Page 972 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 31 March 1993
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In Canberra 60 per cent of the calls to welfare agencies in winter are for assistance in paying fuel bills. CARE, in its "Cold Comfort" report of 1986, identified Canberra as having the longest, harshest winter conditions of any urban setting in Australia. After last year's winter conditions and the early onset of cold weather this year, no-one could argue that point. The Smith Family estimates that it costs an extra $800 a year for heating and other energy driven needs in winter. A 1985 study showed that the proportion of income spent on energy tends to be greater for low income families - families who cannot afford to make the transition to more energy efficient forms of heating and end up crippled financially by high energy bills.
Mr Moore: These are the people this Government will not support.
MS SZUTY: That is right, Mr Moore. Mr Moore interjects and says that these are the people the Government is not prepared to support, and I would agree with him. Home buyers, as they enter into new mortgages, or first mortgages, are usually financially stressed. It makes no sense to expect them to then pay the added costs of heating an uninsulated house. It is often the case that they also cannot afford adequate curtaining and window covers, leading to the familiar sheets as curtains hanging in the windows of new estates, as Mr Connolly mentioned. It would be much more efficient to give new home buyers the means to pay the cost of energy efficiency over time, as part of their mortgage, than to make the running costs of their home higher than necessary.
In fact, a couple of government initiatives in recent times have promoted energy efficient housing, particularly at the construction stage. The Government has built two demonstration homes in Gungahlin, at an additional cost of $25,000 on an average Housing Trust home, to determine the future direction for energy efficient public housing. ACTEW also has opened an excellent display home as an example of energy efficient living for people thinking of building a new home. That house at Banks uses R2 rated batts in the walls, R3.5 in most ceilings, and R4.5 in its specially designed arched roof. In fact, an ACTEW brochure entitled "Energy Conservation in Housing" also recommends that an R2 rating insulation material be used in walls, and R3.5 in the ceiling.
Mr Moore's Bill sets out a comprehensive list of ratings for insulation, depending on the location, materials used, and type of insulation. It is appropriate that this level of recommendation be carried into legislation, as poor insulation is often only marginally better than no insulation. The Government's announcement last year, on learning of Mr Moore's Bill, that insulation in the walls of newly constructed houses would become compulsory, recommends only a minimum rating of 1.5. Its own energy guidelines recommend 1.7, and ACTEW recommends 2.0. The Government also proposes that inaccessible ceiling spaces be insulated, but the test is whether, after construction, these spaces would be inaccessible.
Madam Speaker, that standard is not good enough and does not recognise the failure of the building industry to introduce insulation and solar orientation as standards for all housing. The Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning, Mr Wood, has already lamented on more than one occasion - he did it again today - the proliferation of north facing garages in new developments.
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