The new budget released last night has shown many pre-election promises made by the Abbott Government have been broken. They have gone back on so many promises and put the onus back on the taxpayer that the ABC has labelled it “The Backwards Budget.”

Many industries have been forced to close or merge meaning that numerous people will be out of jobs. One of those that have been force to close is the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) which the government had promised they would support during the campaigning. Many fear that the axing of ARENA signifies the end of Tony Abbott’s support of all clean energies.

The budget papers state, “The Government will achieve savings of $1.3 billion over five years from 2017-18 (including $223.3 million in 2018-19, $455.9 million in 2019-20, $125.4 million in 2020-21 and $131.1 million in 2021-22) by abolishing the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and repealing the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011. Funding of $1.0 billion over eight years will remain available to support existing priority projects.”

The end of ARENA means that Australia is going to lose out on significant investments in clean energy to other countries that have more supportive policies. This means loss of jobs, loss of cleaner electricity production capacity and also the loss of the opportunity to be a world leader in the global race to cleaner living.

With it, this brings about another broken promise – the promise to have 1 million solar roofs as part of the government’s Direct Action climate policy to replace the carbon tax.

Many in the renewable industry are bitterly disappointed with the outcomes of the budget.

The Clean Energy Council have said, “A global race for renewable energy is on, and the removal of ARENA will see potential Australian and international investors now look to countries with much stronger support for renewable energy innovation, meaning we may well miss out on billions of dollars of investment and highly-skilled jobs,” said Deputy Chief Executive Kane Thornton. “Abolishing ARENA is a backwards step for the ‘clever country’ at a time when job losses in traditional industries like the automotive and manufacturing sectors mean we need new, innovative industries to take their place and fill this void.”

“The Government promised the Australian people an additional million solar roofs by 2020. The Budget contains no funding to make this happen. A Million Solar Roofs is a mirage,” says the Chief Executive of the Australian Solar Council, John Grimes. “The Government promised to maintain the Renewable Energy Target but every indication is this key policy will also be thrown on the scrapheap.”

“ARENA was designed to increase the supply of renewable energy in Australia and to make it more affordable. It has been welcomed by both the industry and by investors, who were looking at Australia as a growing market for clean technologies,” said SEA Chief Executive Kirsten Rose. “Unfortunately, the proposed scrapping of ARENA means it’s likely that investment in a cleaner energy sector won’t happen in Australia, but will go to other countries with stronger, more stable policy environments for renewable energy,” said Ms Rose.

“ARENA uses taxpayer dollars to provide certainty to renewable energy projects,” Greens leader Christine Milne said. “It would be disastrously counter-productive if this money was funnelled into the farcical Direct Action policy and used to pay polluters instead.” She goes on to say that said the Budget was “just a tunnel vision for motorways and stranded fossil fuel assets that will be worthless to our economy within decades.”