Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to address Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 I want to set out a simple proposition in relation to my portfolio area of climate change, the environment and urban water. That proposition is this: when it comes to actions in this budget to protect the environment, what we have seen is the impression of activity as part of a broader culture of deceit. I want to deal with this impression of activity across four fronts: firstly, in relation to the catastrophic damage—and I underline the words catastrophic damage—which is underway at present in the solar panel sector; secondly, to deal with some of the fraud in relation to the failure to act on climate change; thirdly, the damage they have done to urban and community water programs; and, fourthly, the total failure to take meaningful steps in relation to whaling and the case against whaling internationally—in particular the failure to include a single dollar in the forward estimates for observation of Japanese whaling activity or to protest against Japan’s actions through the International Court of Justice.

Let me turn first to the solar panel sector and let me start by going back to 28 March 2007. On 28 March 2007 the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the current Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts stood on the steps of Solartec. Solartec is a home-based small business in Canberra which assists with solar panel installation. This is what Mr Rudd said:

Well it’s good to be here in Chapman today with Phil and with Soph and baby Abi and their home based business Solartech and with Peter Garrett, the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and the Environment. We’re here today to talk about climate change and we’re here today to talk about the role of renewable energy. We’re pleased today to be able to announce Labor’s new Solar Home Plan.

He went on to say:

We need to boost renewable energies in general. Solar is the most greenhouse-friendly energy available on the planet and, therefore, we just need to take some practical steps to make it possible for as many families as possible to invest in this.

And this is what Phil May, the co-director of Solartec Renewables, based in Canberra, said just after the budget. On 15 May Phil May said simply:

They have totally destroyed (the solar industry), absolutely and totally ruined it.

I defy one member of the government to stand in this chamber to defend what has been done to the solar sector, to defend what has been done to Phil May and his wife Soph and their young child, all of whom had been the beneficiaries of hard work done over many years to create a small business. But this small business is just one of many.

What I want to set out today is a very clear case that what we had was a duty on behalf of the government to not do damage and to follow through with its clear election promise. We had on election night a breach which was fundamental. It was a breach of their election promise not to means test the solar rebate. It was a breach of their duty to any small business operators in Australia not to destroy their business overnight. It was a breach in particular of the expectations they set with the Australian public that they would take action to promote, and not to destroy, the solar panel sector. This is a dark and dirty secret which everyone in the government is aware of. They know that it was a catastrophic failure of policy and that, if you took any small business sector in Australia and within three days took away 60, 70 or in some cases 80 per cent of their forward orders, that would be culpable mismanagement. But to do it in one of the very sectors which the government used as a way of campaigning for itself is just sheer negligence and is part of a broader culture of deceit. What I want to show is that in addition to a duty and a breach we have clear and quantifiable damage to specific industries and specific firms around Australia and that real people—apprentices and others—have already begun to lose their jobs. I want to show that there is a way forward through rectification, that this measure can easily be undone.

Let me turn first to the question of duty in relation to the solar panel sector. What we saw on 28 March 2007 in the suburb of Chapman in Canberra on the steps of Solartec was Mr Rudd committing to taking a series of steps. What he also said that day—and I want to quote it because it is so clear and unequivocal—was:

I think the thing also is that if you encourage solar by way of this sort of national subsidy, or rebate scheme, what happens is that you encourage the industry more broadly. And if you do that, ultimately our objective would be to see manufacturing costs come down. If that’s the case then of course it becomes more and more accessible over time to families to purchase.

Nobody could have put it more clearly, and that is why the coalition government had a solar panel rebate in place. That is why, when you look at a system which costs between $15,000 and $20,000 to place solar panels on the roof of an average house, we believed it was necessary to put in place an $8,000 rebate. We did it not as a welfare measure but as an environmental measure. The net effect of that was to see a dramatic increase in the uptake of solar panels following the implementation of this measure after the last budget. We saw the growth of the solar panel sector around Australia.

We know that this was a good thing. We know that the then opposition, the now government, trumpeted that not only would they match this but they would exceed it and they would help grow the solar panel sector because they thought it would help with peak energy demand. They thought it would help with growing the sector and they thought it would help with climate change. This was one of their fundamental election promises and one of the key messages they took to the Australian people. And yet we see that there is a breach. And it was a fundamental breach because on budget night what was announced was that, as of midnight, the solar panel rebate would no longer be available to households with an income of more than $100,000. That means that, if a mum and dad are on $51,000 each, then between the two of them—whether they are a teacher and a nurse or a policeman and a kindergarten teacher—they do not qualify. And yet we know that many of the cases—60, 70, 80 per cent of families—who sought to put solar panels on their roofs were in that category which has now been excluded.

On 16 May, Hamish Wall, the general manager of business development with Nicholls Solar, a company that installs solar panels said on The World Today:

... we had one household which consisted of a nurse and a teacher and obviously under the Federal Government’s policy they’re rich and therefore they are no longer eligible for the rebate.

The result has been very simple: this change, made by executive order and not reviewable by the parliament, has wreaked havoc through the industry. And let me look at the breach in the way in which it was carried out. The executive order which came into effect was immediate. There was no consultation with the industry and there was no prospect for review whatsoever. This is an executive order which does not require legislation, cannot be disallowed before the parliament and is therefore utterly and completely beyond the reach of this chamber and the Parliament of Australia to review a decision which overnight can take away 60 to 70 to 80 per cent of the business of any small business. It defies imagination that any business sector, let alone the very sector which they held up as the future of Australian energy generation, can be treated that way. And do we see any sympathy on this front from the government members? In fact, what we see is an errant arrogance. We have seen from the finance minister and the Treasurer a dismissal of the claims of small business operators. The finance minister said:

Well, we’ll see whether these claims from these companies turn out to be true or not.

This is from the Leon Byner program on 5AA of 21 May 2008:

No company that is running a business on the basis of a government subsidy has a right to assume that the taxpayer is going to tip money into their business indefinitely.

Except they do have a right to presume that when a government makes a solemn promise in the lead-up to an election, and that it is a fundamental part of the way they present themselves to the Australian people, that promise will not be broken at the very first budget. This is what we see from the Treasurer, Mr Swan:

I am happy to have a look at any evidence that people have got in the case of means testing.

He also says:

I do not necessarily think some of the dire consequences that are being predicted by some people in the industry will come true.

These are not predictions, and this is what I want to put to the government: these are simple, clear absolute facts that are occurring within the industry today. That brings me to the question of damage. The discussions I have had with the solar panel sector have been numerous. There have been emails, faxes, telephone conversations, meetings—all manner of communication. What they have said time and time again is that within three days, in many cases, they had lost 50, 60, 70 and even 80 per cent of their business. That is a tale of palpable mismanagement and arrogant disregard. Let me continue with Phil May, who said:

In the three days immediately following the budget we lost $360,000 in cancelled orders.

This is the businessperson Mr Rudd used as a prop to parade his solar energy credentials around the country. What does Mr May’s wife say?

I am absolutely heartbroken that they could bite the hand that helped them promote their policies.

That is Sophia, co-director of Solartec Renewables. What about Conergy, another company? They said:

Following the government’s solar means test announcement Australian families have now cancelled 80 per cent of their solar system orders due to their cost being prohibitive, meaning less solar panels on roofs.

These are the words of the small business sector itself. These are not words that we have created. Rodger Meads of Conergy  said:

This has translated to immediate job losses across the industry at a time when we believed it had a bright future. It will send the solar power industry back to the early nineties.

This is an extract of an email that was copied to me but was addressed to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts from Travis Hargreaves of Chidlow in Western Australia:

By 9.30 a.m. on the day after the budget the six site visits were all cancelled due to the customers being ineligible. I then contacted 45 other customers who I had booked site visits with. Only two out of the 45 are still booked for a site visit. I am now out of a job and my ability to continue my night-time studies has been put into jeopardy.

This is what the communications director of the Clean Energy Council said in the Sydney Morning Herald business section on 19 May 2008:

People are absolutely frantic. We have endless calls and emails in the last 72 hours and all our phones are running hot. Customers are pulling out in droves.

She also said:

The government has killed the industry stone cold dead.

Erik Zimmerman, the chief executive of Rezeko, also known as Beyond Building, has said that he has lost $1.8 million for a medium-sized business operator in forward contracts.

These are not hypothetical. The message to the Treasurer and the finance minister is: get in touch with the real Australia, because these are small business people who have worked and sweated and put their life’s work on the line and you have destroyed it overnight. It takes a rare genius of almost Whitlamesque capacity to create so much destruction in such a short time. This is a real sector whose jobs are gone, whose promoters are fearful for their own future. It is affecting our environment and it breaks absolutely with the commitment made by the government. I could go on. Adrian Ferraretto, a solar operator from the Solar Shop Australia, said that 60 per cent of his business, costing about $2 million a month, and up to 50 jobs—half of his workforce—would be lost. I just want to say that again: up to $2 million a month and 50 jobs. This is real and it is happening and if the finance minister and the Treasurer of Australia want the evidence, that is the evidence. I have behind me a folder filled with emails and testimonials, from small business operators and from mums and dads who had wished to purchase solar panels, to indicate that the sector is in disarray.

This brings me to the last point I wish to make, that there is need for rectification. The rectification is simple—fulfil your election promise. Fulfil the commitment you made to Phil and Sophia when you stood on the steps of Solartec over a year ago and pledged that you would promote and not destroy the solar industry. I cannot believe that the government actually intended to destroy the solar sector, but I do believe that they are blind to the consequences of their action and, most frighteningly, utterly arrogant as to the implications for jobs and for those small business operators. The message is very simple: reverse this measure. We cannot have an impact in this parliament for a very simple reason: it is a non-reviewable decision. It is a decision taken by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts with a stroke of the pen which has wiped out jobs and which is threatening to wipe out family businesses.

As I said, all of this fits into a broader pattern of the impression of activity and a culture of deceit. Moving beyond solar, very simply what we see in relation to climate change is that funding over 2007-08 and over 2008-09 has been cut by a total of $42 million—$21 million domestically and $21 million internationally. We see that the much-lauded Renewable Energy Fund has been put back and will not commence yet. The clean energy target has been ruled out. And I read the news today that the former head of the New South Wales cabinet office has declared that a clean energy target which would provide incentives for clean coal and clean gas, in addition to renewable energy, would be a far less distortional way to go than a renewables only approach which puts back indefinitely the cleaning up of 92 per cent of Australia’s energy sources.

We see again there is no recognition of the many billions of dollars that will be reaped from revenue under the emissions trading scheme in this year’s budget—no estimation whatsoever. We see in terms of climate that the Asia-Pacific partnership has lost $50 million and has effectively been gutted as our principal means of engaging with India and China, the biggest sources of growing emissions in the world. When you have to deal with a global problem, you have to deal with the source of that global problem. The avenue which was established and which was given bipartisan support under the previous government has effectively been destroyed. We see as well that the Green Car Innovation Fund is not going to happen in the coming year, not in the second year and not in the third year. In the fourth year we might get something. So, ultimately, we have seen the impression of activity.

I now turn to the question of water. Every member who was in this chamber during the last term of government was engaged with wonderful community water grants programs all around Australia—with the Dromana Bowls Club and with so many different community groups. This program has simply been abolished. Tens of millions of litres of water were saved and thousands of people around Australia were educated in terms of the benefits of saving water. It was a great program. Its destruction is to be mourned. What we see now is that no sporting group around Australia—football, netball, cricket, bowls or any other group—will have access to funds to recycle water, to capture water, other than for $10,000, down from $50,000, for surf lifesaving clubs. That one group has some access.

This brings me to my very last point—and I think it is an iconic point—and that is: there is no funding in the budget, not a dollar in 2008-09 or in 2009-10 or in any other year, for monitoring or continuing the activity in relation to the Japanese whale hunt or to fulfil the election promise of a case before the International Court of Justice. What we have seen ultimately in this budget in relation to the environment is the continuation of some of the Howard government programs but, above all else, the destruction of the solar panel sector, something which is not hypothetical and which should be condemned and for which the government should apologise and reverse their failures.

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