In the Detail
Topic

Inequality

3 investigations.

Rooftop solar

Australia's Wealthiest Postcodes Have the Least Rooftop Solar

Rooftop solar is often cast as a benefit for households wealthy enough to own a home and buy panels. The installation record says the opposite about where it landed. Across 2,321 postcodes, the most advantaged tenth of the country has the lowest uptake of any group — 132.7 small-scale solar installations per 1,000 residents against a peak of 218.8 in the second-most-disadvantaged decile — and it stays lowest even when the comparison is narrowed to owner-occupied detached houses. The certificates that subsidise those panels are recovered from every electricity bill, including the renters and apartment-dwellers who install the fewest.

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Health

Medicare Now Runs at Two Speeds: 94% Bulk-Billed in the Poorest Areas, 68% in the Richest

The national bulk-billing rate has recovered to 82%, and the government points to it as proof its incentive is working. That single number is now an average of two different systems. In the most disadvantaged areas GPs bulk-bill 94% of visits; in the wealthiest, 68% and falling. The gap has widened from 18 points to 26 in under four years. A targeted incentive producing a targeted result is what policy is meant to do — the finding here is the size of the split, and that a headline number reported as national is no longer descriptive of anywhere.

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