PLEA Network

24 August 2016, Renew Economy, Labor ready to sacrifice ARENA for medal in budget Olympics. Federal Labor appears ready to sacrifice the Australian Renewable Energy Agency it established just a few years ago as it reacts to Coalition government taunts that it is not serious about “budget repair”. In a decision that will rank – along with the Coalition’s removal of the carbon price – at the very top of the Stupid List, Labor appears to have accepted the Coalition’s challenge to pass a $6.5 billion omnibus budget repair package that includes stripping $1 billion from ARENA’s legislated funds. The move to strip funds from the agency responsible for bringing in new technologies, business models and ideas that will be critical to efforts to cut emissions appears extraordinary in a country that has possibly the strongest budget in the developed world and one of the worst records on climate and emissions policies. The decision was all but confirmed by Labor leader Bill Shorten in his address to the National Press Club, which represents an institution so obsessed with line items in the budget and being a political insider, it has virtually abandoned its coverage of actual policy. It was the Abbott government that first attempted to strip the remaining funds from ARENA, along with its attempts to abolish other institutions such as the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the carbon price. ARENA’s abolition remains policy, despite the elevation of Malcolm Turnbull, who has changed little of the Abbott-era climate and clean energy policies, despite his previous vow not to lead a government that did not take climate change seriously. But as the Climate Institute says in its new report on Wednesday, the Australian government is facing a policy train crash if it ever decides to take its commitment to the Paris climate deal seriously. Read More here