Page 848 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2005
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We need something that is a lot more helpful to consumers than what we already have. I suppose I stand as one of those consumers who are actively seeking rather than those people who just want to buy a washing machine and for whom we have to make sure that what they buy is energy and water efficient, even though that is not their first priority. This point also highlights the need for ongoing community and targeted education. Perhaps we should ensure that the retail assistants who sell us these products are well informed as well.
I note that there are a number of strict liability offences in the bill and some of these carry a significant penalty. We will have to tackle the whole question of how sustainability standards are enforced. While the Greens support such standards, we are aware that an approach giving consumers a choice with mandatory labelling has its own problems, and enforcement of accurate labelling is clearly one of them, as I have just highlighted with my own experience.
Some of the penalties in the bill appear to be heavy-handed. We are interested in seeing, where possible, a shift towards the designing of appliances which are by their very nature more energy efficient, rather than simply offering consumers an array of choices where they may, without intending to, buy an appliance that is more energy guzzling and water guzzling than they want. The point is that there should be some onus on companies and producers rather than just on consumers.
This measure is just one part of the demand management strategy. The ACT government has adopted other measures as part of the think water, act water strategy released in December 2003. These include providing rebates for water efficient showerheads, subsidising home and garden water tune-ups, subsidising dual flush toilets in lieu of single flush toilets, providing rebates for rainwater tanks, information and awareness programs to advise householders and the business and government sectors, and regulations to support more water efficiency in homes and gardens.
The think water, act water strategy also has a commitment that the government not only will support this water efficiency labelling measure but also will promote agreement for it to go further. The bill before us will require the sale of water efficient toilets. The ACT government has committed to promoting a national agreement to require the sale of water efficient showerheads by 2007 and washing machines by 2010.
It is also worth noting that the think water, act water strategy includes, along with water efficiency measures, sustainable water recycling and the use of stormwater and rainwater. We welcome all these initiatives, although we suggest that it might be useful if the government could, at some appropriate time, report on how we are tracking on these water-efficiency measures. Further, we would argue that there is a range of other strategies that also should be adopted.
The ACT water strategy report produced for Actew by the University of Technology in Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures in 2003 looked at some additional options. These included residential and non-residential development control plans, targeted audits and retrofits and an active, unaccounted for water control program. The Institute for Sustainable Futures report also suggested that there needs to be further data gathering and analysis on, for example, how water is used specifically in Canberra and how this
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