Page 2495 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
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I think the single most significant initiative pursued by the ACT, certainly indeed by any jurisdiction in Australia, is the ACT and New South Wales greenhouse gas abatement scheme, an outstanding success which we pursue and which we implemented, yet there has been no mention of that here today on the scoreboard—
Mrs Dunne: I did speak about it.
MR STANHOPE: I beg your pardon, Mrs Dunne; you did. I was overborne by a subsequent contribution of sins for which I need to accept responsibility. It has been a major initiative, the single most significant initiative undertaken by an Australian government: a reduction of 316,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 73,000 cars, in annual emissions through that single initiative. Residential building initiatives include the recent introduction of mandatory five-star energy efficiency, the ACT energy wise program, the ACT home energy advisory service and the commitment to purchase for ACT government purposes 23 per cent of green power. The highest level of green power purchased by any government in Australia is being purchased for the ACT by your very own government.
We utilise in the powering of this building 23 per cent green power. No other jurisdiction in Australia, no other government in Australia, purchases for the purposes of its operations anywhere near that amount of green power. It is at a cost, a quite significant cost, but it is at 23 per cent and we will incrementally ratchet that up. We are committed to the purchase of electrical appliances with low standby power usage. We are on track to meet our commitment to increase fuel efficient, low-emission vehicles to 10 per cent within two years, and we have just announced the progressive move from six-cylinder to four-cylinder cars across the entire fleet. We have 52 ACTION buses that now run on compressed natural gas, at a cost of $22 million.
These are some of the initiatives which we have pursued in a practical sense in relation to climate change and energy. In addition, we are in the process, despite the scorn and the scoffing, of developing a major climate change strategy, one on which we are consulting, on which we have sought responses from across the community and to which I hope quite sincerely that the ACT Greens have made a major submission and contribution. I must look at that and see exactly what it is that the Greens suggest that we might do in relation to climate change and energy that is achievable and affordable. That, of course, goes to the long lost and lamented greenhouse strategy which the Liberals continue to boast about and which was seriously flawed, unscientific, unachievable and would have cost a bomb—a cost, of course, that they were never prepared to invest in. The last costing I had on it, at the time of the last election, was that to implement the recommendations within the greenhouse strategy—
Mrs Dunne: Yes, it was a doctored costing. None of the scientists believed you.
MR STANHOPE: I notice that this always excites Mrs Dunne because of the promise she made before the last election that, when elected, a Liberal government would fully implement the long lost and lamented greenhouse strategy of the Liberal Party. It was costed objectively by excellent officers—
Dr Foskey: On the back of an envelope.
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