"Now, look, we're politicians, we're not gods," she said. "We can't actually guarantee how the world is going to pan out entirely and we had this change that occurred with the change in the federal government's R&D tax. "That has destabilised this whole project." The government had requested the company provide a funding plan for its $25.6 million contribution to the project in the wake of uncertainty over federal tax initiatives, asset write-downs and losses from other operations owned by Carnegie. Carnegie provided the plan in February, the statement said, with the government assessing the company was "unlikely to be able to deliver the project in reasonable time" and opting to terminate its financial assistance agreement.

The $13.125 million flagged in this year’s state budget will now be directed towards radiotherapy services in Albany. Ms MacTiernan laid a share of the blame on changes to the federal government’s research and development tax concessions. "It's really important to understand that that money has been spent on that research," she said. "That money was largely spent on the development of the data, development of the understanding of the ocean floor, of the wave energy; that material is now with UWA. "We have paid for it, but it is certainly not lost.

"We have got value from that investment that will now form part of the database available to the UWA Wave Energy Centre and of course would be available for any further proponents. "I don't think it has gone to waste, the way we conceptualised the project is that out money would be going into the common user infrastructure and of course that required a detailed research on the geophysics and the wave energy. "So that money did go into that and that overwhelmingly that research is available now and in the hands of the university and will add to our understanding and knowledge of the ocean in that area." Nationals MP Terry Redman said the government should have axed the project before it handed over the $2.6 million and Ms MacTiernan still had questions to answer over the Wave Energy Research Centre. "[Ms MacTiernan] paid money to the company knowing they couldn't do it because she demanded a plan to prove they could," he said.

Loading "She could've made the decision well before this and now he we find ourselves down the track with $2.6 million of taxpayer funds gone. "I don't know what research they've got because if there was research done, it would've been done in a building in Perth, not off the coast of Albany, because there's nothing out in the ocean." Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said he was disappointed the project would not go ahead. He said Albany had seen very little in the way of jobs from the project.

In a statement to the ASX Carnegie chief executive Jonathan Fiévez said the company was disappointed with the decision. "...the state government were provided with a revised

project funding plan in February which outlined Carnegie’s plans to deliver the Albany project over an extended timeline and with a reduced budget," he said. "This significant new development must now be incorporated into the strategic review currently

underway and Carnegie will update the market in due course." Mr Fiévez said the changes would have enable Carnegie to optimise the project spend to lessen the impact of changes to research and development tax incentives and provide time to make changes to their wave technology. The company, which received state government cash despite not meeting milestones for the Albany project, was suspended from trading on the Australian Stock Exchange earlier this month after it failed to lodge its half-year financial report.