Queensland Energy Minister Stephen Robertson has accused other state governments of being “foolish and shortsighted” for cutting payments to promote solar energy.

Mr Robertson told the Ecogen renewable energy conference in Brisbane yesterday that recent decisions in Victoria and New South Wales to cut back payments for homeowners with solar power would damage the industry.

Last week, Victoria’s energy minister Michael O’Brien announced the government would cut its feed-in tariff payments, for electricity fed back to the grid, from 60 cents per kilowatt hour to 25c.

Mr Robertson said Queensland’s tariff, which pays 45c per kWh, had helped thousands to access clean power.

“In my view, any government that doesn’t see exactly the choices that their constituents in fact want to make in accessing cleaner power is indeed somewhat foolish and shortsighted,” he said.

“[Queensland will avoid] going down the path of other states in collapsing their schemes and causing such dislocation amongst a somewhat new and still vulnerable part of the economy.”

Well ...
We got the contract signed with ORIGIN, yesterday, at SIXTY CENTS per KW ( ... it drops to TWENTY FIVE cents per KW, at the end of the month, making domestic solar no longer financially viable)

Our turbines are up and running, pumping into the grid ( ... they will eventually feed DIRECTLY to homes in Daylesford and surrounds)

In a time when the world needs to reduce carbon emissions and renewable energy should be at the forefront of that challenge, the Victorian Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has given the nod for a new coal fired power station to be constructed in Morwell, Victoria.
 
Victoria already has skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions thanks to its extensive use of the filthiest of fossil fuels, brown coal, for electricity generation. The state is also home to what is considered the world's most emissions intensive coal fired plant - Hazelwood.  

According to activist group Switch Off Coal, the decision is a way for Victoria to keep justifying the use of brown coal

   

IF VICTORIA's public servants are feeling a little unloved and poorly paid, perhaps they should retrain as contractors and move to the government's IT agency CenITex.

A leaked memo on the agency's wages has revealed its top 10 contractors earn more each day than Premier Ted Baillieu. Most earned more than the agency's chief executive, who took home the tidy sum of $355,491.



The document also revealed CenITex, which centralises information technology services across the Victorian public sector, relies heavily on contractors, employing 269 - more than a third of the 769 staff.

Fairfax revealed yesterday that Victoria Police has been asked to investigate a CenITex tender process after Six contractors and staff were sacked last month, and the Baillieu government has ordered an organisation-wide review.



One CenITex source yesterday defended the high pay rates: ''That's the contracting market. It's particularly rampant in the IT industry where there is a shortage of skills, so the market has to pay the going rate.''

But a former CenITex staffer said there were too many contractors earning too much money: ''It's outrageous, they've got their snouts in the trough.''

Fairfax believes the public sector union has been concerned about the agency's reliance on external consultants and the replacement of public servants with highly paid contractors. ''Full-time employees are replaced by contractors - that's been happening regularly,'' said one union source, who declined to be named. ''And it's usually at a much higher rate.''

Two of the top 10 contractors in the memo have online profiles showing they are acting as senior executives in CenITex and earn as much, or more than, the then acting chief executive Jim Monaghan.

An IT employment expert, who did not want to be named, told Fairfax it was difficult to know whether the contract payments at CenITex were justified without knowing how many hours were worked. ''If they are only doing 40 hours per week, then the CenITex salaries seem very high,'' the expert said.

MELBOURNE is set to get 32 new speed and red light cameras that will see tens of thousands more motorists booked and

Police Minister Peter Ryan said yesterday the cameras should be catching drivers before the end of the month at some of the city's busiest intersections, including along Hoddle St, East Melbourne and Warrigal Rd, Chadstone.

Hollywood actor James Cromwell has joined the push to ban jumps racing in Victoria.

Cromwell, star of Babe, The Green Mile and Six Feet Under, is urging the state's Racing Minister, Denis Napthine, to put an end to the sport, which is showcased through the iconic three-day Warrnambool May Racing Carnival.

the Warrnambool Standard reports

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“In jumps racing — in which,” Cromwell writes.