Scott Morrison looks to Labor to rescue tech fund

Scott Morrison has urged Labor to back the government’s proposed $1bn low-emissions technology fund after facing a revolt on the policy from backbench MPs.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese in Balmain in Sydney’s inner-west on Thursday. Picture: David Swift

Scott Morrison has urged Labor to back the government’s proposed $1bn low-emissions technology fund after facing a revolt on the policy from backbench MPs opposed to net-zero by 2050.

The Prime Minister said it was important for Labor to show bipartisanship and help legislate the fund, which would invest ­equity stakes in start-ups that are producing low emissions technologies such as carbon capture and storage, soil carbon and methane-reducing livestock feed.

“It’s important we do it, and Labor should support it,” Mr Morrison told the Nine Network’s Today Show.

The Australian revealed on Thursday that Liberal National senators Matt Canavan and Gerard Rennick would vote against the legislation to pump more money into the Clean Energy Fin­ance Corporation.

The government will need Labor’s support to pass the legislation in the Senate, given the fund will likely be opposed by the Greens, One Nation and independent senator Rex Patrick.

Anthony Albanese said he would wait until he saw the detail of the legislation before deciding whether Labor would back the package.

“He can’t even get the support of his own side at this stage,” the Opposition Leader said.

Mr Albanese gave Senator Canavan and Senator Rennick credit for sticking by their ­convictions.

“The truth is at least they are fair dinkum. They say they don’t support any policy on climate change,” he said.

“They say they don’t support the science of climate change, which really reflects what the Morrison government have done.”

Mr Morrison’s push for bipartisanship was dealt a blow after he falsely accused Labor of planning to increase the price of petrol ahead of the 2019 election.

“Their electric vehicles policy was about pushing up the price of petrol to force people to change,” he said.

Opposition energy spokesman Chris Bowen said Mr Morrison held the truth with “contempt”.

“He ratcheted up his lies on Labor policies that have never existed, claiming Labor’s 2019 electric vehicle policy was to drive up petrol prices … a lie so ridiculous he did not even say it among the quagmire of ­dishonesty that was his 2019 election campaign,” Mr Bowen said.

“This is not a mistake, it is a calculated campaign designed to drive fear into Australian

fam­ilies and businesses who are doing it tough after Australia’s first recession in decades.”

While Labor supports the low emissions technologies that would be bankrolled through the proposed fund, it has previously opposed expanding the remit of the CEFC to invest in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and electric car infrastructure.

Mr Bowen has said Labor would consider supporting the legislation if it included “genuinely new money” but party frontbencher Mark Dreyfus ­attacked the efficacy of carbon capture and storage technology.

“It has scarcely worked anywhere in the world,” he told the ABC.

“In the few places where it has worked for a time it has been abandoned because it costs too much and it’s not an answer to the problem of climate change.”