"It sends a very clear message about where people with disabilities fall in the pecking order," he told Fairfax Media on Friday.

"Clearly, we fall below strong lobbyists."

A leaked draft letter from Environment Minister Greg Hunt to Senate crossbenchers shows that the Abbott government has agreed to appoint a "wind farm commissioner" to handle complaints about turbines. The letter, sent during negotiations over the government's renewable energy target bill, details promises the government has made to help win support for including wood waste as a source of renewable energy.

A final version of the government's agreement with the crossbench is understood to have been completed as the Senate prepares to vote on the renewable energy target legislation on Monday.

Senator David Leyonhjelm - who has driven the push for the agreement - will still vote against the government's RET legislation, which will reduce Australia's renewable energy target.

But he will support the government in striking down an amendment by Labor to remove native wood waste burning from the government's bills.

The Abbott government cut the Human Rights Commission's funding by $1.7 million in last year's budget, reducing the number of commissioners from seven to six. Mr Innes' term as disability commissioner was the first to expire in July 2014 and he was not replaced.

Instead, Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan took on the disability portfolio in addition to her existing duties.

Mr Innes, who is blind, was highly critical of the move at the time, arguing that as about 37 per cent of the complaints received by the commission related to disability, it needed a full-time appointee. He also argued someone with "lived experience" was needed for the role.

While Mr Innes praised the work that Ms Ryan was doing, he again stressed that it needed to be filled by a full-time commissioner.

When he was in the job, he spent about 60 hours a week on disability issues.

"I'm doing the job de facto anyway to a certain extent," he said on Friday, pointing to his conference presentations and media commentary.

When questioning the government's priorities, he also noted that just as he finished up as disability commissioner, the Abbott government appointed a Threatened Species Commissioner.

While he said endangered animals were an important issue, "I don't think they should rate above 20 per cent of the population".

Mr Innes was not alone on Friday, as environment groups questioned why it was the wind industry facing extra scrutiny, instead of the mining industry.

Drew Hutton, president of Lock The Gate, said many communities would rather have a commissioner with oversight of large fossil fuel companies, which governments "are almost completely reliant on to self-regulate".

Mr Hunt told the ABC on Friday the government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas was already dealing with issues relating to coal and coal seam gas.

A spokesman for Mr Hunt said on Friday that the role of the wind farm commissioner will be a "non-statutory appointment using existing environment portfolio funding".

"If you're going to all the trouble of putting up a commissioner for wind turbines whose effects are only of minimal concern to scientists, then we clearly need that at least in the areas of coal and coal seam gas," Mr Hutton said.

But he said it would be even better if governments simply ensured that existing regulatory authorities were doing all of things they were supposed to do to protect communities.

The Energy Supply Association of Australia has decried the plan for a wind commissioner as "unnecessary red tape that will push up the cost of electricity".