Clean, green and mean - Rudd weathers public rage over axed solar rebate

Adelaide Advertiser
Thursday 11/6/2009 Page: 9

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has stood up to a growing public backlash over the Federal Government's snap decision to remove its generous solar panel rebate scheme, supporting the money-saving move. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett announced on Tuesday that the $8000 rebate for all household solar panel systems would be canned at the end of the day, three weeks before the original cut-off date of June 30.

Mr Garrett has received widespread criticism for the sudden move, which will effectively halve the amount of financial assistance for the popular one kW solar panel system for South Australian residents. By late yesterday, an Adelaide- Now poll showed 68% of 720 respondents thought it was not fair to scrap the scheme early and at short notice.

But yesterday Mr Rudd joined Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Mr Garrett in publicly defending the decision. Mr Rudd said it was announced late last year that the new system would be introduced by the middle of this year. "We think that's the right course of action," he said. Adelaide's The Solar Shop has been inundated with complaints in the past two days that the rebate ended with just eight hours notice.

Managing director Adrian Ferraretto said the Government should have given consumers and the industry proper warning. "Rather than promoting the benefits of domestic solar, once again we have to react to bad government policy," he said. He said the Government had received 11,000 rebate applications, totalling more than $80 million, in the week of the Federal Budget alone, because of fears then that the rebate would be scrapped early.

Mr Garrett said the new rebate scheme would allow households which could not apply for the previous rebate to receive financial assistance. The old rebate was unavailable to households with a combined income of more than $100,000 a year. He said the number of applications now being processed would give installers nationwide enough work for a year.

"The Government believed that the rebate had fulfilled its task admirably but, at this particular stage and point in time, given this additional expenditure and the support that we've provided, it's time to bring solar credits in," he said. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said there were 60,000 rebate applications being processed which the Government would honour.

Coromandel Valley resident Richard Goddard, 57, was yesterday relieved his application was lodged before the $8000 rebate was abolished, but questioned the sense in scrapping it. "The grant was put there to encourage people to do this," he said. "Some of the other things they are spending money on, this is one thing they really need."