Labor 50% RET “aspirational”

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Crikey it’s pathetic, from Tristan Edis:

11_370When questioned yesterday by Andrew Bolt about Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, Labor frontbencher and a public critic of the Renewable Energy Target several years ago, Joel Fitzgibbon, said: “it’s not a policy – it’s an aspiration”.

Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler effectively confirmed that they were not committed to achieving the 50 per cent target by lifting the target embedded within the existing Renewable Energy Act which obligates electricity retailers to purchase renewable energy or pay a fine. Instead, Butler said, Labor “has an open mind about the best way to get to 50 per cent” from the 23.5 per cent share expected by 2020 under the existing legislation.

A spokesperson for Butler explained that they wished to seek advice from the industry and the finance sector on the appropriate policy mechanisms, with Butler stating publicly that they would ensure any policy changes were put through “in good time before 2020” when the current RET scheme reaches its peak.

What? Ten years, two Garnaut Reviews, two and half prime minsters is not enough consultation?

Now we have a Direct Action policy that has no money and a 50% RET that has nothing at all. What exactly are we supposed to vote for?

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.