Media release

Abbott declares Australia an investment-free zone

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has declared Australia a clean energy investment wasteland in another senseless “Captain’s Call”, the Australian Wind Alliance said today.

Prime Minister Abbott has ordered the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to change its investment mandate and not make any new investments in wind energy projects.

“The Prime Minister has already admitted that his government’s savage cuts to the Renewable Energy Target were a ploy to halt the growth of wind energy in Australia,” Australian Wind Alliance National Coordinator Andrew Bray said.

“Now we learn that he’s hammering in the final nail to the coffin of wind energy investment himself by ordering the Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to invest in wind energy projects.

“This is an extraordinary and prolonged attack on a viable industry from a sitting Prime Minister and proves that he does not care about the fact unemployment is at fifteen year highs in South Australia, where wind energy could deliver jobs and investment to regional communities and new income streams to farmers.”

Mr Bray said it was ironic that the Prime Minister’s latest “captain’s call” would come to light in the same week his government approved a giant coalmine.

“Last year, there were record wind installations globally and more than a million jobs were added in renewable energy,” he said.

“Wind energy is the cheapest form of large-scale renewable energy.

“And yet, in the same week his government approved the Shenhua coalmine against all advice from scientists, farmers and even his own local member, we learn that the Prime Minister has opened up a new front in his ideological attack on wind energy and said “no thanks” to billions of dollars of investment.

“This is a government stuck firmly in the past, approving new fossil fuel projects as the rest of the world embraces wind energy.”

Media inquiries: Dinah Arndt on 0425 791 394