Every properly organised taxpayer funded rort has a spreadsheet. And this one does too. With new FOI documents to hand, Rex Patrick looks at how ‘Solar Rorts’ came about.
Pork barrelling is political corruption. It involves the expenditure of public funds, typically through a grant, to build infrastructure in a way that favours the interests of a political party, rather than in the public interest.
When the Morrison Government spent public money on sports facilities and car parks in a way that was intended to sway votes in marginal seats, many people (including and especially Labor politicians and their supporters) were rightfully outraged.
All public money should be spent on the basis of needs and value-for-money. When governments depart from this principle they wade into murky water, and that exactly what Labor did in relation to the first round of its Community Batteries for Household Solar program.
Sign-off was obtained from Prime Minister Albanese, Treasurer Chalmers and Finance Minister Gallagher in November, while Industry Minister Husic signed off a delegation to Bowen so that he could run the program
Community Batteries for Household Solar Program
The Community Batteries for Household Solar program was a $200 million election commitment to support the installation of 400 community batteries across Australia.
These batteries are intended to cut power bills for households by allowing them to absorb excess solar energy into community batteries that can be drawn from in the evening. The program has merit.
The problem doesn’t arise in a party making a policy and expenditure announcement at an election. The problem doesn’t arise in having ARENA determining 342 sites.
The problem arises when a political party, in this case Labor, picks 58 sites without due diligence and announces the locations as part of its efforts to win seats. That fits firmly within the textbook definition of political corruption.
Labor’s Powering Australia Plan
In December 2021 Labor announced its Powering Australia Plan. The plan included reducing our emissions by 43% on 2005 levels by 2030, net zero emissions by 2050 and power bills to be cut by $275 a year by 2025.
The plan included its safeguard mechanism policy, upgrades to the energy transmission grid, plans to make electric vehicles cheaper, investments on green metals, 85 solar banks around Australia and the 400 community batteries.
The plan was backed by modelling by energy market analyst RepuTex Energy.
There were no issues until Labor decided to drop proper due diligence by the public service and to announce 58 sites based on political benefit, rather than in the public interest.
Location announcements
The location announcements started flowing even before the policy had been announced.
Chris Bowen flew from Canberra to Melbourne on 25th November 2021 so that he could stand next to Ged Kearney to announce the first community battery at the Alphington Farmers Market, not too far from one of Josh Frydenberg’s car parks.
Then he stood alongside Bill Shorten to announce another location before jumping on a plane to return to Sydney.
A beautiful big community battery for Flemington-Kensington in my electorate. Will cut prices and emissions for a community that has done it tough and only a federal Labor Government will deliver it. Thanks to @Bowenchris for coming down for the day to announce it. 🔋🔌🌏 pic.twitter.com/iq9eUg6PRu
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) November 26, 2021
Bowen announced Brunswick and Coburg as locations along with incumbent Labor MP, Peter Khalil, that same day.
Maybe they all thought that rolling out three pork barrels in a single day, with Bowen’s flight costs of $1,235.35, was a good use of taxpayers’ money.
By the day of the election, all but one of the 58 politically chosen sites were announced.
Then in government
It’s not clear how the implementation discussions started when Bowen got into Government, but by the 25th July 2022, Miranda Lello, a senior official with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, was working on the grants scheme.
It had taken Bowen’s Chief of Staff, Andrew Garrett, some time to find it in his parliamentary IT system.
The Department now had the Labor party’s spreadsheet to work from, which included links to the election announcements.
“Local Dimension Notes” 2nd column from right (yellow)
The Department then went through all the processes starting with New Policy Proposal Briefs and budget briefs to get approval for the program in the October budget. The funding was given budget approval and the Department went on to developing the program and setting up the guidelines, into which the locations were inserted without the Minister and Departmental Secretary doing the due diligence required by the Public Governance and Accountability Act.
Formal sign-off was obtained from Prime Minister Albanese, Treasurer Chalmers and Finance Minister Gallagher in November 2022, while Industry Minister Husic signed off a delegation to Bowen so that he could run the program. The legislative instruments were in place by mid-November.
Insofar as political corruption goes, everything went very smoothly.
Referral to the Auditor General
The FOI’s that ground this story were made at the suggestion of Rebekha Sharkie, Member for Mayo. She rightly smelt a rat after seeking briefings on how to advise her community of an important opportunity, only to find out that the locations were a done deal.
Independent for Mayo: Rebekha Sharkie
She raised the issue at question time on the 29 March this year and has written to the Auditor-General asking him to look into it further.
“I liked the Community Batteries for Household Solar program’s intent”, said Sharkie.
“I have no problem with an opposition announcing such a program to let everyone know what’s on offer if they’re elected. But it’s improper to actually allocate taxpayers’ money to infrastructure projects in particular suburbs based on whether a seat is marginal, or not. There must be proper due diligence”.
Solar Rorts – Federal Labor caught in $200 million pork barrelling scheme
“Labor went into the election disturbed by the pork barrelling that occurred under the Morrison Government and promised to do things differently. To me this looks no different.”
It’s not OK
It’s not OK when the party you detest engages in pork barrelling, nor is it OK when the party you enthusiastically support does the same thing. The line has to be drawn. Politicians need to know that it’s not acceptable any more.
And Sharkie is right. There is no difference. Labor hadn’t even made it into government and they were shoving their political snouts into the taxpayers’ trough for party and personal benefit.
Sadly, for the moment, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader - www.transparencywarrior.com.au.