Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Xenophon for that question. The short answer in relation to ARENA on its own is no, but of course that is precisely why the government, within the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, set up the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, which is jointly managed by the CEFC and ARENA. That is a fund that provides debt and equity financing for projects that need to be commercially viable. The difference between ARENA and CEFC—and that is the way it was set up by the previous government, not by us—is that ARENA provides grants, whereas the CEFC is the vehicle which provides debt and equity financing. As part of this agreement between the government and the opposition, we have restored $800 million out of the initial $1.26 billion save to ARENA for the purposes of ARENA providing direct grants, consistent with their modus operandi up until this point. We also have guaranteed that the overall capital allocation to the CEFC will remain at $10 billion. The way this is funded is by other savings in the bill, as I have indicated to the chamber.