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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2541 ..

abatement scheme as exists in New South Wales, in effect joining the ACT to the New South Wales scheme. Legislation to implement the scheme will be tabled in the Assembly tomorrow.

The legislation is aimed specifically at assisting the ACT to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals by introducing a scheme requiring all ACT electricity retailers to procure over time an increasing component of their product from accredited clean or green sources. Similar in operation to the New South Wales scheme, the proposed ACT scheme will involve the setting of annual industry greenhouse benchmarks and providing for their compliance and monitoring. Participation in the ACT scheme will be a licence condition for all retailers selling into the ACT electricity market. The scheme will produce significant greenhouse abatement for the ACT and has already been factored into identified emission savings.

The proposal by Ms Tucker to introduce a no-interest, low-interest or CPI-interest only loan scheme to facilitate house owners increasing the energy efficiency of their properties is not a new one. I met recently with Professor Blakers, who has proposed a similar mass solarisation scheme, and it is certainly something that deserves serious consideration by the government and the community. However, it needs to be remembered that there are already effective enabling mechanisms in the marketplace for assisting with the capital costs of home energy improvements. It is debatable whether it is the role of government to supplant these opportunities by operating as a bank, but let’s have the debate.

There are already examples in other states of electricity retailers allowing customers to pay off, through their electricity bills, hot water heaters and airconditioners that they have purchased through the retailer. Suppliers of particular products, such as insulation and solar water heaters, already engage in their own marketing activities within competitive markets and some offer their own financing arrangements. Some companies have combined to offer joint packages, such as ActewAGL and Solahart both offering discounts on gas-boosted solar water heaters.

Generous rebates for solar water heaters and cavity wall insulation are already provided by government, but there is scope for providing more flexible rebate packages to broaden their attractiveness to householders and stimulate the home improvement sector to better market its products. In this context, it may be that this proposal is not the best way to provide incentives to householders and to minimise their upfront capital costs when undertaking energy efficiency upgrades.

Similarly, consideration should be given to the introduction of an energy efficiency and water use rating system for commercial buildings. The Australian building code has recently indicated an intention to widen the scope of its responsibilities to include the overall sustainability of buildings. That will include aspects such as energy efficiency and water use of both residential and commercial buildings.

Several national commercial building rating schemes currently exist, including the Australian building greenhouse rating scheme, the national building environmental rating scheme and the Green Building Council’s green star scheme. Green star and the national building environmental rating scheme have the capability of incorporating water and

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