Greens: Landcare good, Green Army a “dud”

The policy review and its terms of references were revealed by Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg this week and will be conducted by his department in 2017.

In welcoming the move, the National Farmers’ Federation President Fiona Simson said energy security and affordability must be front and centre considerations of the climate change policy review.

“Given that around one third of our national emissions are from electricity generation, as our energy mix changes, we must ensure we have a national plan to ensure a smooth, affordable and reliable transition,” she said.

“Our revised climate policy released only last week clearly articulates it is critical that the suite of government policies that seek to address the challenge of climate change are fully examined, to ensure the policy levers of government work cohesively to achieve our national objectives.

“A long term consistent approach to climate and energy policy is crucial for Australian business and industry.”

However, it was also revealed the Coalition may be looking to save $350 million by cutting the Green Army program which was a cornerstone of the Abbott government’s direct action plan to tackle climate change, as a trade-off for axing the carbon tax, and taken from Landcare cuts of close to $500m.

That potential budget measure was revealed after the Greens struck a new deal with the government last week to put an extra $100m into Landcare, to pass the backpacker tax at a 15 per cent rate, to avoid hitting 32.5pc on January 1.

Asked about the potential cut, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declined to foreshadow what may be in Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook that’s a few weeks away.

However, he said the review of climate policies had been part of the Coalition's policy framework for many years and long before he was Prime Minister.

“It is part of the policy we took to the election in 2013 and 2016 and, indeed, we took to the election in 2010, so this is business as usual,” he said.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale and the party’s Melbourne MP Adam Bandt said they were pleased to see the end of the Green Army program that was a failed Abbott-era policy.

Senator Di Natale said “there was nothing green about the Green Army – this was an employment program, not an environmental program and a bad one at that”.

He said the direct action policy was a “dud” that had cost the taxpayer an “inordinate” amount of money for no return on carbon emission reductions, with the funding initially removed from the Landcare program.

Senator Di Natale said the Green Army project had nothing to do with the environment and had everything to do with a “punitive approach to people who are down on their luck and can’t find a job”.

“We’re so pleased that every cent that we have asked for when it comes to Landcare funding is going to go to on the ground work, farmers, ordinary members of the community (and) environmentalists, working together to get good environmental outcomes,” he said.

“Let me also just say that we were pleased to achieve what was a good win for farmers and the environment last week.”

Mr Bandt said the climate change policy review’s terms of reference showed the government wasn’t serious about taking action on global warming.

He said if the government was serious about reviewing its climate change policy, it would be an independent review but the department would only be reviewing its own policy.

“If the government had an independent review of its climate change politics it would probably get answers that it doesn’t like; like that the government is allowing pollution to grow in our electricity sector; that the government’s direct action fund is doing next to nothing; and that the government needs to do something to boost renewable energy when the current renewable energy policy dies in a couple of years,” he said.

“The government has commissioned what looks for all intents and purposes a Clayton’s review, where they will go through the motions next year and not come up with anything what like the scientists are demanding we need to do to make sure that fewer Australians die from bushfires and heatwaves during summer.

“The terms of reference for this review suggest that for the government it’s about the politics rather than cutting pollution.”

Mr Bandt said the Renewable Energy Target (RET) was doing all of the heavy policy lifting after the Coalition government removed a price on pollution.

But Mr Frydenberg said Australia’s approach to climate change policy was to meet international emissions reduction commitments, while maintaining energy security and affordability.

He said the government was committed to adopting a non-ideological approach to emissions reduction to ensure it secured the lowest cost of abatement.

The Turnbull government recently ratified the Paris Agreement and has an ambitious and responsible target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28pc on 2005 levels by 2030, he said.

Mr Frydenberg said the government was also committed to a RET of 23.5pc by 2020 which was legislated in the federal parliament in 2015.

“The government will consult with business and the community throughout the review and a discussion paper will be released in early 2017 seeking public submissions,” he said.

The review will look at opportunities and challenges of reducing emissions on a sector-by-sector basis and the impact of policies on jobs, investment, trade competitiveness, households and regional Australia.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten said the government’s direct action policies were a “flop” and accused Malcolm Turnbull of being a “sell out” on climate change.

“I think the sweet spot that this government needs to look at in climate change is focus on investing and renewable energy,” he said.

“I think in the long run, you've got to have a total approach or you've got to have holistic approach on climate change.

“Modernisation of the electricity industry, got to have a look at land clearance, you've got to make sure you're investing in new technology, you've got to make sure that we're following through on investment in renewable energy.

“At the same time we've got to keep an eye out for our emissions intensive trade exposed sector to make sure that they're not disadvantaged by changes in climate change policy.”

Mr Turnbull said, in terms of carbon policy, he’d never supported a carbon tax.

Labor Shadow Climate Change Minister Mark Butler said the Green Army was “sort of unremarkable” and an extension of something Labor had done for a couple of decades.

“The biggest quarrel we had with Tony Abbott’s version of this is that he funded it by cutting half a billion dollars from Landcare,” he said.

“Now Landcare is a very high level environmental program developed between the ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation) and the National Farmers’ Federation decades ago, which had been working wonderfully well in local communities to restore our particularly land sector based environment.

“So robbing Peter, in environmental programs that had been shown to work over decades, to pay Paul, to fund essentially a labour market program which had some modest environmental benefits, was something we didn’t agree with.”