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The town Abbott’s wind energy cuts will hurt

Portland, in south-west Victoria, has tried to market itself as the renewable energy hub of the nation.

But the Abbott government’s decision to stop new investment in wind power puts all that in doubt, says the town’s wind tower manufacturer.

Keppel Prince wind tower general manager Steve Garner told the ABC the decision would savage the community.

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“If that’s the way the Government want to treat it and the way they want to go then they’re certainly not looking at creating jobs.

“[T]his is just a total backward step for our little area and our community and for the number of jobs that we hopefully would have been able to create by the end of the year.”

The federal government has written to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), directing it to change its investment mandate, banning new funding for wind projects.

Labor and the Greens said the Government would stifle the growth of the renewable energy sector by directing investment away from wind farms and rooftop solar panels.

The Victorian state government said the decision is an attack on the state’s wind energy industry and jobs.

“No one is convinced by this nonsense that these changes are about anything other [than] Abbott’s obsession with killing the renewable industry,” Victorian Environment Minister Lisa Neville said on Monday.

The South Australian government has also warned that the ban on solar and wind energy schemes would make it harder to create jobs.

“The message being sent to renewable energy investors by our federal government is `look elsewhere – don’t spend your money in Australia and don’t create jobs here’,” SA Climate Change Minister Ian Hunter said.

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