Page 1623 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 June 2021
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the increases that we are going to see this year, remain comparable to electricity prices anywhere else in Australia. We have achieved that while achieving 100 per cent renewable electricity. That is a fact that was conveniently left out of that red herring reference to Los Angeles and Barcelona.
In terms of Ms Castley’s ongoing concern about the review of the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act 2010, I sent a letter to her yesterday outlining the steps that the government has taken. In that letter I said that the review was initiated in April this year and is due to be completed by September 2021. That work is now well underway. I noted that the act states that the review must occur as soon as practicable after the end of the Act’s 10th year of operation. The act was notified on 4 November 2010, meaning that the review must be initiated as soon as practicable after November 2020. Ms Castley has asked me on occasions why it was not done in October. That is because that is what the act says. The review will assess whether objectives are being achieved, and will identify any required changes to policy settings in the operation of the act. I am pleased to update Ms Castley and let her know that that letter is in her email when she wants to have a look at it.
Finally, there were a number of comments about the Greens’ policy on the building at 220 London Circuit. That building was built with gas, much to my disappointment. We have subsequently managed to change the policy. I explained this in response to Ms Lee’s question in recent hearings. That contract was signed before the policy was adopted. The Greens were not able to get that policy agreed to, but the policy has now been changed. That is why subsequent buildings, like the Dickson building, are being done under that new policy which we were able to bring into effect in the ACT—again, I think, leading the country in that regard.
Finally, when it comes to diesel buses, our position is that no more diesel buses should be purchased, and I believe that is now government policy. No more diesel buses will be purchased for the ACT. After having clarified those points, I thank Ms Clay for moving this important motion today and I commend it to the Assembly.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (3.51), in reply: I thank the members for their kind words about this motion and for their consistent tripartisan support for really strong action on climate. It has been a pleasure to watch, at the ACT government level, the really good tripartisan support, and I am really sad that we are not getting tripartisan support on this one. I am a bit puzzled by the comment that we did not try and consult with the Canberra Liberals. I did contact Ms Lee’s office seven times and I heard back once.
Mr Rattenbury: Only seven?
MS CLAY: Only seven. I thought that if I contacted the office more often than that I might be a bit of a climate stalker, and I decided to stop. We tried really, really hard. I always want to get tripartisan support on any climate action because I think that it is so important. We have to put the climate wars aside. We have done that in this house many, many times, and that is why we have such great action here.
We have heard about a lot of the really tangible, firm actions that the ACT has taken. Mr Rattenbury outlined those. We have seen some really great improvements and a
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