Thursday, 1 August 2024

Solar Homes program

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:49): (1028) My matter this evening is for the Minister for Energy and Resources, and it relates to the accessibility and implementation of the government’s solar hot-water rebate scheme. I refer to one of my lovely constituents, a pensioner; her hot water service expired, gave up the ghost, recently. She took up the opportunity to engage with this process and this scheme. However, it has been a horror for her. First of all, she contacted and was informed by the Australian Green Solution – a metropolitan-based recommended retailer – that applications for a quote could only be submitted online. A digital approach effectively excluded her from the process. She did not have a computer. She had to seek external help after a time, and it was actually through my office. My constituent felt that this was a deliberate process, making it difficult for pensioners to claim the rebate.

Even more concerning was the Australian Green Solution – again, a government-recommended retailer – requesting an up-front payment to be paid to them prior to putting through the scheme and putting in the hot-water service. Asking a pensioner for an up-front cash payment rang alarm bells for my constituent and also for me and my office. Battling these obstacles, the retailer also became so difficult to communicate with. She was for two weeks without hot water, in the cold, in the wintertime, and in the end she actually just paid the money and got a local supplier to put in not a solar hot-water service but just a regular hot-water service. Not only have the government not stood by this lovely lady but they have caused, in a cost-of-living crisis, a great deal of stress, both financial and emotional, to this person.

The action I seek from the minister is to review and improve the solar hot-water rebate scheme; to establish a robust monitoring and regulation practice to see that those authorised retailers are doing the right thing by people, to understand if there is anything misleading with those particular recommended retailers and to see if there are any breaches – and if there are, to establish clear penalties for those people doing it; and also to develop interim measures for working with people who do not have access to the digital technology in order to do these. It is time for a review and an improvement of this system so as not to leave pensioners literally out in the cold.