The federal Senate has delivered a pre-election blow to the Morrison government’s energy policies, cancelling out controversial regulations that sought to redirect funds from renewable energy technologies to those preferred by the Morrison government, including carbon capture and storage.
Notably, for the Morrison government, the blow was delivered by one its own, a conservative Senator who had threatened to cross the floor in what would have been a humiliating outcome on the day before the federal budget.The controversial regulations for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), issued by federal energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor, attempted to expand the responsibilities of ARENA and redirect its funds to carbon capture and storage projects, and a range of non-renewable energy policies.
The included the ‘Future Fuels’ fund, soil carbon and a range of grants to improve freight transport productivity.
…The Coalition government has been hostile towards the agency, unsuccessfully attempting to abolish it altogether. The regulations issued by Taylor have been viewed as a fresh attempt to redirect its funds to those technologies favoured by the Morrison government.
Labor’s climate and energy spokesperson, Chris Bowen, welcomed the outcome, which as come after a year of attempts to repeal the regulations parliament.
“Morrison and Taylor’s efforts to circumvent the parliament with their dodgy ARENA regulation have been disallowed by the Senate,” Bowen said.
“This disallowance was moved by their own Liberal-led committee, vindicating Labor’s fight to protect ARENA from becoming another Angus Taylor slush fund.”
“The government has variously tried to abolish, undermine, and repurpose ARENA funding for fossil fuels – while they spend taxpayer money on ads claiming credit for ARENAs work,” Bowen added. “They have fought against this outcome for a year – and cannot be trusted on climate change and renewables.”