Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The issue here is the renewable energy target. The government went to the 2007 election with a promise to increase the renewable energy target in order to drive the expansion of renewable energy in Australia. It is something that the Greens have campaigned on for a long time, and we would certainly want the government to go further than the 20 per cent renewable energy target that is proposed.

The industry has been calling for this legislation since the day the government was elected at the end of 2007, and the delay in getting it to the parliament has been such that earlier this year I introduced a private member’s bill to bring on the renewable energy target because the government was dithering in getting this legislation to the parliament. Now that it is here, the only reason that people are pushing for delay is that the government played politics with this by linking the renewable energy target legislation with its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation.

Interestingly, the focus here is not on helping the renewable energy industry; the focus here is on the energy-intensive trade-exposed industries. The way the government has linked these bills means that, if the RET were to pass next week and the CPRS did not, the energy-intensive trade-exposed industries would not get their exemptions, and they are the ones putting pressure on here for the delay. Meanwhile, the people who will suffer will be the renewable energy businesses. Even in today’s papers there is a report of a business in Victoria saying that it is going to have to put people off unless this legislation is passed because the rebate has disappeared. As we know, the government moved on that before 30 June. These businesses are desperately waiting. In one of today’s papers it says:

SOLAR panel retailers are preparing to cut jobs and halt expansion plans because of uncertainty over the Government’s solar credit program.

That, of course, is the multiplier in the RET.

If we do not deal with this by the end of next week people are going to lose their jobs. Businesses are going to go to the wall—and they are the renewable energy businesses. The people who are pushing for this delay are the big emitters. I am not going to support this being held off over the winter simply because it does not suit the coalition to deal with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation in the next week or so.

I want to see this legislation through. I want to give certainty to the renewable energy industry that they have got their target. I would be prepared to have an inquiry tomorrow or on Monday, but I am not prepared to see this last over the winter, because we are going to see the renewable energy industry further undermined by this kind of delay. The people who vote for delay are people voting for losing jobs and losing businesses in one of the industries that we need to build for a low-carbon or zero-carbon future. There can be no excuse for this kind of delay. It is just more political manoeuvring for the benefit of the big end of town to the detriment of those industries where the jobs-rich growth is.

We have seen the report in the last couple of weeks saying that it is the renewable energy target that will drive jobs. It is not the CPRS; it is the renewable energy target. There was a report saying that some 28,000 jobs can be created. Every month’s delay is not only jobs not created; it is jobs lost from existing businesses. So I think we should bring this on, get this legislation through by the end of next week and be pleased to see people putting more people on rather than putting people off.