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

I think it is really important that we get more than a smart alec response from the minister saying the government policy has not changed. The government policy is to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. That is the policy that has been reiterated by Minister Cormann on several occasions in the estimates most recently. The deal says specifically:

Subject to the passage of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015 and reinstatement of native forest wood waste as eligible source of renewable energy, I will commit to the following measures in attachments A and B to this letter.

That has been signed by Minister Greg Hunt. It is pretty clear that the deal was that, in order to get the crossbench to agree to burning native forests for energy, he will agree to this particular deal. And there in the deal, in attachment B, it says:

The government will write to the CEFC to ensure it adheres to its original purpose, by changing the investment mandate to focus investment in emerging and innovative renewable technologies and energy efficiency.

And so on. Either the government has lied to the crossbench and intends to abolish the CEFC and ARENA, having got them to agree to support burning native forests, or the government does not intend to abolish them, in which case they should say so and explain to the chamber how they are going to get the CEFC under the existing investment mandate, which the government changed to require them to return a higher rate of return. This is a very important question—no doubt the Clean Energy Finance Corporation would like to know, and so would the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It is not good enough to say that there is no change to government policy. If there is no change to government policy, then the crossbenchers have been absolutely dudded front and centre and made complete fools of, because they have signed up to something where they will tonight deliver logging native forests for the government and they will have got zilch—nothing—in return. In fact, the government will then dud them by abolishing the very institutions that they said were going to deliver these changes.

Frankly, it is no different from the way that the government dudded Mr Palmer, from the Palmer United Party, when he abolished the carbon price in exchange for the Climate Change Authority doing some work on an emissions trading scheme, and the government intends to abolish the Climate Change Authority as well.

This government does not keep its word. Let me tell you, people on the crossbench—it does not keep its word. It will say and do whatever it takes, and then the minute it bags whatever it has got out of the deal it will welch on its part of the deal. That is precisely what is going on here tonight, and anyone who does not believe that just needs to look at their history. I would ask Minister Birmingham again, straight up and down: is the government policy still to abolish the CEFC and ARENA?

If so, why have you lied to the crossbench to con them into supporting the logging and burning of native forests?