Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This is just to indicate the government’s position on this. As I have indicated to Senator Xenophon, we will not be supporting either of these groups of amendments. I think that the government’s policy position on this has been clear all along. We are supporters of emerging technologies as well. The policy question in relation to this issue is not whether you think that geothermal and other emerging technologies are a good thing and we need to invest in them; the question is: what is the best mechanism?

We are of the view that we should have a renewable energy target that is not about picking winners but about driving the deployment of renewable energy. It is a very significant expansion of the target that is being proposed by the government. But we also say that you do need to ensure that this market incentive, this market mechanism of the renewable energy target, is complemented by significant direct support for the development, commercialisation and deployment of emerging renewable technologies.