Much like the Pythonesque parrot, Alan Finkel's independent review into the future security of Australia's electricity market is looking very peaky.
Tuesday's Coalition party room meeting decided that all but one of the Chief Scientist's 50-odd recommendations was uncontroversial.
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| The light on the hill? Australia's energy and climate policies remain at odds Photo: AP |
Unfortunately, the sole issue that failed to get Coalition approval happens to be the point of the whole Finkel review.
That's his recommendation that Australia set a "clean energy target" (CET) to give certainty and confidence to investors and the public, exhausted by the decade-long war over climate policy.
Josh Frydenberg, the Environment and Energy Minister, was putting a brave face on the result on Wednesday morning, suggesting the CET remains an "important recommendation", and it is not yet dead.
"There will be a lot more discussions with stakeholders and colleagues in the weeks and months ahead," he said.
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"We're not going to rush this decision; it's too important for the country."
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| Alan Finkel's review looks likely to be set aside on its key recommendation. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen |
In December, when Finkel's preliminary review recommended an emissions intensity scheme among the options to escape the policy maze, Frydenberg agreed that it should be under consideration.
However, it needed a few of the party's rightwingers to arc up for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to cave in and rule that idea out forever.
Frydenberg was left literally to twist in the breeze as he fronted journalists on a windy Hobart wharf.
This time around, it's taken a more drawn-out exercise - including the formal release of Finkel's report 12 days ago in the Tasmanian capital and months of hard slog - to arrive at the same result.
Who believes that opposition inside the Coalition to a clean energy target is likely to recede in "weeks and months ahead"?
Not with the entire Murdoch commentariat opposed, and the Minerals Council now promoting a reverse auction process that would suspiciously and miraculously make coal-fired power suddenly "investable".
Turnbull and Frydenberg notably failed to rule out a reverse auction on Tuesday.
Tony Wood, energy guru at the Grattan Institute, said the government has to make it clear that reverse auctions would not be an alternative, but - at most - a complement, to the Finkel review.
Without doing so, the whole emissions reduction part of the equation looks set to be jettisoned.
The point of the Finkel review was to find a way through the "minefield" - as even the Chief Scientist has called it - that could bolster the security of the electricity sector.
Investors who will bankroll the new plant needed to keep the lights on, know that the necessary certainty to stump up the cash will elude them so long as energy and climate policies are at odds at both the state and federal level, and between the major parties.
The test of whether energy and climate policy are aligned remains Labor's yardstick, and whether a bipartisan truce is possible that could settle investment conditions for longer than the next election.
Labor insiders at both state and federal level say the clean energy target was the centrepiece of Finkel's review, and without it, the entire architecture crumbles.
Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman, made the same view public on Wednesday: "The latest announcement by the Prime Minister undermines any CET, increases rather than eliminates investment uncertainty in the sector, and will lead to higher power prices, less reliability and more carbon pollution."
Finkel, himself, was putting on a brave face, telling a National Press Club lunch that it was "remarkable" that most of his recommendations had got the Coalition's nod. He did not regard the CET "to be on life support".
While Wood is hopeful the review is not a dead duck - "there's still some waddle there" - he accepts the politics provide a grim prognosis that good policy can yet emerge.
Indeed, Coalition MPs know that whatever happens this year or next on the investment front, consumers aren't likely to see much, if any, relief.
Instead, voters will be wondering who to blame for the nearly 20 per cent increases in electricity prices now arriving in their mailboxes (except for Victorians when the blows will land from January 1).
Nevermind the challenge that will remain by the year's end. How can Australia's carbon emissions be bent to get anywhere near the 26-28 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030?
When offered a way out of a minefield mostly of their own making, who will be surprised if the government decides to go after "Electricity Bill" Shorten for failing to sign up to whatever scheme can get through the Coalition party room no matter if industry widely rejects it?
That's much easier than coming up with a durable energy policy.
It also makes it easier to follow US President Donald Trump's route of pulling Australia out of the Paris agreement. That parrot isn't looking too chirpy either.
Links
- How wind and solar will kill coal, sooner than Finkel suggests
- Finkel Review: What's in it for solar and storage customers like Jenny?
- Finkel drops ball on national energy savings scheme
- Finkel modelling ignores new technologies, cheaper renewables
- Know your NEM: Why Finkel's energy storage thought bubble needs bursting
- Five ways to improve Finkel's energy blueprint
- Turnbull moves to force down power prices
- 'The perfect person to have in this place at this time'
- 'Remarkable' high pressure shielding much of Australia from winter's wrath
- Emissions on wrong trajectory to hit Paris goal: report
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