On Thursday Labor Party Senators lined up with the Government, Palmer United Party and crossbench independent senators to repeal the largescale Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) program setup with bipartisan support in 2006 under the Howard Government. In a division in the Senate of 55 votes to 10, only the Greens Senators opposed the dumping of this program which had made substantial business energy savings of over $800 million dollars and 8.21 megatonnes reduction in carbon emissions.
The Energy Efficiency Opportunities program was recognised by the International Energy Agency as a world-class program helping businesses to save energy and a key element of energy efficiency policy framework and in addressing climate change.
The scheme has since been copied by the UK to drive transformation of energy consumption by large businesses. "Just as we are dumping it, they are picking it up because they realise it has been so successful in Australia and could be even more successful." observed Greens leader Christine Milne.
The Abbott Government proposed the legislative repeal of this program in the May budget papers as the Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014. The conditions in the repeal will apply retrospectively from 29 June 2014 for affected business.
