Solaring into Trouble

The Andrew Stoner Solar Panel "scandal" has been resurrected once again.  This displeased me greatly, and not just because I needed to come up with a new solar panel based pun for the title of this blogpost.

Full story on SMH

These attacks on Stoner shows an odd desperation on the part of Labor - an unbecoming fervour to splash the mud around in the hope that it sticks.

That worked for the NSW Coalition when Labor were in power.  To be fair, there were so many corrupt Labor members and ministers that the public didn't need any help from the Coalition to reach that conclusion. 

Things have been different since March.  Steve Cansdell's descent was as rapid as it was unexpected, but he was sacked before the issue could really do much damage to the Coalition's brand.

We then had the mystery unnamed senior Liberal minister who was alleged to have been involved in what I'll call some "fairly graphic situations."  I should say, in fairness, that his identity has not yet been revealed, despite my view in this post that it was inevitable. It remains to be seen whether that remains the case.

The consequence is that the old "stink of corruption" that hung over the Labor government has, to date, eluded the Coalition. This makes Robertson's fervour over Andrew Stoner look disingenuous rather than compelling.

In any event, in August it was alleged that Stoner had raced to take advantage of the Solar Panel scheme at the last possible minute.  In fact, there was even the (superficially) damaging allegation that he had skipped out on parliament that final afternoon to sign up.  

As if that wasn't enough, Labor then took the frankly incredible step of having the matter referred to ICAC.  It appeared that the installer was a National's member.  Further, it was alleged that Stoner's deposit arrived after the deadline for people to sign up for the deal and receive the 60c tariff, meaning that he had potentially received some sort of favourable treatment.

From there, the issue thankfully faded from sight for a period, until I saw this tweet from Sean Nicholls:

It appeared that during estimates this week there was an exchange involving Andrew Stoner where the issue of the solar panels was raised.  It was revealed that a report had been prepared by Keith Mason AC QC and provided to the Coalition.  The report was duly provided to the committee. 

The relevant document was produced and is available here (part 1) and here (part 2).

It bears a careful reading.

As a starting point, I thought it was pretty funny, in light of the topic, that the date on the document is clearly incorrect.

The report helpfully sets out 4 requirements for Stoner to have complied with law. They are as follows:

The report goes on to detail the times at which the relevant arrangements were made, which was assisted by the fact that Stoner had made many of the arrangements on email.  

The important part (for present purposes) is here:

What those emails unambiguously show is that Stoner had entered an agreement to purchase the system well before the date at which he was alleged to have snuck out of parliament to sign up.  That allegation was plain incorrect, and Labor owes him an apology for an allegation that is clearly wrong.

In any event, when the changes were announced the provider sent what I have no doubt was a quickly composed and semi-panicked email out to a large number of people - most likely anyone who has shown an interest but not yet had their system installed. Stoner received that bulk email asking for a deposit of $100.

In accordance with their email, Stoner transferred the funds to the provider.

One point is emphasized:

Additionally, confusion was created by the fact that the provider provided the invoices to everyone dated the same day as the email, as opposed to the date they received the funds.  It remains unclear why that was done, but, as far as Andrew Stoner is concerned, nothing turns on it.

The report is more than a little refreshing, because it is a report that looks beyond the stupidity of politics to the actual issue: has Andrew Stoner done anything wrong?

Unambiguously, the answer is no.  I don't suppose he is holding his breath for an apology.

Is someone Stoned?

This Andrew Stoner thing has gotten a little ridiculous.


If you missed it, I blogged earlier this week about the Andrew Stoner "scandal".


In short, whilst Labor was still in power, there was an inquiry into the solar panel rebate.  For about two months there was speculation that once the inquiry was completed the rate would be reduced, but that those that had already signed up would retain the higher rate.


In due course, on 27 October 2010 Keneally announced that, as of midnight that night, the rate for all new signups would be reduced.


Labor got their knickers in a knot earlier this week about the fact that, later that same day, Stoner got a pair, shot out and signed up for the scheme.

Full release can be seen here

For some reason this only came to light earlier this week.


Accusations of hypocrisy was bandied about, and my view remains that they are ridiculous.


The Coalition's position has been that the scheme is a waste of money, but for me there is no reason that he, being a taxpayer himself, should miss out.


Anyway.


Earlier this morning Kristina Keneally continued her efforts to revitalise her twitter profile - linking articles, retweeting mentions, and generally getting involved.


Among all those tweets, I spotted this:

The article linked was this one:

Full article here

Now, I can understand Keneally's glee at this.  She was unfairly criticised for signing up for the scheme just a few weeks before Stoner did, whilst the government was considering reducing the rate.


But, nonetheless, the fact that the matter has been referred to ICAC looks, to me, like a blatant attempt at mud-throwing.


The Independent Commission Against Corruption does what it sounds like - investigate corruption.


What exactly is Stoner meant to have done that can be described, in ANY way, shape or form, as corruption?


The Tele article makes this new and rather odd allegation:

The only other mention of this $100 allegation is this article, also on the Tele website:

Full article here

It is odd that in the above article, published yesterday, says that the installer admitted that the $100 was paid after the deadline, whilst the article published today says that he has refused to confirm that it was paid late.


It's also odd that it is only the Tele that is making the $100 allegation - Sean Nicholls wrote a piece today about the scandals plaguing the Coalition at the moment, and makes no mention of it.


I don't know whether Stoner was required to pay the deposit before midnight or not.  Even if he was, I still don't see how what he did is "corruption".


The ICAC website defines corruption as follows:

Even assuming that Stoner really did pay the $100 after midnight, and assuming that a deposit was required before midnight, there is zero evidence that anything he did fits in the above categories.


To refer the matter to ICAC in the absence of any such evidence (and if there was any, you can bet we'd have heard about it) is nothing more than mudslinging.


And Labor should be ashamed for engaging in it.

Let the Sun Shine In

I am often puzzled at the things that politicians pretend to care about.


There are times when parliament seems to be in a constant state of manufactured outrage - ranting and raving about things that we all know they as politicians don't care about, but things they hope will get the public upset.


Such is the political paradigm in Australia today.


The fuss over Andrew Stoner and the solar feed-in tariff is exactly that.

Image from here

I covered the solar issue a few month ago during O'Farrell's aborted attempt to slash the feed-in rate from apparently unsustainable levels.


In short. the Labor government had introduced a tariff of 60c per kilowatt hour for power gathered by solar panels and "fed back" into the network.


The scheme was incredibly generous and, unsurprisingly, massively oversubscribed.


As a result, the Labor government reduced the rate to 20c, but allowed all people who signed up at the 60c to retain that tariff.


The change was announced on 27 October 2010. A Google News Search brought up this article on news.com.au, purported to have been published at 11:40 on that day, saying:

Hansard shows that sometime around about 17:30 that day a bill was introduced to the Legislative Assembly:

There was a short debate on the bill between 20:00 and 21:20 and the bill was passed with support from both sides of the chamber.


It is interesting to note that, during her speech in support of the bill, Catherine Cusack (Lib) said the following:

There was outrage from the Coalition a few days later when it was revealed that Keneally had signed up to the scheme before the rate was reduced. She was revealed to have signed up 5 days after the government flagged an intention to review the sceme and less than 2 months before the changes were announced.


Keneally was asked this question by Donald Page (Nat):

In any event, Keneally managed to arrange things such that she missed out on the 60c rate regardless.


The issue sprang to life again today when the ALP released this statement:

Now, I'm as enthusiastic as the next person when it comes to highlighting hypocrisy. In fact, few things give me more joy than seeing a hypocrite being revealed for who he or she really is.


But I'm not sure that the mud here sticks.


Firstly - i've had a cursory search of the internet and I cannot find any statement made by Stoner directly in support of the changes. 


That said, when the tariff was reduced he, along with his party, supported the change.


I've also posted the question above asked by one of his Coalition colleagues.


I've searched Hansard for 27 October for any mention of Stoner, and there is none.  In his press release John Robertson says that he was granted a pair for a portion of that day - presumably the parties keep some record of these things, so I've no reason to doubt that he did indeed pop out of parliament to get the application in. 

A search for his name and the word solar brings up three entries:

• A question on 28 October (the day after the change) where he asks the then Minister for Energy Paul Lynch, when he was first advised about the blow-out in cost of the scheme
• A dixer from Leslie Williams (Nat) to Stoner on 24 May 2011 (after O'Farrell announced the change in the tariff but before the backdown) about the effect of Labor's Solar Bonus Scheme, and 
• A question from Linda Burney (ALP) on 24 May 2011 challenging Stoner in relation to a written guarantee he gave to a constituent that the bonus scheme would not be amended retrospectively.

At the end of the day, the criticism from Labor appears to be that he signed up to the scheme that his party (at the very least, if not Stoner himself) has called a massive waste of government money.

The fact that he signed up for the program on the last possible day is thrown in, almost as if to suggest he had some sort of insider knowledge.

I have a little trouble getting outraged about that.

He didn't break any laws.  He didn't lie, cheat or steal.  He took advantage of a scheme put in place by Labor that was about to be brought to an end.

True, his party did then and has since coming into power criticised Labor's decision to set the tariff at 60c.

That said, there are some taxes that I think are too low - but I'm not going to pay extra in (even if I could) because there are other taxes that I think are too high, and I don't expect that excuse to carry much weight with the State Debt Recovery Office.

I thought the "metro" train systems proposed by the Labor government were a terrible idea - but had they been built I would see no hypocrisy in using them, given that I as a taxpayer would have funded their construction.

I agree that the 60c tariff was far too high - but if I owned a house rather than an apartment you can bet every dollar you have that I would have jumped all over that 60c tariff, and been pretty pleased about the result.

Being opposed to a policy doesn't mean you have to be self-righteous about it and refuse the benefit accrued.

Look, Stoner was pretty stupid in the way he went about it.  Everyone in parliament surely must have known that the amendment was coming, and to wait til the last day and then go about it in the way he did was asking for trouble,

But he has taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by a particularly stupid Labor policy, as did thousands and thousands of of NSW residents.

And that doesn't make him a hypocrite.

Teething Issues

I saw an interesting exchange on twitter recently.


This conversation came in the wake of Barry O'Farrell rescinding the decision I wrote about here to reduce the feed-in tariff for some solar power systems from 60c to 40c.


The move put to bed what would otherwise have been a lingering discontent amongst those people financially hurt by the move.


It is difficult to gauge the effect amongst the vast majority of voters who are not receiving 60c per kilowatt hour for solar energy. Apparently we will all now pay approximately $7 extra per bill, so there is potential for some anger as a result.


That said, and as I argued in my previous blogpost, this is a problem of Labor's making.  It would have been easy for the Coalition to simply blame Labor for screwing up the implementation of the original scheme, and, in all likelihood, cop very little flack for it.


Anyway, the exchange I saw on twitter was between @SeanNic and @awelder.  


It started with:

Almost immediately after, @awelder responded 

What I was interested to discuss is to what extent a new government is entitled to a few teething problems, and how far that excuse (explicitly argued or otherwise) will get them with an electorate.


It is true that electorates can be very stupid sometimes.  Some people who are barely qualified to run a cake stand end up running countries.  


We constantly see politicians pandering to particular interest groups, and particular groups eagerly accepting what they are told because it is what they want to believe.


That said, I think the public has very little patience for errors arising out of stupidity, rather than genuine implementation difficulties. Moreover, I think the public usually can tell the difference.  


This is perhaps a good example of the where the public is not going to be fooled.  Putting aside the question of whether O'Farrell's move to cut the scheme was good policy or not, it certainly was, in my view, dumb politics.


But to suggest that it can be put down to "teething problems" is, I think, incorrect.


To cut the feed-in rate was always going to enrage a lot of people. It looked sneaky and tricky, and the Coalition used one of lawmaking's dirtiest words: "retrospective".


O'Farrell's poor decision had nothing to do with teething, but rather poor sense for what the public (and, crucially, the industry in question) would tolerate without a damaging kerfuffle.


That's not to say that there are not clearly are some issues that could be put down to teething problems.


A number of positions in the administration are going to need to be filled.  If that process took too long, or if someone of the people initially appointed turned out to have a secret life of some sort, then you can write that off to the vetting process needing to be improved, or perhaps the inevitable chaos of assuming power after 16 years without it.


By the same token, the government is no doubt going to have to replace Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act at some point.  As I have said previously, there are some projects that are too significant to be left under the control of one small council, and there needs to be a procedure for that.


It may well be that the first attempt is a dismal failure.  


As a final example, it may be that a new MLA or MLC does something outrageously inappropriate.  Not everyone who is preselected can possibly be the reliable, upstanding person that the relevant parts of the Coalition machine believed them to be, and there may need to be a small weeding out as a member or two is shown to be wholly unsuitable for the task at hand.


But as far as major policy announcements go - areas where the political implications of the move should be plainly obvious - I don't believe that "teething problems" qualifies as an excuse.


O'Farrell has been around the block enough times that he should have known better. 


No doubt his image has been at least slightly soured by the whole experience, and rightly so. To his credit, he was smart enough to admit his mistake and fix the mess once the implications became obvious.


It remains to be seen whether his government will soon be dismissed by a cynical NSW voting public as simply "more of the same." A few repeats of this kind of silliness will have the Coalition well on the road to a well deserved demise.

Solar'd up the River

The people are angry, and they are marching.


The Carbon Tax rallies have been, to say the least, a sight to behold.  After major rallies in the capital cities and Canberra, there was apparently a rally in Rob Oakeshott's electorate in the last week.


Today a very different group gathered in Sydney - thousands, by some reports. 

A picture for today's rally, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/nsw/

This group has, whether for environmental or financial reasons, taken a very different position in the environmental debate.


This group has invested in solar panels.


They did so on the basis that, if their solar panels' power production exceeded their use, that they could "feed" the excess power back into the network and receive a rebate of 60c per kilowatt hour.


Many people (like Peter Rejto) ran the sums and decided that the rebate made it financially viable to invest in the panels.


But it all came crashing down last Friday (Friday the 13th, for those of you who, like me, notice and appreciate these things). 


Minister for Energy and Resources Chris Hartcher, who had announced a few weeks before that no new applications would be considered, announced last Friday that present participants who were receiving 60c per kilowatt hour would have their rate reduced to 40c per kilowatt hour.


Some of the home owners on the scheme were at the 60c rate, whilst others had signed up after the rate was reduced to 20c.  When the rate was reduced to 20c, those who had signed up at 60c got to keep that price.


Those on 20c will be unaffected by this change, but those on 60c are to have their rate reduced.


The wailing and gnashing of teeth has been deafening.


That said, the move would not have come as a shock to many people.


When the fee payable to new applicants was reduced to 20c Labor was still in power.  There was a small hoo-ha whether Keneally had advance knowledge of the change and managed to get her panels before it all took effect, but none of the participants could complain too much - those who got in early would still get the higher rate. 


The problem was that the scheme was massively popular - it seems that the government under-estimated the enthusiasm (or ability) of the public to invest now to save costs later.


It had been introduced by John Robertson (as the then Energy Minister). The budget for the scheme was $355 million, but the cost quickly sky-rocketed as people clambered aboard.  


The scheme's potential cost was quickly far too much for the government, and Labor has admitted (at least according to this Liberal Press release) that the scheme needed to be closed off.


From a policy perspective, however, the 60c rate was too high.  Way too high. The difficulty was that the 60c rate is enshrined in legislation.


I had no idea that there was actual legislation on this until I noticed a quote from today's rally,


John Kaye MLC said that the move was "semi-illegal".


I had a look around and discovered that we are blessed with the Electricity Supply (General) Regulation 2001.  If I have understood it correctly, regulation 104L does in fact prescribe the rate of 60c per kilowatt hour for those persons who connected before 28 October 2010.


Apparently Hartcher conceded that to make the change will require retrospective legislation (see here) although to me, based on a quick glance around the act it simply seems that they need to amend the legislation to reduce the rate.


It is strange that they would concede that the legislation is "retrospective", because whilst the intricacies of legislation are a mystery to most people, the words "retrospective legislation" are not.


One might have expected, when questioned on how the changes would be made, that Hartcher would give a long-winded, legal jargon heavy answer that provided nothing any journalist could understand, much less quote.


Having said that, whether the change is identified as "retrospective" is probably not going to matter to Joe Citizen who invested in solar panels intending to recoup his spending from feed-in tariffs.


There has also been a lot of talk about the Libs reneging on "contracts".  I don't have solar panels so I have no idea what kind of documentation you have to execute, but I suspect that whatever paper work was entered provides the government with an out.  


But in the political arena, again, a small print escape is not going to get anyone off your back in this kind of situation.


The letters page of the Herald has been pretty busy.  


Norman Arnott of Forestville said "If Mr O'Farrell and his team bring this change to law, they will, in my view destroy any credibility and trust I had in them when I voted for them on March 26 in both houses."


Landon Mangan of Umina Beach said "Unfashionable it may be to find shortcomings of the O'Farrell government, but proposed retrospective legislation on solar panel payments is breaking a contract, breaking faith, betraying a trust and costing me about $5000."


A few more creative letter writers suggests that the voters unilaterally reduce all fees payable to the State Government by 33% and see how that goes.


The real kicker, however, is that the NSW Liberals said they would not do this before the election.


I've had a pretty thorough Google at the issue, and I've been unable to find any sort of formal election policy announcement on the topic.  I can't find any record of O'Farrell, for example, promising not to reduce the rate.


What I have found, however, is this speech from Pru Goward, Liberal member for Goulburn.

Pru Goward.  Picture from the ABC

The speech is in reply to the second reading of the Electricity Supply Amendment (Solar Bonus Scheme) Bill 2010, which was the piece of legislation  that reduced the rate for new signups from 60c to 20c.


She goes on for a while (quite a while, in fact) about the inability of the Labor government to properly budget for the scheme, and then says this:

"We also understand that all existing participants must have their existing agreements honoured."


As if that wasn't enough, she really nails her colours to the mast in the next 2 sentences:


"This side of politics particularly understands the importance of retrospectivity. I want to be very clear on this point: A future O'Farrell-Stoner Government, a Liberal-Nationals Government, will also honour those agreements."


How stupid can you get?  


How stupid to make that promise then (given, and let's be honest, how many people would have known she had made that promise if the government hadn't broken it?).


How stupid to, after it has been said, come back round and change the price, and not think this line would be thrown back in your face by anyone with a vested interest.


How stupid not to simply keep paying the exorbitant rate, trumpet the amount to the media as a sign of your commitment to the environment, look good for honouring a bad deal you didn't strike, and simply blame Labor for the financial damage it is doing.


No wonder the people are marching.