Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise in the adjournment debate. I want to draw the House's attention to some visits I have had in my electorate recently from Solar Citizens, the Solar Council and other organisations as well as some local people who are very concerned about the attacks that have been made on renewable energy in this country. As this House is aware, the renewable energy target for a long time enjoyed significant bipartisanship. It was created under Prime Minister John Howard and then significantly extended under Prime Minister Rudd and later Prime Minister Gillard. It is disappointing that there has been a significant retreat from bipartisanship on the part of the government in respect of the renewable energy target. There have been some very scurrilous attempts to now claim that the commitment was for a so-called real 20 per cent target when in fact the bipartisanship was for an absolute target of 41,000 gigawatts hours, for the obvious reason that a percentage relative target would not give certainty to industry, households and consumers.

The renewable energy target, now that it is subject to that failure of bipartisanship, is giving rise to significant uncertainty in terms of both large-scale renewable energy and small-scale renewable energy. Labor is really proud of our record on solar. When we came to government in 2007, there were 7,400 houses across the country that had rooftop solar, and by the time we left government there were 1.3 million—and it is still growing at a significant rate. People strongly support solar. Obviously, I was disappointed when the Queensland Newman Liberal-Nationals government tried to demonise solar users as being champagne sippers and latte drinkers—not that I have got any opposition to people who drink champagne or coffee—because the point is that it is lower and middle income households who tend to use solar, and so to suggest that somehow it is an inner city elite issue is entirely wrong. You have seen the attack on the tariff feed-in rates in Queensland that has led to a lack of confidence in people continuing to install solar. It is really counterproductive if the aim is to increase the use of renewable energies. And why wouldn't it be, Madam Speaker? I think most sensible people—at least those of us who believe in climate change and not those who might think that the science of climate change is 'absolute crap'—who are not climate change deniers would accept the tendency towards renewable energy, particularly solar, is a good thing.

Another organisation that has been to see me and is very concerned about the attack on renewable energy is the Australian Sugar Milling Council. The council has grave concerns for the government's plans to weaken the RET, because renewable energy is an integral part of the Australian sugar milling business. Since the Australian Renewable Energy Target commenced in 2001, Australian sugar mills have invested over $600 million, including $300 million since the splitting of the RET into the large- and small-scale schemes in 2010. The industry has identified a further $1 billion of potential investment at existing sugar mills. So they are gravely concerned about the loss of bipartisanship in respect of the Renewable Energy Target.

In the medium and long term, renewable energy is important to households for their cost of living. We know that there are significant cost-of-living pressures on households in Australia at the moment where 15 per cent of households reported to Choice that they had deliberately missed the payment of a bill on time because of cost-of-living pressures, Around 50 per cent of households are foregoing non-essential items and around a third are foregoing essential items because of cost-of-living pressures. We know the modelling shows that in the medium and longer term, renewable energy will contribute to lower power prices, and yet the federal government and their colleagues in Queensland have been going about demonising Australians who have installed solar panels. These are not the actions of the government or a party that is actually fair dinkum about renewable energy, and I think it is really disappointing. One of the grave tragedies of the attack on renewable energy means that there is not the propensity in Australia to look at innovations like solar boats.(Time expired)