Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

I do recall a former senator from our home state of Tasmania who in fact denigrated renewable energy in the form of hydropower and believed that the answer for Tasmania was a coal fired power station in the Fingal Valley. And of course that former senator was none other than the leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, in this place. That is how things change from time to time. I can indicate to the senator that I think we all would like to see renewable energy, and our home state of Tasmania boasts hydro, in a manner that has been criticised for decades by the Australian Greens. What we want to see is good, clean, renewable energy, but we also want to see is affordable energy. And one thing we do not want to see in Australia is manufacturing being exported out of Australia to other countries where they do not have the strong, robust environmental regimes as exist in Australia.

We already saw the outcome of the disastrous carbon tax, which, thanks to Palmer United, we were able to finally get rid of, along with colleagues from the Liberal Democrats, Family First, the motoring enthusiasts, Senator Xenophon and the DLP. But, having said all that, we as a government are looking at the report of the review into the Renewable Energy Target, and we will come out with our proposals in due course.