Today BRR Media speaks with Michael Voros, he’s a Senior Associate specialising in climate change at Freehills, and he’s based in Perth.  Welcome back to BRR Media Michael.

Thanks David good to be with you again.

Michael with less than a month to the Carbon Price start date on 1 July, the Clean Energy Regulator and ASIC yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding on how the two agencies will work together to regulate the clean energy sector. 

They did David, it is a pretty standard type of these MOUs there, they’re very loosely defined motherhood type statements, they’re not very specific but they, I think, show an intent for the government agencies to work together as you’d expect with a reform of this nature and they do have their own sort of separate spheres of relevance.  ASIC has a particular focus on the regulation of carbon markets through the Australian Financial Services Licences especially where the Clean Energy Regulator has a very broad obviously much more carbon focussed role in terms of implementing the carbon price, they’re dealing with registry accounts, obligation transfer numbers, liability transfer certificates, the carbon farming initiative as well.  They have a very big portfolio and so it’s really designed I think to allow them to work together whether they need to, the Clean Energy Regulator will from time to time need information from ASIC for those various tasks that it’s responsible for.  And so it really lays a foundation I guess between the two to work together.

Yeah I understand that the MOU itself is not a binding document as such, so I guess is it more of a symbolic gesture or does it actually form some pretty concrete guidance that the agencies could say point to should there be any lack of collaboration down the track?

Yeah it’s pretty standard; these documents would not be binding and stated to not be binding.  It’s not really designed I think to create any strict legal roles or responsibilities or obligations.  It’s in that sense relatively symbolic; in this document there’s really nothing specific that could be pointed to in the future.  But it’s very much I think about laying the foundation, acknowledging the roles, and that intention to work together going forward.

Right and I guess how have the agencies been working together so far; are there any concerns that you’ve been seeing or any areas of cross over to causing issues leading into the start date?

No apparent problems in terms of agencies working together.  The Clean Energy Regulator itself is a very new agency with responsibility for implementation of the Carbon Price with its personnel largely coming out of the Department of Climate Change, which is now primarily responsible for policy developments.  The Clean Energy Regulator has been I think relatively good at engaging with industry, holding a number of seminars or forums around the country, relatively open to taking questions from industry and providing guidance.  There is still a fair bit of uncertainty out there and concern around some aspects of the Carbon Price pre 1 July, as one particular example the natural gas obligation transfer number system is particularly complicated and many would say the legislation isn’t as precise as it may ideally be, so there’s a bit of a scramble out there to get across that.  To the extent that people are out there either selling, transporting, buying or using natural gas they would be well advised to ensure that they’re across how that regime will affect their business.

Indeed, we’ll certainly keep a close eye on things as it gets towards the deadline and we’ll look forward to I guess catching again once the regime is in place and thanks again for your time today Michael.

Thanks David speak to you soon.

That was Michael Voros, Senior Associate, specialising in climate change at Freehills in Perth.  Listeners if you have any questions for Michael please send a message using the panel on your screen or you can otherwise email through to law@brrmedia.com and we’ll forward your query.