Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join this debate in support of my colleague the member for Parkes and to acknowledge the government's mismanagement of the solar panel program and the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme—the RETs. Since late last year to early this year and in the last few days people have started to come to me. I think there was probably a spark ignited by the proposed introduction on 1 July of a carbon tax. They are looking at their power bills all the time. They want to see that these installations that have been put in place are, first, actually working and, second, will deliver a renewable energy certificate. But they have found that they are getting cases of dodgy operators and people seem to have no recourse to get their money back and the Clean Energy Council does not seem to want to do anything about it.

Let me describe a situation of a constituent near Stanthorpe. They put an order in and the system was installed on 14 May, very recently. It is meant to be able to deliver some 10 kilowatts per day. They were told if there was a problem to get back in touch with the company. We have all had heard that story—'Get back in touch with us.' They are not having any success at all. They were also told that it would probably deliver some $300 a quarter in savings in the electricity bill because of the renewable energy certificate. They have started to ring around to try and get to the end of this saga. They have been in touch with the company in Brisbane which I understand is the importer or supplier of these solar panels. The phone number is a 1300 number and goes to a mobile phone of someone in a car. So they have gone a little bit further to see whether this company, Clean Solar Pty Ltd, are in fact properly regulated. They went to the company and they found that they do not hold a Queensland BSA licence, so they may also be operating illegally.

This couple have paid their money in good faith, thinking that this will be a way of saving money and particularly offsetting some of the impact of the carbon tax, but they are certainly not getting anywhere down that path at the moment. But it goes further. They have looked at the warranty on the solar panels and if there is a faulty panel or part under warranty it says, 'Return the defective parts to China.' There is not even any service available for these solar panels if they are dodgy. I have yet to see them personally but it appears to me that they could be dodgy. We have got to do something about it. That is the whole context of the motion that the member for Parkes has before the Federation Chamber this evening.

They then rang Ergon Energy to see if the rebate that would be due to them if the equipment worked correctly could be stopped while they had the equipment checked out to see that they were operating legally with a solar panel that would do the job. Ergon gave them the phone number for the Clean Energy Regulator, because they wanted to see if they could stop any RECs being paid, because they thought it was a dodgy installation. The Clean Energy Regulator said no, they could not stop it, because the paperwork had already been signed. I think anyone who is overpaid with a Centrelink payment is required to pay the money back. That is what my constituent wants to see. He feels that this is ripping off the taxpayers. It is taxpayers' money. He supports the principles of the scheme but not the way it is operating. It just seems to be another pink batts scheme that is operating in some parts of Australia with the rollout of this solar panel scheme.

I had another case, from someone very near Kingaroy. This really got to me. This person got in touch with my office and said the panels had been installed but simply do not work. He has paid his deposit and extra money. paid the subcontractor an additional amount of money because of the height of the roof, and yet the installer did not have any safety equipment when he went up there onto the roof. This person also noted that, when the installer was putting the panels in place, he was using the light of a mobile phone to do the connections. Is it any wonder they do not work?

I am calling on the government to immediately stop payment to fraudsters who are ripping off taxpayers. If they are dodgy, they should be stopped. Clean up this whole scheme. The government needs to screen disreputable operators from the program. The minister must stop these payments to ensure that this does not continue along these lines. (Time expired)

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