Greg Hunt - the best environment minister we never had?

Treasurer Joe Hockey’s office has since clarified that when he told radio broadcaster Alan Jones that the government was already set to abolish the Clean Energy Regulator, he actually meant the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

This goes to show what an incredibly tough job Environment Minister Greg Hunt has in getting his colleagues to understand and accept the measures required to deliver on emission reduction election promises. 

He faces a Treasurer who doesn’t realise that the institution charged with making the Coalition’s signature climate change policy initiative a reality (the Clean Energy Regulator), is not the same as a special purpose financing institution which sits within Hockey’s own portfolio (the Clean Energy Finance Corporation). We also saw in the Commission of Audit report that anything with the words, ‘clean energy’, ‘climate change’, ‘cleantech’ or ‘renewable energy’ (with the notable exception of the Clean Energy Regulator, it should be said) was recommended to be closed.

No doubt Hockey is not the only member of the Cabinet who hears the phrases ‘clean energy’, ‘climate change’ or ‘renewable energy’ and has the knee-jerk response that it’s Coalition policy to shut it down. Indeed the public service has quietly advised some organisations that if they wish to have government funding renewed they’d be best to drop the words ‘clean’ or ‘climate’ from their initiatives.

Imagine the difficulty Hunt, and indeed Ian Macfarlane, face in engaging their very busy Cabinet colleagues about complicated policy measures when they have to start at the basics of vocabulary.  

Imagine being a fly on the wall in Cabinet or an expenditure review committee meeting when Hunt has to explain things like:

HUNT: I need the budget for the Clean Energy Regulator to be increased by $60 million per annum and the Department of Environment by $10 million because of the extra complexity involved in our emissions reduction fund compared to the carbon tax.

HOCKEY: You want to increase the budget by $60 million?! I thought we were abolishing the thing!

And also:

ABBOTT: We’ve got so much coal and gas we should be a cheap energy manufacturing superpower but that damn Labor Renewable Energy Target is holding us back.

HUNT/MACFARLANE: Well actually our gas prices are determined by prices in Japan and are tripling. Yes, I know wind power is higher cost than the current wholesale electricity market price, but if we slash the target it won’t save consumers much money because wholesale electricity prices will go up (see here and here for why this is so) when we need new power supply from gas. 

Also no bank will lend money to build a new coal power station because they just aren’t convinced that your axing of the carbon tax is a realistic and durable response to climate change and therefore permanent.

In a speech Minister Hunt gave at the Carbon Market Institute conference on Monday, he superbly illustrated that he understands the fundamental lesson from the history of environmental regulation over the last century. This is that environmental regulation doesn’t impoverish us because it spurs technological innovation which often comes with unforseen side-benefits beyond pollution reduction. It’s unfortunate these statements are missing from the copy of his speech on his website, because some his colleagues could learn something from his remarks.

Hunt has two core election policy commitments that if he doesn’t deliver will see him remembered as a failed environment minister:

1. achieving at least a 5 per cent carbon emission reduction by 2020; and
2. maintaining robust growth of renewable energy in the country (even if it exceeds 20 per cent market share in electricity supply).

Unfortunately, it seems that his colleagues don’t seem to realise that he’s a Cabinet level minister with the responsibility to deliver on those commitments.