The Gillard Government’s new Clean Energy Finance Corporation risks wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on bad investments in speculative, high-risk renewable energy projects.

 

“Under the ‘Gillard Bank’ $10 billion of taxpayers money will be pumped in to renewable energy projects that are clearly too risky for commercial lenders to finance,” Shadow Minister for Finance Andrew Robb said today.

 

“It has to be remembered that this is a government that couldn’t even give away free pink batts without making a $2 billion mess of it.

 

“Make no mistake the ‘Gillard Bank’ amounts to a giant slush fund to support favoured constituencies of the Greens and Labor. It is a recipe for monumental waste with the corporation free to ‘pick winners’ under pressure from the government and the Greens.

 

“The fact that this fund will be banned from investing in carbon capture and storage highlights how this is a cynical political exercise with Bob Brown’s finger prints all over it.

 

“Taxpayers will be the financiers and part-owners of renewable energy projects selected by a supposedly ‘independent board’ which will be dictated to by the Greens and Labor.

 

“This giant fund is being set up despite the Productivity Commission warning that this is an extremely high-cost and inefficient way to reduce emissions. This fund is the brainchild of a government that has already wasted billions-of-dollars on inefficient and unnecessary schemes and dreamt up the likes of ‘Cash for Clunkers.

 

“Like the NBN Labor is playing accounting tricks by keeping this slush fund off-budget claiming the money will be invested in projects that will generate a commercial return.

 

“This government simply cannot be trusted and the ‘Gillard Bank’ will no doubt go down as yet another example of this government’s inability to responsibly manage taxpayers’ money,” Mr Robb said.