The Clean Energy Council believes that a green recovery from COVID-19 could have delivered $50 billion of investment and more than 50,000 new jobs while revitalising economic activity in regional and rural communities, saying that the lack of investment is “disappointing”.
“Overall, (the Budget) represents a missed opportunity to utilise our country’s extraordinary renewable energy and energy storage potential to jumpstart Australia’s economic resurgence and leaves leadership in reducing Australia’s emissions and trajectory towards net-zero to the states and territories,” said CEC chief Kane Thornton.
While the Morrison government pledged substantial funds for new infrastructure in its May budget, Mr Thornton said that the lack of investment in renewable energy transmission technologies meant Australia was not rising to meet “one of the most critical challenges facing (its) energy industry”.
“This is the way we get Australia’s economic engine to roar back to life and how we build a more resilient and secure Australia…This is the time to invest in the renewable energy labour market with targeted funding to support a growing and diverse regional workforce,” Mr Thornton said.
The Blueprint Institute also called for substantial investment in decarbonisation and diversification of fossil fuel regions in its pre-budget paper, saying the Morrison government owes coal communities “an effective policy response”.
“It’s in no one’s interest to prop up industries that will inevitably fail. But the costs of structural decarbonisation should not be borne solely by the communities that rely on emissions-intensive industries. The government has a responsibility to ensure the cost of decarbonisation does not fall disproportionately on the shoulders of regional Australians,” the Blueprint Institute said.
