A draft government mandate to the CEFC calls for "mature and established clean energy technologies ... to be excluded from the corporation's activities, including extant wind technology and household and small solar". A draft government mandate to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation calls for "mature and established clean energy technologies ... to be excluded from the corporation's activities, including extant wind technology and household and small solar". Credit:Michelle Mossop Currently, about a third of all the corporation's investment involves small-scale solar. The CEFC has made a priority projects that help people who do not own their own homes, those who live in apartments and community groups to invest in solar panels. In a statement on Monday, Labor environment spokesman Mark Butler said the proposals went "well beyond" Prime Minister Tony Abbott's opposition to the aesthetic value of wind farms, describing it as a "wholesale attack on renewable energy".

"The government is effectively blood-letting the CEFC since its attempts to abolish it have been fruitless," he said. Mr Butler also told ABC's Radio National that Labor was concerned the Abbott government's interventions "makes the job of the CEFC effectively impossible". "In order to achieve what it has been trying to achieve unsuccessfully through the Parliament." Mr Butler called on the government to make its instructions to the CEFC public. He said people were only guessing what was in the official mandate. Last year, the Coalition tried to abolish the corporation, but the legislation was blocked in the Senate, with Labor, the Greens and Palmer United combining to keep the CEFC.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt was unapologetic about the government's plans on Monday, saying the CEFC was always supposed to focus on innovation. "We've done exactly what we said we'd do," he told Radio National, noting that there was a gap in the large-scale solar and emerging technologies sectors. He said that if the CEFC was to remain, then it should focus on technologies that were not already getting access to lending. When asked if the latest directives were simply a "back door" way of "nobbling" the CEFC, Mr Hunt replied, "I just respectfully and categorically disagree". In a press conference later on Monday, Mr Hunt defended the move to large-scale solar projects, saying it was something "the vast majority of Australians would be pleased and delighted to support".

Mr Hunt said small-scale solar was going at a "very solid" pace but larger projects had "lagged". He also turned the attack back onto Labor, questioning why the opposition was against the move. "I would put it to Bill Shorten, what have you got against large-scale solar?" Mr Butler argued that the purpose of the corporation, set up by the Gillard government in 2012, was not to help in the development of the technology but to ensure there was access to well-developed lending markets. It made contracted investments of $900 million in its first year. Its investment mix is 33 per cent solar, 30 per cent energy efficiency, 21 per cent wind and 16 per cent other technologies.

With Heath Aston and Adam Gartrell Follow us on Twitter