Irrespective of your views on climate change, the carbon tax, global warming, and the need for change, the sight of all the spivs and carpetbaggers mixed amongst the crowd setting out to get their noses into the new troughs created by the Federal Governments clean energy funding initiatives should make the blood of taxpayers run cold.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC)has been quick off the mark with the press releases, but short on all but the vital detail, $10 billion to be given away, kicking in 2015-16 fiscal, so plenty of time to plan, or if you happen to be a real company, struggle for finance to see you through. The really lovely part of this is that it will be run by those paragons of free enterprise and productivity, The Greens.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (AREA) has been set up to take the place of a mash-up of existing programs, guided by an “Independent board”, and will allocate and administer $3.2 billion, including the 1.7 billion unallocated under the current programs.
This is a monster party at which bureaucrats will again pick winners, a task at which they have demonstrated a remarkable lack of skill in the past, but if you practice enough with taxpayers money, it will be right on the night, trust me, I’m a politician!
