Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi and Senator Williams are right to say that it is not. It is far from good public policy if your goal is to actually increase the supply of renewable energy, to decrease the output of carbon emissions and to have a system where the government is spending the same amount of money to get less renewable energy and more carbon emissions. Conergy were right when they told the inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts into the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Feed-in-Tariff) Bill 2008 that the reduction in PV panels distributed around the country means that the emissions reductions occur at a greatly reduced rate. They asked:

Isn’t the idea to have as many solar panels on rooves in order to reduce our emissions? Emissions are not means tested so why should the rebate be means tested?

That is the position of the coalition. The position of the coalition is that there is no logical or sustainable reason for the government to create incentives for the uptake of solar panels for a small and narrow group of the community.

This is meant to be an environmental policy. An environmental policy should be available to the whole community. It should be focused on environmental outcomes not budgetary outcomes. That is what we seek and that is why this bill is so important for the Senate to support today—because it will throw down the gauntlet; it will send a message to the Rudd government and the other governments at COAG next week that they need to reconsider this decision and provide some long-term certainty to the solar industry. They need to deliver for an industry that can deliver for Australia economic benefits, small business growth, environmental outcomes and reduced carbon emissions. There is much to be had from supporting this industry and there is much to be had in supporting this bill. I commend the bill to the Senate.