The Capital Wind Farm at Bungendore opened by Prime Minister Rudd today may be amongst the last significant renewable energy developments in Australia if the Government fails to fix the flawed renewable energy target legislation.

As the Greens had repeatedly warned would happen, the inclusion of solar hot water, heat pumps and multiplied rooftop solar credits in the renewable energy target is undermining the scheme by crashing the price of renewable energy certificates (RECs), meaning commercial-scale renewable energy developments such as wind farms worth $20 billion cannot get off the ground.

"Hundreds of jobs, a flourishing climate friendly industry and the Rudd Government's climate credibility are all on the line if the Renewable Energy Target is not urgently fixed," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne said.

"Mr Rudd is clearly keen to look green in the week that his failure of an emissions trading scheme enters the Senate, but standing up in front of a wind farm when his own policy will destroy investment in new wind farms is no way to achieve that.

"I hope he enjoyed the photo opportunity as it might well be his last in front of new investment in renewables unless his Government acknowledges and fixes its mistake.

"The Rudd Government's spin-over-substance approach to the climate crisis is disintegrating"

Alongside the evidence that large-scale renewable energy developments are stalling, there are now fears that the rooftop solar industry may hit the wall early next year due to the crashed REC price. The scheme must be urgently fixed by making the hot water technologies additional to the target if the industry is to avoid dislocation in early 2010.

The Greens moved amendments to the legislation when it was debated in August to prevent this problem from arising. It was a point that was pressed in negotiations with Minister Wong, but was rejected by both the Government and Opposition at the time. A Greens motion calling on the Government to bring the legislation back and fix it immediately was defeated by Labor, the Coalition and Family First last month.

"The Government bends over backwards to protect the profits of coal corporations, but they won't lift a finger when clean and clever renewable energy jobs are on the line.

"The Government failed a critical test in rejecting the motion to bring the renewable energy target legislation back. Jobs will be lost thanks to this decision."

Note: The Greens' preferred position is to take solar hot water and heat pumps out of the renewable energy target and placed in a parallel energy efficiency target scheme, however what was proposed, adding these RECs to the top of the target, was a compromise position which can easily be immediately implemented to save jobs at risk.