E&OE….
Topics: ABC’s Q&A, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Great Barrier Reef
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister, he joins us on a semi-regular basis. You won’t hear him on Q&A for the time being, but every now and then on this programme and gee we’ve got a bit to talk about this morning, Greg.
GREG HUNT:
Good morning. Sorry, that’s very funny.
MARK PARTON:
When was the last invite you received to Q&A?
GREG HUNT:
I think I was on about six or seven weeks ago.
MARK PARTON:
And you’ll be back.
GREG HUNT:
Oh look, I imagine at some stage. I’ve done it regularly over the years. I think one a year, twice a year. I think in the election year it was three times and look, I understand – I generally regard it as an away game, not a home game and that’s life in the political space. They obviously did something that was over the pail in terms of bringing on somebody who had been convicted of threatening to kill an officer, but also who had the most vile language against women. There’s pathway through which has been sort of provisionally set down between the government and the ABC. I suspect that that will be followed and listening to Malcolm Turnbull last night, I suspect that there will be a resolution.
MARK PARTON:
Doesn’t Malcolm handle himself well on the telly and I had to laugh when he made it very, very clear that since the Cabinet members haven’t been appearing, the ratings of the programme have increased rather substantially.
GREG HUNT:
Oh is that right? I didn’t know that. I was flying last night so I’ve sort of got snippets of the transcript, but there you go.
MARK PARTON:
Alright. Let’s – I mean there’s a fair bit of other stuff to talk about that I think is more important. Greg Combet, as you can imagine, is going off. He’s challenging your government’s justification for preventing the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation backing wind energy and household solar projects and I guess he fears that we’re seeing an ideological argument going on here and let’s get to the bones of it – we are, aren’t we, Greg?
GREG HUNT:
No, not at all. I think the first thing is that we’ve just resolved the Renewable Energy Target which is not 20 per cent, as people have long considered it to be, it’s 23.5 per cent. The sector said that the target was the key thing to encouraging investment in wind energy, household solar continues with the rebate completely unchanged, completely unchanged. So if anybody wants to go and purchase solar they will get what’s an effective rebate in terms of credits and that will be there. We’ve seen well over a million solar panels installed…
MARK PARTON:
But wind energy is evil now, Greg…
GREG HUNT:
Sorry?
MARK PARTON:
Wind energy is evil now?
GREG HUNT:
No, not at all. The whole point here is that the sector always said once the Renewable Energy Target has been resolved, then there will be the capacity to deliver on that Target and we are holding them to their word.
The second thing is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which we have twice moved legislation on through the Parliament, because we think spending $10 billion of taxpayer’s borrowed money on something which, according to the Environment Department, will produce zero net emissions results, that’s the official Environment Department projections, doesn’t seem a very wise thing to do. But if you still have this body, it should be focussing on emerging technologies. It was always intended not to be spending money on existing wind farms as has been the case, which seems a very odd thing to do…
MARK PARTON:
And so when you talk about emerging technologies, I instantly think of geothermal electricity and I – sometimes I’m astounded that we haven’t gone further down that path because the whole concept seems to make such abundant sense.
GREG HUNT:
Well geothermal, of course, is one of the sorts of things that if we do have this body which is borrowing money in the taxpayer’s name, it would be an emerging technology. Similarly, large-scale solar, the thing that everybody wants to see in Australia and I’m not sure why Bill Shorten’s against focussing on large-scale solar. I would’ve thought that that’s precisely the sort of thing that we want to be encouraging. Similarly, tidal energy, wave energy, these are very significant propositions.
But household solar has been doing incredibly well, remains completely unchanged under the existing Renewable Energy Target, with well over a million houses and continuing apace, installed under that. That’s actually the mechanism and I think pretty much the ALP and all of those involved know this and the CEFC has barely had any role in that space up until this point. And why they would be investing as they have in an existing wind farm such as the Macarthur Wind Farm, doesn’t seem to make much sense. It’s their job, if they do exist, to be promoting new technologies and emerging technologies.
MARK PARTON:
Greg, there’s been so much discussion about the Great Barrier Reef of late and I know a decision was coming from UNESCO as to exactly where we’re at at the Great Barrier Reef. Talk to me, where are we at?
GREG HUNT:
So we’re in a tremendous position. There are always challenges with every reef in the world but at the World Heritage Convention meeting, just a couple of weeks ago, Australia was singled out as, to quote the Chair of the convention meeting, a role model for the world.
MARK PARTON:
Really?
GREG HUNT:
So the German Minister said that Australia was a role model for the world. The Reef had been on the watch list under Labor and was heading towards ‘in danger’. It was not only said to be not ‘in danger’, it was taken off the watch list, it was put back to the normal five year reporting cycle that applies to the thousand odd properties on the World Heritage List around the world and 21 countries spoke on the convention floor – that’s every member of the committee – and universally spoke up for and praised Australia and some old hands said they were not aware of anything as comprehensive as that in terms of praise of a country.
MARK PARTON:
Alright, Greg thanks for your time this morning.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks very much Mark.
(ENDS)