Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support my colleague the member for Flinders and say that this is a most extraordinary World Environmental Day, when we have had to listen to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts trying to justify destroying the Australian people’s opportunity and chance to personally do something about greenhouse gas emissions. Australia is blessed with clear skies and an enormous potential for solar energy generation. This technology is not new and it lends itself to uptake by households, by ordinary men and women, as well as, of course, by industry and by institutions like schools and community places.

Ordinary Australians want to save energy. They are aware that Australians are amongst the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gasses. It is a part of our history and our natural resource capital. But how can Australians do this job when they are stymied completely by the costs of something like solar panels? We the coalition, when in government, wanted to stimulate the Australian community’s investment in solar panels, so we introduced an uncapped non-means tested $8,000 grant to help towards the average outlay of between $15,000 and $20,000 to install solar panels. This program was hugely successful. It tripled demand in the past 12 months, as we have heard. We are proud of that achievement. Australians were proud of that achievement, of the heavy lifting they were doing on behalf of the global greenhouse problem.

Then in a shock announcement—certainly not made known before the election—Labor killed this program. They killed it by means-testing the rebate so that it could only apply to families with a combined pre-tax income less than $100,000. This knocks out about half of our dual-income families. It knocks out over 600,000 households where one parent works full time and one parent works part time. Two people on $50,000—that is below the average income in Australia—will be on the edge of eligibility. But now this Labor government has means tested this very important rebate so that the vast majority of Australians cannot any longer participate in doing something about the fact that we have greenhouse emissions endangering this globe, threatening life as we have known it. Industry and our industry advocates are absolutely appalled at this decision. I will repeat some quotes. Phil May, Co-Director of Solartec Renewables, said:

“They—

the Labor government—

have totally destroyed (the solar industry) absolutely and totally ruined it,” Mr May said.

He said:

In the three days immediately following the budget we lost $360,000 in cancelled orders. This has kicked the guts out of our company.

The Communications Director of the Clean Energy Council said:

People are absolutely frantic. We have had endless calls and emails from members in the last 72 hours and all our phones are running hot. Customers are pulling out in droves. We have been blindsided. The industry was not consulted and the consultation we had was not about this—

‘this’ being means testing the solar panel rebate. As Irena Bukhshtaber of the Clean Energy Council said:

The government has killed the industry stone cold dead.

My colleague the previous speaker made it very clear how this means not just lost business for the industry but also lost jobs, lost training and a lost opportunity to engage in what will become one of the world’s most important industry sectors in the future—renewable energy. It is extremely sad that Australia has lost the opportunity to develop specialists. People in country towns—for example, electricians—were able to develop these skills and provide a service to households that wanted to reduce their energy costs. It is hypocritical, too, when you consider the green loans scheme that Labor has just announced with a means test of $250,000. Why is it $100,000 for solar panels and $250,000 for the green loans scheme? How extraordinary!

Does the government, and particularly the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, understand the growth in energy use in Australia? You could wonder: is that the problem? Did the Rudd government in deliberating about this not understand what the growth in household energy usage was? I thought perhaps that was the case and he was simply ignorant, but today in Minister Garrett’s press release he says of his amazing three new initiatives:

The announcement coincides with the release of a new report on household energy usage which forecasts an increase in energy usage of 56 per cent by 2020, emphasising the need for immediate, comprehensive and coordinated action on energy efficiency.

Here is the minister quoting that report and yet at the same time he stands up in this parliament today trying to defend the destruction of the solar panel industry. How extraordinary—how can he sleep at night?

The minister said in his speech a moment ago that Labor, and he in particular, ‘would go to the heart’ of helping to address greenhouse gases. But what were the three major new announcements which he said ‘go to the heart’ of helping Australians deal with the problem of increasing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions? Wait for it. Hold your breath—here it comes. The first major measure was a new television-labelling scheme. Consumers can watch—the Labor government is very keen on watching—their television knowing how much energy it uses. Fantastic! The second major measure—and this is a big breakthrough from the Labor government to save the nation from greenhouse gas emissions—is a new guide to help householders, in particular renovators, identify ways to incorporate energy-saving measures into their homes. There are already two or three dozen of these energy guides, and I hope this new one makes no reference to solar panels, because that would be very cruel. If the new guide listed solar panels as a major way to save energy in your household, then these people—over 50 per cent; over 600,000 homes—will be wasting their time contacting their local solar panel installers, because they would find that they were typically not eligible for the rebate and they could not afford the $15,000 to $20,000.

Wait for the third great cut-through measure, which, as the minister said, ‘went to the heart’ of helping to address greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. I hope you are on the edge of your bench. Here it goes: to accelerate the phase-out of traditional incandescent light globes. There we go. Minister Garrett today said: ‘Don’t worry about solar energy. Don’t worry about all the other problems we have with the environment. On World Environment Day here are our three new killer programs.’

Let us talk about the whole business of what the government is doing in general about addressing the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. The minister referred to the wonderful job they are doing with Caring for Our Country. I asked him earlier today during the debate on the appropriations bill: ‘Minister, how can you justify your 20 per cent cut to Landcare?’ Landcare is that 25-year-old program where hundreds of thousands of volunteers in 4,000 separate groups do all the heavy lifting in trying to protect the environment as they battle hotter, drier conditions and more storms. I asked the minister how he was going to help those land carers deal with the 20 per cent cut he has imposed. He said, ‘No worries, it’s not a cut; it’s about a saving—it’s about efficiency.’ Okay, you tell us, Minister, what are you going to cut with Landcare? Whose salaries are you going to reduce, given they are volunteers? Whose picks and shovels and trees are you going to remove now that Landcare will be cut by 20 per cent? Catchment management bodies will be slashed by 40 per cent; environmental stewardship will be gone altogether. The minister who stood here and said he was proud of Caring for Our Country really needs to understand exactly what it was that was read out on his behalf on budget night.

This is an absolutely appalling attack on Australians attempting to deal with climate change and lower their energy consumption through installing solar panels. We had a program that was so successful. We had developed and enlarged a solar panel industry that we believed was going to become world best. What the minister has done is a disgrace. (Time expired)

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