Clean energy target a Labor must
IF the Turnbull Government’s imminent energy policy announcement doesn’t include a clean energy target, Labor won’t support it.
The Government is putting the final touches on its energy policy, which the Prime Minister says will address energy affordability and reliability, and meet Australia’s emissions target.
It’s understood the policy could be discussed at tomorrow’s Coalition party room meeting in Canberra.
But Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler says Labor, while willing to keep an open mind about a clean energy target as recommend ed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, is not giving the Government a blank bipartisan cheque for just any policy.
“What we’re very worried about . . . is the increasing likelihood that Malcolm Turnbull is walking away from the clean energy target under pressure from Tony Abbott,” he told ABC TV yesterday.
“If that’s what he does, then he won’t get the support of the Labor Party.”
The Government has agreed to 49 of the 50 recommendations from Dr Finkel’s review of the electricity market.
But over the past week it has indicated it might leave the final recommendation, which includes the clean energy target, a requirement for power plants to give three years’ notice of closure and a plan for all governments to agree to a trajectory for reducing emissions rather than just an end level.