Media Release

13 July 2015: KAP Federal Leader and Member for Kennedy Bob Katter MP has today come out fighting for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), in light of the Prime Minister changing the mandate of the CEFC to not fund wind farms or small scale solar projects and stating it was Government policy to abolish the CEFC.

The CEFC, which acts as a public bank and lends on a commercial basis, has $10 billion to invest in renewable energy projects and has already deployed $1 billion. CEFC has a pipeline of investment for renewable projects in the Kennedy electorate conservatively estimated at half a billion dollars. The CEFC lending on a commercial viability basis makes money.

“It is the only bank owned by the people that operates in Australia and it is the only Government instrumentality that operates at a genuine profit.

“It is the most extraordinary situation in Australia where the mainstream banks enjoy a government guarantee – the only commercial operations to do so. Quite frankly their conduct in agriculture – it would be kind to say – is driven by an irresponsible, profligate, unrestrained and immoral rapacity,” Mr Katter said.

The Prime Minister is reported as saying that it is government policy to abolish the CEFC given that if a project stacks up commercially it will attract funding. Mr Katter has challenged this, citing two industries in Queensland that would not exist without Government backing.

“Government finance has always been utilised to ignite development.

“There would not be any coal industry in Queensland if we applied that principal; and there would be no aluminum processing industry if we applied that principal,” Mr Katter said.

In regards to wind farms, Mr Katter believes that in the right location they can successfully generate additional incomes for small communities and landholders.

“Once upon a time at the end of the line everyone had a Dunlite wind generator. There is a place for wind turbines, but that is only at the end of the delivery systems,” Mr Katter said.

Mr Katter, who recently hosted the CEFC CEO Oliver Yates in the electorate of Kennedy to witness firsthand the investment opportunities, believes Australia will go backwards without the CEFC investing in development.

“If this happens, the only independent development bank in Australia will cease to exist. No real development will take place.

“What the Government calls investment is foreign takeovers of Australian assets. The only people in Australia who think this is a good thing are this current LNP and the last ALP Government,” Mr Katter said.

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