Labor accuses Coalition of backtracking on election promise as industry grows fearful renewable energy target may be abolished

Tony Abbott pretended to support the renewable energy industry before the election but is now “launching a full-frontal attack” according to Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler.

The Coalition went to the election promising to keep the renewable energy target (RET), which underpins investment in energy sources such as wind and solar.

But the prime minister has now taken control of a scheduled review in his own department and says the RET may have outlived its initial purpose and needs to be reassessed because it increases power prices.

“The Liberals went to the election saying there was no difference between the parties on renewable energy, but they weren’t being straight with the Australian people because now they are launching a full-frontal attack,” Butler said.

Butler said Labor would stick with its opposition to the repeal of the carbon tax when parliament resumes this month, but was now also preparing “to ramp up a community campaign in support of renewable energy”.

“We didn’t foresee this battle and it seems the responsible ministers [environment minister] Greg Hunt and [industry minister] Ian Macfarlane aren’t having much of a say either – it’s ideological and driven by people like [the prime minister’s chief business adviser] Maurice Newman.”

The renewable energy industry is also becoming increasingly alarmed at signals the government intends to drastically reduce, or even abolish, the target.

The Australian solar council has launched a “save solar” campaign because of deep concerns the review will cripple the industry by axing the target, which requires 45,000 gigawatt hours of power to be sourced from renewables by 2020 and provides a subsidy to people installing solar systems.

In opposition, the Coalition was highly supportive of the solar industry and critical of constant changes to government incentives.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, jumped out of a plane to support a previous “save our solar” campaign on the grounds that Labor’s decision to means-test the then $8,000 subsidy was putting the industry into “freefall”.

And both Hunt and Macfarlane have said the Coalition would keep its election promise to retain an effective RET.

Details of the review are expected by the end of the month, with the government struggling to get around the legislative requirement that it be undertaken by the climate change authority, which it intends to abolish but has not yet been able to.

Before Christmas, the prime minister said the RET may have outlived its usefulness and become a burden on business and on Thursday repeated his concerns in response to the announcement that Queensland government-owned Stanwell was mothballing its gas-fired Swanbank E power station in October.

The decision was driven by the fact that rising gas export prices mean it has become more lucrative to sell the gas than use it to generate electricity, but the company has also complained about the RET in a submission to the government’s energy review.



Tony Abbott said last year: “We support sensible use of renewable energy, and as you know it was [the] former Howard government which initially gave us the RET and at the time it was important because we made very little use of renewable energy.



“But we have to accept that in the changed circumstances of today, the renewable energy target is causing pretty significant price pressure in the system and we ought to be an affordable energy superpower … cheap energy ought to be one of our comparative advantages.”

His chief business adviser, Maurice Newman, has called for the renewable energy target to be scrapped and several Coalition backbenchers are also pushing for it to be axed.

Hunt has canvassed compromise options with industry, including changing the existing target that 20% of energy come from renewable sources by 2020, to one requiring 25% from renewable sources by 2025. The plan would overcome the effect of falling electricity demand on the real impact of the RET.

Modelling released last week suggested abolishing the RET could cost 2,000 jobs in the solar panel industry.

According to the Australian Energy Market Commission, the RET has increased retail electricity prices by 3.5%.