at every stage.

This included efforts to prevent Clive and Tina Gare from giving their evidence to the inquiry in an open session. A couple of windpower-worshipping inquiry staffers knew that the Gare’s evidence would be dynamite and sought to keep a lid on it by forcing them to give it in a closed (in camera) session, which would have meant that the Gare’s evidence would have been treated forever as confidential and not available for public consumption.

As soon as he was tipped off to what was going on, John intervened and ensured that the Gare’s evidence was given in open session and, thereafter, the transcript of their evidence made available to all and sundry on the Parliamentary website. STT covered it here: SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

The Gare’s evidence sent the wind industry and its acolytes into apoplexy, because it trashed the line that only those who get paid to host wind turbines never complain about wind turbine noise.

John Madigan strived to ensure that all Australians were treated fairly and decently, not least his own Victorian constituents.

The links below provide just a few examples of John Madigan’s fearless and tireless efforts to exposure of the great wind power fraud:

Senator John Madigan Warns Victoria’s Labor Govt of its Brewing Legal Liability to Wind Farm Victims

Wind Power Fraud Finally Exposed: Senator John Madigan Details LRET’s Astronomical 45 Billion Dollar Cost to Power Consumers

The Tangled Web: John Madigan Exposes the Greens as a Paid-Up Wind Industry Front

As the Sydney Morning Herald details below, John Madigan was a unique and special man.

‘A true original’: Former DLP senator John Madigan dies, aged 53
Sydney Morning Herald
Rob Harris
16 June 2020

John Madigan, a Ballarat blacksmith who led the Democratic Labour Party out of the wilderness in 2010 by winning its first Senate seat in three decades, has died after a two-year battle with cancer.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott led tributes to the 53-year-old who died on Tuesday morning at a palliative care home near his home in Hepburn Springs, north-west of Melbourne, with his family by his side.

 

Mr Abbott called Madigan a “very decent man” with an “old-fashioned sense of courtesy and respect for others”.

“John Madigan was a fine representative of a worthy political tradition. The DLP sought to be the Labor Party at its best: strong on Australian values and determined to get working men and women a fair go,” he said on social media.

Madigan won the sixth and last Victorian Senate seat at the 2010 federal election, taking office on July 1, 2011, as the first DLP senator since Frank McManus and Jack Little were both defeated at the 1974 double-dissolution election.

He quit the party in 2014 amid fierce internal bickering and started his own manufacturing and farming party but failed to retain his seat at the 2016 double-dissolution election.

In 2013 Madigan rejected a $44,000 pay rise handed to federal parliamentarians and instead started his own grants scheme to promote Australian manufacturing and farming, mainly to small businesses and schools in regional Victoria and suburban Melbourne.
He announced in a 2018 Christmas message he was fighting bowel and liver cancer and was “forever grateful” for the care from the nurses, surgeons and medical staff at the Ballarat Base Hospital.

“He was a generous and compassionate man who gave his life to the greater good and had great faith in the people of Australia,” his family said in a statement.

“He was incredibly grateful and honoured to have received such immense support from many communities.

“He considered his time in Parliament a privilege and he sought always to discharge his duty to all Victorians, regardless of their political persuasion and found the ability to give the voiceless a voice an honour.”

Madigan was a strong advocate for refugee protection conventions, voting against the Coalition’s temporary protection visas, and campaigned for West Papuan independence, gambling reforms and against foreign ownership and wind turbines.

Former senate colleague Nick Xenophon, who remained in close contact with Madigan after the pair left Parliament, said he was “genuinely sad” about his friend’s death.

“He was a man of enormous integrity … a true original,” Mr Xenophon said.

“He was genuinely passionate about Australian-made industries and jobs and was talking about it long before it was fashionable.

“In an era of career politicians he was the absolute antithesis of a career politician. He had a fantastic BS detector.”

Despite an acrimonious exit from the party, where he used parliamentary privilege to accuse a person employed in his office of a systematic campaign to damage the party, he was earlier this year welcomed back and made an honorary member.

The anti-communist DLP was formed out of the split in the Labor Party in the 1950s arising from disputes over the infiltration of trade unions.

DLP federal secretary Stephen Campbell, who worked as Madigan’s chief of staff, said his former boss never felt he belonged in Canberra.

“He didn’t feel he deserved to be in the Senate, but in fact he was one of the best representatives the Australian people could have asked for,” Mr Campbell said.

“He wasn’t a confident public speaker but he was an honest, decent man who would never compromise a principle.”

He is survived by his wife Teresa and two children, Lucy and Jack.
Sydney Morning Herald

STT’s thoughts and prayers are with Teresa, Lucy and Jack. We are so grateful for the efforts and enterprise of a man who did his very best to put things right; a fine and decent man who was, in all respects, a Servant of the People of Australia.