Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The contribution by the minister brought to mind several issues that I wish to respond to and also ask for some further information on. I thought it was very interesting that the minister, I think, belled the cat when he said that there would not be much infrastructure funded under this facility if it were to exclude fossil fuel infrastructure. We had feared that that was the case, but thank you for so explicitly stating that this is in fact a dirty energy slush fund with no intention of any non-fossil fuel infrastructure investment. If I am verballing you there, Minister, I would happily be wrong about that, and I will ask you a question about that in just a moment.

I thought it was somewhat bizarre that the minister was referring to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation as not explicitly excluding fossil fuels, when in fact the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is entitled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and its investment mandate is indeed prescribed to exclude fossil fuels. So I might just ask the minister to reflect in his own time on that particular fact.

Minister, I am aware that there has obviously been some interest in this fund since it was first proposed and a number of inquiries have been made. I cannot remember the formal terminology that you have used. 'Expressions of interest' is the nub of what I am trying to get at. I know there have been some discussions between the Queensland government Treasurer Mr Curtis Pitt and the former Treasurer of your government specifically about the Adani project as well as a number of other projects that might avail themselves of this fund should it be established—which it now seems will happen, given that Labor is happy to fund fossil fuels. Minister, my question is: what are the non-fossil fuel expressions of interest, if any, that have been put to the process so far? I have asked in Senate estimates about this, and I understand there are quite a number of projects. But, given your remarks about them being 'mostly' fossil fuels, can you detail whether there are in fact any that are not?