Renewable energy: Generate facts, not fights
LILY D’AMBROSIO, The Weekly Times
September 20, 2017

OUR Government knows that people are doing it tough right across the country with energy price rises.

The experts are clear that the main driver of this is a lack of national policy certainty.

There’s no doubt that we need more electricity supply and businesses need certainty to invest.

That’s why we’ve gone ahead with Victoria’s renewable energy targets.   

We simply cannot afford to wait for Malcolm Turnbull and his shambolic government to get its act together.    

In Victoria, the Liberals and Nationals have decided that if elected they will scrap VRET, and run a baseless scare campaign against renewable energy. This is incredibly irresponsible when you consider the facts.   

VRET is endorsed by the independent market operator because it delivers much needed new supply. It will also create up to 11,000 new jobs, many of them in regional Victoria.

The independent Australian Energy Market Commission has also confirmed that prices will start to come down next year as more renewable energy comes online. This is largely driven by Victoria’s renewable energy targets.

There are no credible experts who blame renewable energy for driving up prices, it’s quite the opposite.

They’re a big part of the solution.      

Renewable energy, including wind and solar, is the cheapest and quickest new build generation available.

The Federal Government’s own Finkel review supports this.

Our VRET is deliberately designed to complement a national scheme, if the Liberals and Nationals can stop squabbling and deliver it.

In response to the specific figures raised in last week’s The Weekly Times, the 3564 turbines claim is deeply misleading, inaccurate and a reflection on how this issue is being used as a political football by the Liberals and Nationals. The article also assumed that the VRET will only support wind farms, but there will also be large-scale solar. Even if as much as 80 per cent was all wind, this would equal between 700 and 1100 turbines.

Unfortunately the misleading claims made by Simon Ramsay, Liberal MP for Western Victoria, are yet another example of why we’re in this situation.   

The Liberals and Nationals are playing politics plain and simple.

Whether it’s in Canberra or Victoria, they cannot agree among themselves and we’re all paying for their internal dysfunction. The toxic politics of this debate needs to end and we need to ensure the facts are at the heart of this debate.

● Lily D’Ambrosio is the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change.

4 years of nothing , no business is going to invest with a directionless government

Tony Abbo is putting the foot down on this renewable rubbish nonsense as he threatens to X the floor!!!!

Clean Coal is our Goal!!!




Abbott threatens to cross the floor on energy
Updated: 6:48 am, Wednesday, 20 September 2017



Tony Abbott says he will cross the floor to vote against any attempt to legislate a clean energy target.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has told Sky News he will cross the floor of parliament and vote against any attempt by the government to legislate a clean energy target - threatening the Coalition's one seat majority.

'It would be unconscionable, I underline that word unconscionable, for a government that was originally elected promising to abolish the carbon tax and to end Labor's climate change obsessions to go further down this renewable path.' he said.

In a bid to stop further subsidies for renewable energy, Mr Abbott argued Australia's energy policies will make no significant difference to the reduction of global emissions.

'By all means lets reduce our emissions but the problem is that Australia produces about one per cent of the world's total emissions and nothing that we do in this country is going to make any substantial difference.' Mr Abbott said.

'Sure, climate change is significant but it is by no means the greatest moral challenge of our time.'

The former prime minister says the most important thing the government can do is not implement any more subsidies for renewables, and address the need for base load power.

'We have to respect people who have made investments under the existing system. We don't want additional sovereign risk factors to be bedevilling our economy but no further subsidies. No additional renewables.'

'The other thing we've got to do is address the market failure which political risk has caused. It's not so much market failure as government failure.'

'Power generation is an essential service and if the market won't build coal-fired power stations, if the market won't build base load power the government has got to do it.'

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/09/20/abbott-threatens-to-cross-...