Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government is setting up a potential double dissolution election trigger by again trying to scrap the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
The measure, part of the government’s legislative package to repeal Australia’s carbon price laws introduced in 2012 by the then Labor government, was defeated in the upper house Senate last December.
AAP Newsagency reports it is the first government bill on the carbon price to be reintroduced three months after rejection by the Senate.
If defeated again in the upper house, as would seem likely given that the Labor opposition and the Australian Greens Party have already said they will vote against the legislation, it could be used as grounds for a double dissolution election.
However Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer Steve Ciobo, who introduced the new bill, did not mention the constitutional implications.
AAP reports Mr Ciobo said scrapping the corporation was an election commitment.
He said the agency, which Labor set up in 2012, extended the reach of the carbon tprice by creating a $10 billion fund to invest in renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency projects.
Mr Ciobo said that the concept overlapped with the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target which itself encouraged investment in renewable energy.
AAP reports he said the RET did not need to be accompanied by $10 billion of “borrowed taxpayers’ money” going into the corporation to encourage investment.
Debate on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 was adjourned.
Meanwhile the Liberal-National government has indicated it will not give up the fight to scrap the carbon price laws, vowing to take every precaution to ensure the next Senate can abolish it for good in the first half of July.
The government yesterday failed in its first bid to scrap the impost, with the Senate voting against the package of bills to repeal the fixed price Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
AAP reports the legislation can’t be brought before parliament again for another three months, but the government is promising it will be back on the agenda at the first possible opportunity.
Under the current laws the fixed price ETS will revert to a market based ETS linked to the European Union ETS in July 2015 and the Labor opposition has said it would support any plan which brought forward the move to a market based system.
“We will not stop until the carbon tax is repealed,” Environment Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in the national capital, Canberra.
“We will keep going, and we will fulfill our election pledge.”
Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler said as long as the government was promising to replace carbon pricing with its Direct Action plan, Labor could not support the repeal.
“Without a credible alternative, Labor cannot support the abolition of the existing clean energy policies,” Mr Butler said in a statement.
AAP reports the government also took the opportunity to attack Labor’s West Australian senators ahead of the April 5 election re-run in that state, accusing them of putting the carbon price on “life support”.
The government has given up trying to negotiate with the existing Senate, which remains under the control of Labor and the Australian Greens until July.
The arrival of new senators at that time presents the government with its first real opportunity to deliver on its election promise.
Mr Hunt said the government would ensure the legislation was ready for the incoming Senate to consider when it sits for the first time.