Heather Ridout lashes costly climate policies

Mrs Ridout singled out the renewable energy target ensuring 20 per cent of energy comes from renewables by 2020 as ''both a problem that needs fixing and an abject lesson for the future''.

''Already an unnecessarily expensive abatement policy, it [the target] has been turned into a vehicle for funding the most expensive forms of abatement at a cost running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, paid by all electricity users,'' she said.

''This is like solving crowded trains by buying the passengers a Rolls apiece.''