Tony Abbott’s Year of Leading Dangerously

Just over a year ago, after it became clear that Tony Abbott’s Coalition would sweep to a federal election victory, the predominant thought among many in the clean energy and climate policy space was: Well, he won’t be that bad, will he?

Yes, he will, and he has been. As we noted in our pre-election summary on September 6 last year, there was every reason to believe that an Abbott government could be worse than people feared. And not it should be noted, by doing anything Abbott hadn’t already flagged, but by doing exactly what he said he would do.

Several months earlier, RenewEconomy flagged Five ways Abbott could kill renewables in Australia. They were: Kill the carbon price, the Clean Energy Finance Corp and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, make the renewable energy target unworkable, and disband the Climate Change Authority.

He has acted on all five. Here’s how he has progressed.

Can the carbon price. Tick.

Can or dilute the Renewable Energy Target, and make it unworkable. Tick. The Abbott government now has the recommendation it needs, from the controversial Warburton Review, now it just a matter of implementing them. The uncertainty in the industry has brought all large-scale investment to a halt.

Axe the Climate Change Authority. This was one of the government’s first acts. It hasn’t yet succeeded, but the CCA has been gutted by the departure of many key personal. It has been sidelined from the RET Review, and its key findings on climate policies and emissions targets are ignored by the government, and ipso facto by mainstream media.

Can the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It’s still trying, with a vote to be presented to the Senate later this month. Funding has already been cut, but Abbott wants to cut all future funds and absorb the running of the committed projects back within a government department.

Can the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. It tried, but once again the Senate has stymied its attempts. Still, the CEFC can be directed where to direct its funds, and it is increasingly likely it will be given modified mandates to help out with the discredited Emissions Reduction Fund, the key plank of Direct Action policy.

A lot of what Abbott has sought to achieve in his first year was mandated by the Institute of Public Affairs, the conservative think tank that has become a voice for extreme right views and vested interests.

The 3 demands at the top of the IPA’s 75-strong wish list for a “better Australia” were the repeal of the carbon price, the abolition of the Department of Climate Change and clean energy funds.

Abbott has delivered on the first two, and is still trying on the third. For good measure it has also dumped the idea of a science minister, has cut funding to the CSIRO, and put four climate change deniers in charge of four key advisory bodies – business, renewables, banking and the commission of audit.

The Abbott government has also devolved responsibility on environmental issues to the states, again at the behest of the IPA. And on the international stage, it has shown no interest to engage in the international push for a climate treaty in Paris next year, snubbing an invitation from the UN for a summit later this month. And it has ignored the push by China for a national emissions trading scheme, and by the US for tight controls over emissions from coal-fired generators.

It should be noted that the Abbott government has not acted alone. The Coalition state governments in the other mainland states have more or less been in lockstep.

The Queensland government has backed Abbott at every turn, wants the RET stopped completely (to protect its state-owned fossil fuel assets), and the Newman government has been a cheerleader for coal and gas mining, offering royalty holidays, and quick environmental approvals, and has dumped many of the environmental regulations built up over the previous decade of Labor.

The Victoria government has made a wholesale attack on clean energy and environmental policies, as itemized recently by Environmental Victoria. The WA government has gone so far as to suggest it doesn’t want renewable energy projects in its state, and is even considering importing coal from Indonesia as an alternative.

The cynicism of the Abbott government, however, knows no bounds. In its attempts to wriggle out of a lamentable situation on the renewable energy target, it has launched a campaign on two fronts.

The first is seeking to blame Labor for the impasse on the renewable energy target. Energy minister Ian Macfarlane, the man who stopped the then mandatory renewable energy target when in a similar role with the Howard government a decade ago, is now trying to pitch the problem as one of Labor’s creation, and putting the pressure on Labor to reach a “compromise” position.

The second front is on the costs of meeting the 41,000GWh target. The RET review was commissioned on the basis that it was costly to consumers and that the target couldn’t be met. The panel’s own modeling dismissed both those canards.

However, the longer the uncertainty remains, the harder the target will be to meet, and the more likely a “penalty price” will have to be paid. The Abbott government – having knowingly caused the industry to come to a halt for the past 18 months – knows it can remove this uncertainty simply by backing its pre-election commitment to the 41,000GWh target, but environment minister Greg Hunt has made the penalty price a feature of all his interviews since the release of the RET Review.

The Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott has followed on in today’s Australian Financial Review arguing the same thing. Once again, it is policy borrowed on the run from the vested interests – the fossil fuel industry – that is defining policy in this country.

So what is the prospect of the renewables industry?

Not good. Only the Abbott government can deliver the certainty that the industry craves, but it clearly has no intention of doing so. The only hope is that the clear community support for renewables rapidly converts into a powerful political force.

The various grass-roots campaign – launched by the likes of the Australian Solar Council and Solar Citizens – and a newly assertive Clean Energy Council – is working to do just that.

Larger groups have become more vocal – saying that a country that should, and could, be leading the world in clean energy, and providing a blue-print for climate and clean energy policies, risk losing investment and jobs, and becoming a laggard. Even markets for thermal coal appear to be drying up, despite the witless promotion by the Abbott government of the need to dig up every tonne of coal, and extract every molecule of gas – a refrain that has even been adopted  by the environment minister.

The other hope is that extremist views of the anti-climate, anti-clean energy policy making is gradually peeled back. The fall from grace of the IPA’s Alan Moran and ACCI’s Burchell Wilson may help that along. But, in reality, it’s one for the policy aficionados, not for Joe Public. As long as the Abbott government can fog the issues in front of a dispirited, inexpert and lackadaisical mainstream media, it will continue to get away with clean energy murder.