Making our energy system fairer, cheaper and cleaner

Our electricity system is in bad shape. Power bills have skyrocketed in recent years, mainly because of unnecessary investment in new poles and wires.

More than one million Australians have invested in solar panels on their homes and businesses, but many of them aren't being paid fairly for the clean power they produce.

Meanwhile, huge opportunities to save energy and reduce ‘peak' electricity demand have been ignored.

Budget cuts by the Federal and Western Australian governments have set the solar industry back years, Greens Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam warned today.

"First the Federal Climate Change Minister announced the Solar Credits scheme would be phased out a year early, then $370 million was cut from the Solar Flagships program, with only two out of 52 proposed projects to receive funding under the program's first round, and then the National Solar Schools Program was cut short by two years and its funding reduced by $156 million," Senator Ludlam said.

The latest in a long line of policy changes for solar power, announced by Climate Minister Greg Combet today, confirms once again that Australia's tangled mess of state and territory renewable energy subsidy schemes should be replaced with a comprehensive, national gross feed-in tariff for all forms of renewable energy at all scales.

Because every jurisdiction in Australia has different schemes, the change announced today may benefit the industry and householders in some parts of the country, but devastate others.

It is inexcusable that years of failed government policy have now led us to the deeply saddening situation where families who have been on the land for generations are selling their farms, often to overseas-owned agri-business, because they see no alternative.

A new report shows renewable energy feed-in would create 22,500 jobs and the Greens call on government to act now.

The Australian Greens today called on the Rudd government to introduce a gross national feed-in tariff for renewable energy as community support for this measure grows.

RENEWABLE ENERGY AMENDMENT (FEED-IN-TARIFF FOR ELECTRICITY) BILL 2008 - Second Reading

Senator MILNE (Tasmania) (3:41 PM) -I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum and to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows-

RENEWABLE ENERGY AMENDMENT (FEED-IN-TARIFF FOR ELECTRICITY) BILL 2008

RENEWABLE ENERGY (ELECTRICITY) AMENDMENT (FEED-IN-TARIFF) BILL 2008 - Report of Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee

Senator MILNE (Tasmania) (5:58 PM) -by leave-I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Australia needs nationally consistent price guarantees for renewable energy (known as "feed-in tariffs"), as the most effective and efficient way to build a people-powered, zero emissions energy network and help drive a ‘green economic recovery', eight Greens MPs said today.

This is a Bill to amend the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 to establish a national feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme.
Climate change is a huge and urgent challenge to Australia and the world. With greater impacts and new science arriving almost daily, the task we face, to build a 'post-carbon' economy, is only getting more urgent.
We need to pull out all stops to build new, zero emission energy and transport infrastructure to replace the polluting coal and oil that we rely on today.