Extract from ABC news website:
Updated
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has
warned that the Federal Government's plan to shut it down could cost the
budget hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Corporation was set
up by the previous government to invest up to $10 billion in renewable
energy projects and to help attract private sector investment.The Coalition wants to shut it down, but Labor and the Greens have vowed to use their numbers in the Senate to block the move.
CEFC chair Jillian Broadbent says the fund has so far invested $500 million, which will help cut greenhouse gas emissions.
She told a Senate hearing the fund's contribution could be very significant if it was allowed to invest the full $10 billion, while at the same time returning $200 million per annum to government coffers.
"This would contribute more than 50 per cent of the emissions abatement that's required for the bipartisan 2020 target," she said.
"And it would be done so with a $200 million per annum return to the taxpayer after having covered the operating costs."
Ms Broadbent, a former Reserve Bank board member, rejected the view of a Treasury official that the CEFC crowds out private investment and takes risk with public money.
"I certainly don't think there's been any crowding out in any of our investments that we have made," she said.
"In fact, there's been a crowding in, where we've had three international institutions who've participated in the market for the first time, encouraged by the fact that there was a government-owned entity there at the table and being a co-financier."
She went on to say that the Government's replacement direct action plan, in which companies and landholders bid for funding for emissions reduction projects, will have a net cost to the taxpayer.
"We're investing and trying to develop the market's appetite for participating in this field," she said.
"Grants have a very different role, and when you're investing, you're going to get the funds repaid and you're earning a return on your money.
"Making a grant is just a straight expense.
"There's a role for grants in emerging industries, but I really think the investment model of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a more fiscally responsible path to encourage the industry to be self-sufficient and wean itself off this government handout."
The finance that funds the CEFC's investment comes from public borrowing, but Ms Broadbent insisted that, given time, the taxpayer will see a return on the money.
"We're actually not a cost at all, but an earning, so every emission that we're achieving has a return to the government of $2.40, if it's consistent with our current portfolio ... it's very hard to compare a positive return with a cost," she said.
"I'm strongly of the view that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a fiscally responsible and effective way for catalysing private sector investment into emissions reduction."
No comments:
Post a Comment