Even Labor weren’t stupid enough to go through with a plan to pay companies not to produce energy.
Greens leader Christine Milne said the failure of the negotiations suggested generators were being overcompensated under the carbon pricing scheme.
“Since the coal generators clearly don’t think their asset value has been damaged by the price on pollution, they don’t need the compensation that has been allocated to them and we will immediately move to bring forward the Productivity Commission review of levels of compensation,” she said.
Senator Milne accused the government and Mr Ferguson of a breach of trust.
“Putting Martin Ferguson in charge of this process was always giving the fox control of the hen house and he is now responsible for the first serious breach of faith in the implementation of the Clean Energy Act,” she said.
The first serious breach of faith was the ‘”Clean” Energy Tax”.