The Andrews government was accused of hypocrisy yesterday for claiming it was supporting jobs in the Latrobe Valley despite a history of hostility towards the region’s second-biggest employer, the Hazelwood brown coal power station.
Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday said his government would put $262 million into infrastructure projects and growth incentives in the region to cope with the closure of the power plant and the loss of 750 jobs.
“We are opening doors to businesses to bring jobs and opportunities to the Latrobe Valley and to keep the community and local economy strong,” he said.
The opposition said the Andrews government had introduced policies that led to the closure, including an extra tax on brown coal and ambitious renewable energy targets.
“This is bastardry disguised as charity,” said opposition Treasury spokesman Michael O’Brien.
“Hazelwood’s closure has been the political aim of Daniel Andrews for over five years. Daniel Andrews has tripled the brown coal royalty, ripping an extra $252m out of our generators, to damage their viability and he has imposed an ideologically driven 40 per cent renewable energy target designed to make our Latrobe Valley generators uncompetitive.
“Taxing an industry and its jobs out of existence and then handing back some of that money when people have lost their jobs isn’t something Daniel Andrews should be proud of.”
Victoria Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said she would not take lectures from the Liberal Party, “who didn’t have any plan for Hazelwood”.
Several quotes from senior government ministers in the past five years have shown hostility towards the operation of Australia’s dirtiest coal plant.
Ms D’Ambrosio in May 2011 said the then government’s decision to keep Hazelwood fully operational was “disgraceful … Our state must be looking at ways to lower our dependence on brown coal and finding new ways to generate energy. Partially shutting Hazelwood was part of this process.” She also said: “We have seen the government walk away from negotiations to partially close Hazelwood Power and help Victoria move away from its dependence on brown coal.”
Also in May 2011, Mr Andrews, then opposition leader, said: “How will (premier Ted) Baillieu reach the 20 per cent reduction target by 2020? He’s abandoned the staged closure of Hazelwood.”