A Senate move to veto changes to renewable energy investments has heightened an internal Labor row over climate policy, with outspoken backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon slamming the decision to side with the Greens.
Mr Fitzgibbon said many Labor supporters disagreed with the move on Tuesday night to strike down a government regulation that would change rules at the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) that limit its investments.
Joel Fitzgibbon has criticised his own party again.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Greens leader Adam Bandt hailed the outcome in the Senate as a victory against fossil fuels because it would prevent the government allowing ARENA to invest in carbon capture and storage, a technology that can support coal and gas projects.
But the government said it wanted to increase the agency’s funding by $192.5 million and expand its remit so it could support “clean technology” including carbon capture and storage, which aims to store emissions underground.
Mr Fitzgibbon said Labor was wrong to object to the changes and should back the investment boost when all kinds of technologies needed to be supported to reduce emissions.
“We shouldn’t be picky. It’s not just about windmills and solar panels,” he told radio station 2GB. “It’s about all sorts of other innovation, including electric vehicle charging station roll outs, and improving the efficiency of heavy vehicles and capturing the carbon so that we can use gas and coal to generate energy without polluting the atmosphere.”
“All these things will make a contribution. And we shouldn’t be fighting about which innovations we choose, we should be using as many of them as we can.”
Mr Fitzgibbon went further in the interview by saying it was “ideological craziness” for Labor to oppose the changes.
“It sends the message that we don’t support carbon capture and storage, and if people are serious about getting global emissions down they should be embracing the idea of taking the carbon out of the fossil fuel process and burying it in the ground.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said some of the money that was meant to go into ARENA would have funded charging stations for electric vehicle in regional Australia.
“That opportunity has now passed us all because that money won’t be available,” he said. “I’d understand the argument of people if we were going to use money already in ARENA to do these things, but the government was proposing to put more money into it – not displacing windmills and solar panels.”
More to come.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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2021-06-23 01:25:10Z
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