SYDNEY, Aug 19, 2018: The Victorian Premier’s plan to subsidise the installation of hundreds of thousands of solar panels on the state’s roofs is an act of climate leadership, and an example of the type of hands-on renewable energy policy that will drive down power prices, in contrast to the Coalition’s do-nothing National Energy Guarantee (NEG). [1]Daniel Andrews today announced that the state will pay Victorian households $4450 upfront for the installation of solar rooftop panels, resulting in annual savings of $890 for 650,000 families.
“Victorian Labor has invested in the future of the state and shown leadership sadly lacking from the Federal Coalition by putting clean renewable energy within the reach of millions of Victorians, creating more than 5000 jobs, and dramatically lowering power prices”, Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner Alix Foster Vander Elst said. [2]
“This is the type of pro-renewables policy we need to see more of. It casts a cruel light on the pathetic, failing game that Turnbull is playing in Canberra, trying to swing climate deniers in behind his shambolic, seat-of-his pants NEG.
“We hope to see Victorian Labor build on this excellent announcement today and hold firm in their opposition to the NEG. Announcements like this show the way for Federal Labor. Bill Shorten, and Shadow Climate Change and Energy Spokesman, Mark Butler. Now they must hold up their end of the bargain, and defend renewable energy industry jobs and lower power prices by opposing the NEG.”
On Friday night Malcolm Turnbull made the already inadequate and damaging NEG even worse by caving in to the coal huggers in his party. His failure to signal that a “no backsliding” provision will be in the policy has left the government’s already pathetic pollution reduction target vulnerable to further weakening by the extremists in the Coalition.
“Turnbull’s ill-considered amendment could see coal pollution increase dramatically. That’s just what the hard right of the Coalition want, policies that actually push renewables out of the system, and replace them it with expensive, unreliable coal”, Ms Foster Vander Elst said.
“That’s make electricity more expensive, more polluting, less reliable.”
Notes:
[1] https://www.greenpeace.org.au/research/neg-report/
For interviews contact:
Martin Zavan, Greenpeace Australia Pacific Communications Campaigner
0424 295 422