Solar school cash gone

Adelaide Advertiser
Friday 16/10/2009 Page: 11

THOUSANDS of schools that want to go green have been told the Federal Government has no money to help them. The Government has shelved a popular program which provided up to $50,000 to schools for solar panels, solar hot-water heaters and water tanks. Any school which had not put in an application by 3pm yesterday has missed out for the next eight months. Environment Minister Peter Garrett put the $480 million program on ice because it had already exhausted funding for this financial year. More than 2000 schools made the cut-off - 2500 must wait. Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt asked why Mr Garrett did not have the "guts" to publicly announce the decision to close the program. Mr Garrett's spokesman said more than 1800 schools had been approved.