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

As has been said, so much for transparency and accountability. If you want to know, the third element of this equation is: is there damage? There is clear damage here. There is clear damage to small business. Phil May has put it very simply. He said:

This has kicked the guts out of our company.

And what about the managing director of Conergy, Roger Meads, who 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.

That is the reality. There will be fewer solar panels on roofs. Roger Meads went on to say:

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.

What about the industry council, the Clean Energy Council? This is particularly interesting. The communications director of the Clean Energy Council said on 20 May:

The government has killed the industry stone cold dead.

But she also said:

We’ve been blindsided. The industry was not consulted and the consultation we had was not about this.

There was no warning and there was no preparation. There was an executive order signed in a presidential decree, which came in to force as of midnight with no warning, no recourse and no way forward.

Erik Zimmerman, the chief executive of Rezeko, made it absolutely clear when he said on ABC Radio on 17 May 2008:

... with this development you cut 50 per cent of the volume of the market.

It subsequently turned out to be a lot higher. He then said:

... all of a sudden you can’t buy in those volumes. The government is trying to reduce inflation and in this industry all I can see is the possibility of prices going up.

But there are many others who have had a loss. What about the Solar Shop? Adrian Ferraretto, Managing Director of the Solar Shop put it very simply:

We are a national company. Our head office is here in Adelaide. We employ about 100 people. I think it is going to cost us around 2 million bucks a month. That is what we’re estimating if it drops down to 60 per cent.

These are real losses. Minister, I ask that you reverse this decision. I suspect that it was not your idea. I suspect that it was a decision taken in the Expenditure Review Committee of cabinet. I cannot believe that the minister actually advocated this policy. I know, and I think everybody on this side knows, that when the fight was there in the cabinet room the fighter was unfortunately not there to stand up for the solar industry. And it is not just the solar industry. These are small businesses with real jobs and real people, such as Phil May’s three staff members who have lost their positions—a direct and immediate consequence of the budget which must be reversed.

What is our solution? Our solution is very simple. The Leader of the Opposition today visited Phil and Sophia May’s house and announced that the opposition would be introducing into this parliament the ‘save our solar’ solar rebate protection bill. It will be a private member’s bill. We will introduce it into the House and the Senate simultaneously. The bill has a simple purpose. It will seek to overturn the imposition of the means test. The reason it will do that is very simple. It will do that (1) to keep faith with the promise that we made to the Australian people that we would promote the solar industry, (2) to keep faith with people such as Phil and Sophia May, Hamish Wall and Rodger Meads or any of the others who are seeing the collapse of their businesses, (3) to protect the solar industry and (4) to give those families who want to put solar panels on their roofs the chance to do so. That is what we have set up. We are putting in place the ‘save our solar’ bill. It is a private member’s bill.

I am certain it will pass the Senate if it is voted on before the end of June, and I believe it will pass the Senate even if it is voted on after that time, because it has our support and because there is support from the Greens to overturn this position. Let me make it clear: there is support on that side and the question is whether these people over here have the guts to stand up and say in public or in private, ‘This is a disgrace’. There is a member there from the ETU, whose state secretary wrote to me yesterday to say that this was a disgrace. A small business sector has been destroyed. Jobs have been lost. People’s livelihoods have been put on the line. It is a disgrace that the means test has been put into place. I call on the minister to overturn the solar panel rebate means test, to make things right and to give people a chance to put solar panels on their roofs and to save jobs in businesses such as Phil and Sophia May’s.

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