Fed: Solar panel people happy but battle not over yet
By Kate Hannon, National Political EditorFri Aug 21 00:54:41 EST 2009
CANBERRA, Aug 21 AAP - Those in the business of selling solar panels and other means of using renewable energy to generate power heaved a gigantic sigh of relief this week.
At lunchtime on Thursday, the federal government met part of a key election promise with the passage of its renewable energy target (RET) legislation through parliament.
The action, supported by the opposition in the Senate, lifted a heavy weight from an industry which has been waiting since November 2007 for some certainty to allow investment.
The passage of the RET means that from January there will be a target requiring 20 per cent of electricity to be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020.
This means use of solar, geothermal, wave and wind power, and it means a new set of rebates for people who want, for example, to put an array of solar panels on their house.
It also meant an unusually upbeat end to the week for representatives of renewable energy sellers and lobby groups who feared they would not get the target and rebate package up and running by the new year.
Many of those groups have become increasingly frustrated at the political debate, which has been dominated by the unwillingness of so-called climate change deniers to accept the problem even exists.
Remember Family First senator Steve Fielding almost stalking former US vice-president and climate change advocate Al Gore on a recent visit to Australia to ask him to explain evidence of global warming?
>From the point of view of lobbyists like the Clean Energy Council, the development means the potential creation of 28,000 new jobs if more than $20 billion can be raised to invest in and develop clean energy projects in the next decade.
How quickly things can change.
Aside from the Steve Fieldings of this world and the Australian Greens, who wanted an altogether tougher approach which did not reward polluters, the government chose to zero in on the coalition as the best chance of a deal.
It was only last week the RET was still embedded within the government's carbon production reduction scheme (CPRS) bills - also known as the emissions trading scheme (ETS) - and Labor was arguing they could not be separated because of complementary compensation schemes.
The package of 11 ETS bills had just been defeated in parliament, with the government unable to convince the coalition it needed the scheme in place before the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.
Labor continued to apply pressure on the coalition with the implied threat that if it voted the bills down again in November, the government would have no resort but to seek an early election.
If the same piece of legislation is defeated twice with three months between the votes, the government can seek to dissolve both houses of parliament and seek an election.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and his troops have no appetite for an early election: their consistently poor showing in the polls means they would sustain heavy losses.
An early election would likely result in a makeover for the Senate, too, with Senate Fielding losing his spot, South Australian Independent Nick Xenophon gaining a fellow independent, and the coalition possibly losing four senators to the Greens.
By last weekend, the government relented and bowed to the wishes of the coalition, the Greens and Senator Xenophon, allowing the RET to be separated from the ETS.
After a few days of horsetrading, led by the coalition's climate change spokesman Greg Hunt with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, a deal was struck and the bill passed.
But Hunt's crowing in the lower house on Thursday about the passage of the RET could well represent a high point for the coalition on climate change as the ETS remains a mountain on which they are yet to even reach base camp.
Aside from the RET, the coalition had a rather ordinary week in parliament with the government firing off a coordinated attack singling out Turnbull's judgment and his leadership.
Minister after minister punctuated their answers to questions with references to Turnbull's experience, judgment and leadership.
By the end of this week, it was about the lack of discipline and unity with ministers in succession asking who was in charge of the "rabble" opposite.
The rabble image was given life by a spectacular lapse in discipline on Wednesday, when six West Australian Liberal MPs walked out of the chamber after their colleague, Barry Haase, the member for Kalgoorlie, was ejected, only to walk back in a few minutes later.
While the incident was hardly Turnbull's fault, it was not a good look. It underlines the question of whether he will be able to unify his party, many of whom still do not believe climate change is real, when the ETS goes before the house again for that crucial vote in November.
It was government leader in the house, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, who warned coalition members on Thursday to put the date 24 November in their diaries.
The coalition will have their weekly parliamentary party room meeting on that date, and it is more than likely they will be debating whether to support the ETS bills in parliament that week, the last sitting week of the year.
