The Premier, Barry O’Farrell, has been branded a hypocrite for welcoming the establishment in Sydney of the headquarters of a $10 billion clean energy fund, despite it being bankrolled by the carbon tax and a pledge by the federal Coalition to abolish it.
Mr O’Farrell and the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, yesterday announced the Clean Energy Finance Corporation would be located in Sydney, producing 40 jobs.
Mr O’Farrell has been a vociferous opponent of the carbon tax, which he has argued will damage the NSW economy. Last year the NSW government claimed it would cost billions of dollars in lost revenue and thousands of jobs.
But yesterday Mr O’Farrell said the CEFC, which will be funded by revenue from the tax, would be a boost to the economy and thanked Ms Gillard for choosing Sydney.
”It is the natural home for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and will be a welcome addition to Sydney’s financial sector,” he said.
Mr O’Farrell defended his support for the CEFC, arguing it was his job as Premier to welcome new jobs to the state, but he declined to say whether he supported the federal Coalition policy to abolish the corporation in government.
Just hours after yesterday’s press conference, the federal shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, restated the Coalition’s intention to abolish the carbon tax, and with it the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
”The Coalition will make it a first priority to rid Australia of this … economically destructive tax,” he said.
Mr Hockey said the CEFC was fiscally irresponsible and contributing to a volatile budget, even though it is not counted on the budget bottom line.
”Adding to the fiscal uncertainty, the government has been burying a massive increase in expenditure over the next few years in off-budget vehicles like the $50 billion NBN and the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation,” he said.
”This is funded by additional borrowed money and will take the Commonwealth gross debt position to nearly $250 billion.”
Six days ago, the shadow finance minister, Andrew Robb, described the CEFC as the ”Bob Brown Bank” and a totally futile waste of taxpayers’ money.
“It is criminal that the Gillard government could bow to Greens’ demands to borrow $10 billion to pump into what is nothing more than a giant slush fund,” he said.
The NSW opposition spokesman on environment, Luke Foley, said it was ”monumentally hypocritical of Mr O’Farrell to crow about the CEFC coming to Sydney when his party advocates its abolition”.
But the former Liberal finance minister, Nick Minchin, said Mr O’Farrell could not be blamed.
He said if the federal government wanted to waste its money, Mr O’Farrell was wise to allow them to waste it in Sydney.
