Down to the wire on energy

Reading Mike Seccombe’s “Building the Abbott-proof Fence”, April 2-8, invoked the Proustian memory effect and the bad smell of the Abbott government. While the Abbott-proof Fence protected the clean energy agencies, the Morrison government has continued to snip away at the fence with wire-cutters. Fortunately, in the same way that the senate blocked Sussan Ley’s attempt to weaken the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, it has disallowed Angus Taylor’s attempt to permit the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to fund the fossil fuel industry. The 2022-23 budget, however, continues the government’s anti-renewable warfare by awarding “between $3 and $4 billion” to the gas industry, according to The Australia Institute, while cutting funding to clean energy agencies by 35 per cent over the next four years. The only solution is to turn the wire-cutters back on the Coalition where it hurts, at the ballot box.

– Ray Peck, Hawthorn, Vic