Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Minister for Disability Reform, upon notice, on 5 June 2012:

Given that feed-in tariffs from household solar energy systems, paid as cash, are assessed as income for all social security income support payments: how much money does the Government save, broken down by each social security income support payment type, as a result of income derived from cash payments from feed-in tariffs.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Minister for Disability Reform provides the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

Solar panel feed-in tariffs paid as an electricity account credit are not assessed under the income support income test.

The Department of Human Services advised that they cannot separately identify cash solar panel feed-in tariffs income reported by income support recipients. Therefore, the information sought is not available.