When someone calls you and says “Could you please drop everything tomorrow and come to Canberra to help our team explain the benefits of solar and the RET to some politicians?”, you just book a ticket, right?
Well, I can’t always do it but this week I didn’t have a good enough excuse to not go and found myself at the Nation’s HQ on a brisk Canberra morning. My friends at Solar Citizens had arranged a series of meetings with as many people as they could in a single day and needed a hand.
In typical fashion we walked the long, long halls of Parliament House for a whole day, stopping only to de-brief, regroup and start over. Spending a day going from meeting to meeting like this is something I reckon every Australian should do at least once in their lifetime. Talking, observing and listening to even a small number of our elected representatives is an eye opening experience and even after many years of practice, I never cease to learn something. If you go expecting to change the world you’ll probably leave disappointed. However, if you go (like we did) with a few simple aims you can quite possibly walk away with some small wins under your belt.
One thing I’ve learned is that you sure as hell won’t change anything by just sitting around complaining. If you want to influence change, sometimes you just have to jump in boots and all have a crack.
We had two simple objectives on Tuesday.
The first was to bring attention to the fact that around 25% of voting age Australians (around 4 Million) already live in solar powered homes and it’s growing. Through Solar Citizens they have a collective voice that is getting stronger and louder every single day and its both politically courteous and tactically clever to let representatives know that their electorates are about to be targeted. Big time.
Let them know what’s planned, throw in a few concise and well referenced electoral statistics, test their resolve and you’re done.
Tick, mission accomplished on that one.
The second objective was to establish their knowledge on the issues and offer support where we could. This typically involves “grabs” of key information, highly summarised presentations, brochures and follow up calls. In some cases this turned into detailed conversations, great information exchanges and a broader view for everyone on how the issues are shaping up. I walked out of a few meetings feeling quite inspired by the level of topic knowledge and the support we found for the RET.
Inevitably, in other cases our meetings had an entirely different feel.
In the worst case, we found ourselves interjecting with comments like “With all due respect, I disagree and that is simply not correct – may I show you some data?” and “You do see that the majority of Australians love solar and scrapping the RET is unlikely to deliver any tangible political benefit on power prices, don’t you?” . In these cases we tended to get “party line” responses or worse, that old chesnut “We may have to simply disagree on that one“.
What is telling however is that even in our worst meeting, our skeptical host was very explicit and made sure they specifically said “Don’t get me wrong I like solar. I’m not against it”. Reading between the carefully scripted lines I did get the sense that in todays climate no politician in their right mind would admit to saying they thought solar was a bad idea, even if they did think that. That in itself is highly telling of the power of this issue.
However, it did feel a bit like someone starting a conversation with “I’m not a racist but….”
Half tick. We got some new information out there and posed a few thought provoking statements.
Now there are many far more experienced lobbyists than me who are in Canberra all the time who will have their own views and have seen more people than we did, of course (keep going !). However, in all my trips to Parliament House I have never seen so many renewable folks doing laps; it was really quite remarkable. I know that many more meetings events, stunts and press statements will happen over the coming days and weeks too.
From my little snapshot of a visit, there are two main things that I walked away with.
There are still leaders who don’t understand.
The reality of life and politics is that representatives tend to be issue specialists. Whether its electorate pressure or personal interest, they are inevitably more informed on some issues and less on others. As terrifying as it might be, the simple fact is that all your leaders do not have all the facts on all the issues and yet, they are required to vote on these same issues.
Now with respect, I understand that everyone claims their issue is the most important one. However, it did strike me that energy policy is an issue that every politician needs to understand in detail and the RET is intrinsically connected. It also struck me that they don’t quite seem to get that there are more engaged solar voters than active churchgoers and enthusiastic union members, for goodness sake. It’s Nationally important, politically huge and yet some of them just don’t get this yet.
You only have to look back at recent State politics to see how solar consumers react and how powerful their sway is, it’s not rocket science.
So, as incredible as it might seem, there is still MASSIVE value in making these points to our representatives.
The issue is not resolved
No matter which report you read, pretty much all of them come to similar conclusions on the RET; even the most critical ones. Simply, even if it adds no value and adds the most hypothetical cost the real impact of the RET is almost certainly minimal.
Blind Freddy can see that even if the RET was axed no tangible savings would eventuate for a while, if it all. In fact, in all probability, by the time any hypothetical savings did eventuate they are almost certain to be swamped by CPI and other normal price increases on the cost of electricity. In some States where tariffs are still rising substantially voters will see nothing but increased power costs, period. So, despite the very obvious ideological opposition to the RET from some, by the time the next election comes around my take is that axing it will have zero political value.
It will achieve absolutely nothing positive at the ballot box when it’s all said and done.
This fact is as crucial as it is bewildering to many people I spoke to.
Given that the benefits are so small and the potential pain is so huge why on earth is the Prime Minister’s office personally crusading on this issue like his life depended on it?
One representative we met with described it as “the most bizarre, unprecedented, counter intuitive and illogical behaviour he had ever seen in more than two decades in Government”. Better call agents Scully and Mulder because this debate is so bizarre it’s straight out of the X Files.
Having said this, we do know a few things.
It is increasingly contentious; a fact highlighted by the RET Review Panel itself and even some of the Liberal parties own State members having been coming out in support of it in recent media. This means it is internally divisive and must be taken more seriously.
It is increasingly a populist issue, thanks to the work of groups like Solar Citizens who are mobilising voters to speak out. It isn’t slowing, its growing and one false move will send people into the streets.
If it was easy to destroy, they could have done it already. It’s not. They haven’t messed around the edges, because they obviously understand that would be seen as weak and underhanded. The have to grow some balls and take it to the Senate. And it is very unlikely to be supported in the senate.
So, how do we solve the RET issue?
I did see the Prime Minister yesterday (as he passed by on his way somewhere).
If he had asked my opinion, here’s what my suggestion would be for a simple solution.
1) Solar is a massive populist issue, one of the biggest. Take advantage of this and make up for axing all the other solar mechanisms by saving the RET. Come out like a solar hero and surprise everyone with your one energy innovation.
2) The RET does not impact your budget problem. Yes, there is a cost to letting it run its course but the majority is sunk cost; the administration, processes and planning are all done and the majority is market borne. Businesses are already wholly engaged in the process, so don’t waste time and money changing anything. Simply give the new electricity industry the go ahead to “get on with it”, help it evolve and invite them to open up their doors. Tell people solar is good again.
3)I understand this is about the cost of electricity for you and that is a hugely complex issue. However, to the majority the simple fact is that if you axe or trim the RET, the tangible benefits will in all probability be completely invisible. It’s unlikely to win you a single vote in terms of its impact on reducing electricity prices. It is likely to be swamped by bigger issues so take the RET off your agenda for reducing electricity costs and focus on where it really counts.
4)If you did leave the RET alone, the worst case scenario is that renewables would squeeze or outcompete some non renewables until demand growth came again. In the near term, that might cost marginally more but everyone agrees that further cost reductions are inevitable so within a few short years it will reach a tipping point. Before long you’ll have a shiny new fleet of diverse, fuel free, distributed generation and oh, by the way; consumers will pay around 80% of the cost for you.
5)The existing non renewable industry has been a participant and had full visibility to the RET through its entire life. It’s been witness to changing demand and in many cases, driving it themselves through solar and efficiency. So, tell them to get stuffed. The plan was ALWAYS 41,000 GWH of renewable generation PLUS getting smarter with usage and so, retire your older coal burners and restructure your businesses to cope.
Win votes.
Re-provide certainty.
Get on with it.
Innovate and move forward.
Pretty simple to me.
Post expires at 4:47pm on Thursday August 27th, 2015