Palmer United Party backs solar in senate  

The future of renewable energy has been given a helping hand from a most unlikely source. With the Western Australian senate elections coming up, the Palmer United Party has clearly stated that the legislation of the renewable energy target must remain untouched.

It’s a comforting sign considering that “micro-parties” that collect only a small percentage of votes have been able to wrestle enough seats for themselves to control the balance of power. Their support in the senate would be required for the Prime Minister to abolish the scheme.

PUP candidate Dio Wang told the press, “I believe the RET scheme should remain as it is. It worries me when the government says everything is on the table in reviewing the RET.” The comments were endorsed by party leader and mining magnate Clive Palmer, a position seemingly in contradiction with his plans to establish a $6 billion coal mine in Queensland.

“This has nothing to do with the carbon tax,” said Palmer. Supporting renewable energy is a shrewd way for Palmer to win political points by positioning himself as being pro-environment while looking after his own commercial interests and fighting to have the carbon tax scrapped.

As well as stating that he would like to see the RET remain, Wang labelled the Abbott government’s review of the RET, “a waste of taxpayers’ money”.

Seemingly the lessons of last year’s federal election have been learnt. With the state government attempting to roll back their generous solar power tariff, a vocal block of solar power supporters lobbied the government creating enough disruption that the issue threatened to hurt the Coalition at the federal level.

With the major parties and the Liberal Democrats striking up a deal to channel preferences away from PUP, the party needs some attention grabbing policies, and if nothing else getting people’s attention is something that Clive Palmer has no trouble doing.