Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know Senator Birmingham wants to speak further on the Save our Solar report, and I would like to add to some of the remarks I have previously made on the same report. I still find difficulty in coming to terms with the evidence submitted to the committee by the department, which indicated that the number of applications for the solar subsidy had increased since the budget announcement, an announcement made on budget night without any warning, we all remember. It is at odds with the evidence given by so many people at the hearing of this committee that I attended in Melbourne, when witness after witness from the industry, from the unions, from councils and from conservation groups said that there had been an enormous drop-off in contracts and in arrangements for installation of these solar panels.

There was evidence given on another day of that committee when ATA, one of the witnesses appearing, suggested that there will be a drop-off—there seemed to be no doubt from people within the industry. They explained that the department’s figures of an increase in applications for the subsidy may have been related to the fact that many people believed that the means test did not start until the new financial year and so had tried to get in between budget night and the end of June to get their subsidy.

There was also a thought that perhaps families whose joint income will be below $100,000 in the current financial year but may go higher than that in the following financial year were getting in this financial year, while they were still under the new threshold. There was also a suggestion that the publicity from the government’s sudden announcement may have alerted people who had not previously been aware of this subsidy scheme.

What the coalition is most concerned about with this almost secret arrangement to reduce the threshold to $100,000 is that it has cut out so many people in the salary bracket that would have provided the bulk of the installation of these solar panels. We need to recall that a family with, say, a motor mechanic and a partner who is a nurse or a teacher is not a wealthy family; however, their combined incomes would exceed the $100,000. Those people have been excluded from this scheme because they no longer qualify for the $8,000 subsidy that the Howard government provided to those wanting to install solar panels.

We have the ridiculous situation where the Prime Minister and Senator Wong are making a huge issue of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and yet here was a scheme, put in place by the Howard government, that enabled average Australians—ordinary Australians, if I can use that word—to play their part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by putting a solar panel on their roof and cutting down on the use of carbon power. Why would you stop that? We are spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and soon to be billions of dollars, on an emissions trading scheme. It is a scheme that will tax just about every aspect of Australian life. I think when the public come to understand what the Rudd government has in store for them, with increases in tax following implementation of the emissions trading scheme, they will have a different view about it.

Average Australians could have played their part—they wanted to play their part—but the rug was pulled from under them by this very mean and secret decision that the Rudd government announced on budget night, without warning, to reduce the means test to $100,000. That is even more surprising when other government programs that are means-tested, rightly perhaps, pick $150,000 as the figure above which the subsidies or grants are not paid. Why $100,000 was picked is very difficult to understand from the evidence given to this committee. I hope that when the save our solar bill comes before the parliament the Labor Party will be able to support it to give back to those families earning over $100,000 the ability to apply for this subsidy, which will enable them to play their part in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of our country.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be brief because a lot of this has been canvassed, but there are a couple of important issues to note. I too was on the inquiry with Senator Macdonald and our colleague Senator Birmingham. The strange part about all this is that every witness basically indicated to us under questioning that they expected that, whoever won the election campaign in November 2007, either side would have supported and enhanced solar energy and, in particular, retained this particular rebate—and there was no indication of means-testing, as my colleague Senator Macdonald has said. That was disappointing, and I think it was bordering on fraudulent for the Labor Party not to declare it and even to stage events indicating that they had a great passion for solar energy. Through the campaign—and this came out time and time again through evidence, and I think all would bear testimony to it—everyone thought that solar panels would be retained and enhanced and that there would be no reduction and certainly not a means test, which was just a bolt out of the blue.

Secondly, evidence in Melbourne was given by the Electrical Trades Union, a Labor Party based organisation. This particular organisation was represented by its senior people, who gave evidence. I asked what they thought the outcome should be and they said, ‘Abolish the means test.’ They were very concerned, so I said, ‘Have you written to the Prime Minister and the minister about this?’—and this will be all borne out in Hansard—and they said, ‘Yes, we have.’ I said, ‘What’s the response?’ The response was, after a couple of months, not a single word, letter or phone call. That was atrocious to hear. So the Prime Minister has even dudded his own union on this particular issue. When you do not have that sort of support out there in the community I think there are some issues.

The third thing I want to talk about, and I will conclude on these remarks, is that the implication of what has been transacted with the means test is that it is now reducing the size of the unit that is going onto the roofs of houses, because the rebate is only applicable to people on incomes under $100,000. They cannot afford to buy a bigger unit because most one-kilowatt units already cost between $8,000 and $10,000. You can buy bigger units at about $15,000 or $16,000, but these people do not have that disposable income to spend. So they are buying smaller units and the taxpayer dollar is not really being effective. That is another shame about all this—it is not an effective use of the rebate. It would have been great if the rebate was going to bigger units on houses, which would actually pick up a lot of the electricity needs of a family home. One-kilowatt units cannot meet all the requirements of a family home. Also, because of the technology and infrastructure of a one-kilowatt unit, there is nothing being fed back into the grid. That is a shame, and I think it is a very foolhardy policy. Like Senator Macdonald, I hope we get support for the save our solar bill. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.