Page 3810 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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The ACT government is engaged in a discussion about the establishment of a carbon trading scheme. We do not have a scheme yet and the government is not engaged in one. There are arguments for and against a scheme, and no one in this community has engaged in the debate as to whether we should be part of a carbon trading scheme or whether it is desirable.
Mr Barr: There are a few other trading schemes in the Liberal Party room that could be engaged in. It is just completely different. Mr Mulcahy is very well versed to comment on that.
MRS DUNNE: They are completely different things. It is disorderly, Mr Barr, to even consider it. I suppose we have realised that the Stanhope government is coming to a position much where the Liberal Party was at the last election. The Liberal Party went to the last election with substantial policies in relation to setting targets for reducing the use of electricity, reducing the use of water and improving the quality of our housing.
There are two reasons to find ways to allow people to make changes to improve the quality of their housing. Firstly, better living conditions create a better environment for us all. Secondly, it is cheaper for people. In the last little while Mr Mulcahy has been talking about a no-regrets policy. It is very much in the mould of what we took to the last election. We put forward a policy, which this Chief Minister roundly criticised, of providing people with low cost loans so that they could improve the insulation in their homes, heat water more efficiently, improve glazing and things like that to improve not only the efficiency of their houses but also their quality of living. To a large extent, the savings made in running their houses would pay for those improvements. I suppose this might be called the economic rationalist approach to environment policy and it is one that I heartily endorse. It is also—
Mr Barr: It is a good approach. It works in schools, too, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: Yes, it does work in schools. It does actually work in many places. The work that has been done, for instance, by the Rocky Mountains Institute in assisting many businesses to make significant changes to the way they operate their businesses has shown that if you make sound environmental changes you do make a big impact on your bottom line.
Mr Barr talked about access to natural lighting in schools. The Wal-Mart organisation in the United States has found that when they improve natural lighting into their stores the employees feel better and there is less absenteeism, and retail sales go up as well. Large organisations like Wal-Mart have actually made significant inroads into their greenhouse gas emissions and it has been good for their bottom line. There is much to be said for economic incentives to improve environmental performance. It has been the hallmark of the Liberal Party’s approach over the last four or five years, and it will continue to be so.
I hope that Mr Gentleman’s new found enthusiasm for environmentalism will continue when Mr Mulcahy moves his amendment, which I endorse. It carries on from the reasonable start made by Mr Gentleman in this motion, but actually adds
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