Energy: Little new news on energy

ENERGY: Budget 2009 contained surprisingly little "new" news on the energy front, real oil to come in coming weeks

Statement made by Greg Bishop, KPMG Partner

Most of the interesting measures were announced pre-Budget – the extension of the tax exemption for non resident drilling contractors and seismic vessels, an allocation of $20m to acquire data to assist in the discovery of oil and gas and $36m to support the fledgling bio diesel industry. Even the announcement that $323m has been earmarked to fund residential home insulation and clean heating devices was expected – and delivers on an election pledge to the Green Party.

The real oil, however, will come from several key reports to be released in the coming weeks – the McDouall Stuart report on options to encourage oil and gas exploration, a report on options to redesign the electricity market and the Select Committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme. KPMG notes that $6.9m has been allocated to redesign the Emissions Trading Scheme, which suggests that substantial changes to this may be in the wind.

ENDS

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