Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (13:18): My constituency question is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Lily D’Ambrosio.
Matthew Jenkins from Brunswick wrote to me outlining the trouble he and his wife have had accessing the solar panel rebate scheme. Matthew and his wife own an apartment in Manallack Street in Brunswick. There are eight apartments in the building, and it is set up on an owners corporation model.
Matthew believes that he is able to persuade the other owners to agree to invest in solar panels. However, that support would rely on accessing the solar rebate scheme, and under the current laws owners corporations are ineligible to access the scheme.
Matthew understands that there are significant challenges and complexities in responsiveness and flexibility for properties which form part of a larger owners corporation development. However, the same is not necessarily true for smaller set-ups.
My question to the minister is: will her department broaden the scheme to include small owners corporation schemes such as Matthew’s?