Page 3033 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
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MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (4.25): The government will not be supporting this amendment. Firstly, this amendment means that there will be a new rush for applications in the micro category. Members should be in no doubt about that. This still provides a payback period of around 10 to 11 years on a 20-year contract.
Mr Seselja: Do you want to keep it higher?
MR CORBELL: I heard you in silence, Mr Seselja. I will ask you to do me the same courtesy. This means that instead of a payback period of six or seven years, it is a payback period of 10 or 11 years, on a 20-year contract. Now tell me how that is not going to be attractive to people wanting to install PV. It is going to be very attractive. It is a very good rate of return.
The first thing that is going to happen as a result of this proposal from Mr Seselja is that it is going to lead to a massive flood of applications and a rapid uptake of the remaining cap, about eight megawatts. It is going to close out the medium generators. First of all, this compromises all of those business entities who have been planning the deployment of medium-scale renewable energy generation based on the price already determined by me under the act.
It throws all of their business planning out the window. Mr Seselja talks about providing certainty for businesses. What about those businesses who have been planning, investing and making financing decisions about the deployment of medium-scale generation? Where is Mr Seselja’s consideration for them? There is no consideration for them. First of all, he is changing the price and, secondly, he is going to close them out of the market because he is allowing a flood of microgeneration back into the market, which will overwhelm the medium generators category. That is a real and significant problem.
Members should have no doubt that there will be a flood of applications and this change to allow the micro category eligibility again simply means that the scheme will have to close again. It will have to close very quickly. There will be no opportunity to honour existing contracts in the way that there was previously because there is no additional capacity to reallocate without additional pass through to consumers.
Members need to understand that. Members clearly fail to understand that and they are creating a massive blunder that the government will have to correct in maybe two months, three months, or six or seven months. But I tell you that it is not far away, and it is certainly during the term of this Assembly.
Secondly, the assertion by Mr Seselja that reducing the price reduces the price impost on consumers is incorrect. It is incorrect because the scheme does not operate on the basis of price. It operates on the basis of installed capacity. The Australian Energy Regulator has already authorised a pass through equivalent to $50 per household per year over the determination period which, if I recall correctly, is three to five years. I cannot recall the exact period.
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