Australia’s Federal Environmental Minister Greg Hunt has gone on radio personally attacking the chief of the Australian Solar Council (ASC), John Grimes. Mr Hunt seems to have take offense to comments Mr. Grimes made on ABC radio regarding the Coalitions ‘broken promises.’

“After the election, promise after promise (has been) broken,” Grimes said. “One million solar roofs gone, the RET he [Tony Abbott] wants abolished – he and Joe Hockey are working hard for that outcome. … (And) moderate voices like [Environment Minister] Greg Hunt have been sidelined in the Cabinet. This is just not what the people were voting for, and certainly not what they want.”

Mr Hunt responded saying that John Grimes is “deceptive, misleading, inappropriate and utterly irresponsible … a total failure of an industry leader” and someone who “should be utterly ashamed of himself”.

After having a private conversation a week ago, Hunt is claiming that he made the governments support for renewables and aim for ‘long-term stability’ ‘crystal clear’ to the Chief and now he is saying something completely out of step with that conversation publicly.

An article in Business Spectator showed previous actions by the government and Greg Hunt which definitely put it in perspective. Their actions are anything but ‘crystal clear’ and honestly they are actually just downright devious. Here is a brief exert but be sure to check out the full article.

A few days ago, after The AFR ran a story claiming the Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the Warburton RET Review to focus on a recommendation to close the RET rather just substantially reduce it, Climate Spectator put this question to Hunt’s office:

In light of the report on the front page of the Australian Financial Review, are you able to rule out the possibility that the government would abolish the RET or otherwise close it to new entrants as per the RET Review scenario?

We were given the following response, in its entirety, from a spokesperson in Hunt’s office:

The Government will receive the review shortly and will carefully consider it.

Does that strike you as the kind of response you’d give if you were crystal clear that the government was committed to the Renewable Energy Target?

It has also come out that Greg Hunt actually called John Grimes to tell him to shut down his Save Solar Campaign to target marginal electorate seats and “warn him off.” Hunt also promised to launch a “pointed, public attack on me [John Grimes] and my character” if the campaign was not shut down. Hunt also went off at the journalist conducting his interview, questioning her capability as a journalist.

“Greg Hunt is a man of his word,” Grimes said. “He called me… to warn me off, and to tell me to shut down our pointed marginal seat campaign.”

“They are so scared about the voice of Australian people on this subject …they will apply any pressure and destroy any character to stop this movement.”

“Greg Hunt, so under pressure on this issue that he has to attack my personal credibility… that just shows everybody just how far this government has gone and why this campaign is so important.”

Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler said, “His [Greg Hunt’s] behaviour is unbecoming of an elected representative. It’s entirely inappropriate for a Minister to take out his anger with his Prime Minister on a stakeholder and journalist,”

The first Save Solar campaign was still held in Redcliffe on Thursday and over 500 people showed up to show their support for ASC, John Grimes and the solar industry.