Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today in support of the Rudd government’s initiatives in the renewable energy and solar industries. Here we have a government that has a real and abiding interest in promoting the use of renewable energy through the implementation of a 20 per cent mandatory renewable energy target by 2020. In electrical energy terms, that is a target of 45,000 gigawatt hours. We must be serious with renewable energy initiatives if we are to achieve a 60 per cent cut in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Renewable energy will play a critical role in achieving these cuts, as well as providing substantial employment opportunities, particularly in regional Australia.

The 2008-09 federal budget includes many measures to support the renewable energy industry and sustainable homes and communities. These include budget measures such as a the Renewable Energy Fund, which provides $500 million over seven years to specifically expand and accelerate the development, commercialisation and deployment of a range of renewable technologies in Australia, and budget measures such as the Energy Innovation Fund, which will invest $150 million over four years to focus on developing clean energy research and development capabilities in Australia. Of that amount, $100 million will be allocated for solar thermal and photovoltaic research and development, including the establishment of an Australian Solar Institute, and $50 million will be committed for research into clean energy technologies in areas such as energy efficiency, energy storage and hydrogen transport fuels.

Support for sustainable communities comes from a commitment of more than $500 million for schools and communities to encourage them to reduce their impact on the environment, including through actions to reduce emissions. The government is supporting practical action in our schools to tackle climate change by providing grants of up to $50,000 for schools to install a wide variety of energy and water-saving measures. In fact, the Rudd government has allocated $480.6 million over eight years to ensure all schools can become solar schools. That is over 9,000 schools that will benefit from reduced energy and water bills. I am certain this initiative will play an important role in raising awareness of clean energy technologies in our children at school and in the wider community.

Under the Solar Cities program, $18.8 million is being provided to develop new Solar Cities trials in Perth and in my home state of Victoria, at Coburg. Solar Cities will also demonstrate how new approaches to energy efficiency, such as solar power and smart meters, can combine to provide a sustainable energy future in urban Australia. Importantly, the Solar Cities projects will demonstrate the advantages of solar energy to those low-income households that are not able to afford an investment in other forms of energy-saving measures.

Support for sustainable homes is backed up by the government’s election commitment to provide rebates for the installation of solar power systems in up to 3,000 households per year over five years. But demand for the solar rebate has been so strong since it was doubled last year that the government has decided to double the number of rebates to be paid in 2008-09. It is now up to 6,000 rebates. Our total commitment of $150 million remains unchanged and, in fact, we have brought forward $25.6 million in this budget for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan to achieve in three years what the previous government set out to achieve in five years. We are rolling out low-interest green loans over the next five years of up to $10,000 for up to 200,000 families to install solar, water and energy efficient products in their homes, and we are providing rebates of up to $500 to install energy efficient insulation in up to 300,000 rental homes. These measures come on top of support for existing programs, including a $1,000 rebate for households to switch to climate-friendly hot water.

If we are going to get serious about tackling climate change, we have to take energy and water efficiency into the mainstream and enable households to reduce emissions at least cost. Government support for the solar power industry is at record levels. In addition to funding for 6,000 rebates over the next year, we will start putting solar power systems on every primary and secondary school roof in Australia through the National Solar Schools Program. That will drive a significant amount of demand for solar installations across the country. There are more than 9,000 schools, as I said, where a two-kilowatt solar system is a minimum. That will start on 1 July this year. Given the size of the government’s support for the renewable energy industry, including the solar power industry, I believe that the outlook for solar and renewable energy across the board has never been brighter.

Question agreed to.