Australia’s opposition Labor Party has renewed its defence of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) in a bid to shift the focus away from the conservative Liberal-National government’s goal of scrapping its carbon price legislation.
The Liberal-National government’s package of 11 repeal bills, encompassing the carbon price the CEFC and the Climate Change Authority (CCA), is currently before the upper house Senate.
Labor and the Australian Greens Party, which both oppose the repeal, control the Senate but Prime Minister Tony Abbott is determined the legislation will be put to a vote before Christmas.
AAP Newsagency reports the government wanted all 11 bills considered together, but the Labor opposition demanded more time to scrutinise the package more carefully.
In particular Labor has launched a spirited defence of the CEFC and the CCA, two agencies that face the axe along with the carbon price.
Labor senator Louise Pratt said the government had no mandate for abolishing the CEFC and didn’t need to in order to get rid of the carbon impost.
“We can repeal a carbon price without abandoning the important principles of the holistic framework to manage carbon emissions in this country,” she told the chamber.
Labor has said it will consider repeal of the current fixed price Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) if it is replaced with a market based ETS, something the Liberal-National government has rejected.
She said a Senate estimates committee last week was told the CEFC had successfully driven investment in clean energy, and it would be a “great loss” if the $10 billion corporation was scrapped.
It was even delivering a return on taxpayer investment, she added, above and beyond the costed funding dedicated to the independent body.
Labor successfully moved an amendment on Monday so the bills to scrap the CEFC and CCA would be debated separately.
