Hunt under siege over solar roofs commitment
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has ducked questions regarding his One Million Solar Roofs programme, raising questions about his policy announcements.
As recently as December last year, months after the Coalition’s federal election victory, Hunt told the Energy Efficiency Council that the government would provide $500 million to fund the program that provides funding to assist low-income households install rooftop solar panels.
Speaking to reporters outside parliament today Hunt said, “All up we had to deal with things that were not going to be able to fit in the overall budget profile – it’s as simple as that.”
He then pointed the finger at the previous government, adding, “We have had a budget mess that the whole of the government has had to fix up and right across the government we’ve had to make difficult decisions.”
Labor’s climate spokesperson labelled the backflip another “broken promise” from a government already under fire.
Ahead of this year’s budget, the Coalition had indicated that it expected funding for the One Million Solar Roofs scheme to be overseen by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Having had its budget slashed twice in the previous six months, ARENA’s remaining funds for the next three years were insufficient to fund the scheme.
With no funding allocated in the budget for the One Million Solar Roofs scheme, it seems that either the budget figures simply don’t add up or Greg Hunt is misinformed about the government’s policies.
Sources told Fairfax media that the Minister “went around” the Coalition leadership in spruiking the programme, before being informed that his proposed $600 million portfolio of renewable iniatives would be reduced to just over $2 million.
“We had to make difficult decisions in the budget to undo Labor’s catastrophic mess,” said Hunt of his policy backflip. Now he finds himself in a fine mess indeed.