Page 1088 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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the benefits of a regular and reliable energy supply that the agreement promises to the ACT.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.26): The Greens will be supporting the Utilities (Energy Industry Levy) Amendment Bill 2007. With regard to the financial cost of the levy to the industry, I note that there will be little change from previous costs and that the formula for calculating the levy will effectively remain the same. While a number of market matters will come under national regulation due to national energy market reform, which the Green senators have significant comment on in regard to the national electricity grid, the ACT Greens are pleased to see that issues such as consumer service and the environmental behaviour of energy and utility providers will remain under ACT government regulation.
In relation to consumer services, I understand that as a result of the dismantling of the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission, the Essential Services Consumer Council will fall under the responsibility of the Department of Justice and Community Services. I have some concerns about this. For the ESCC to receive its funding, it must make a bid to JACS through budget processes of its expected costs for the year ahead. JACS must then notify the Commissioner for Revenue, who will build the costs into the levy he or she collects from the industry. The Greens will be watching closely to see whether the new process works efficiently and to the benefit of consumers. Previously, the ESCC would have simply used internal ICRC budget processes and notified the ICRC of its expected costs for the year. The ICRC would have built this into the levy it had collected from the industry.
On a positive note, the change in ESCC oversight will see ESCC funding requests included in formal ACT government budget processes and scrutinised by Assembly members and budget estimates committees. The ESCC will also receive three-year forward predictions on its funding. In many ways, the process by which the ESCC obtains its funding will now be more accountable and transparent to the Assembly and the public. Also, since the ESCC will sit within a government department, there is expected to be a greater level of security in its forward funding.
However, the ESCC will have to go through two “middle men”, JACS and Commissioner for Revenue, to obtain its funding, rather than just the ICRC. This adds to the level of bureaucracy the Essential Services Consumer Council must deal with and the number of bodies it must convince of its funding requirements.
I am pleased to see that the ACT government will still regulate utility providers’ local environmental behaviour. In the briefing provided by the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, for which my office is very thankful, we were advised that programs like the current greenhouse gas abatement scheme should be able to fit quite easily into this legislation. We eagerly await the ACT government’s climate change strategy to see whether it will include any new initiatives that could come under this legislation. Of course, that climate change strategy has been promised to us and it looks like the end of May will go by without us seeing it.
The real question is whether the ACT government will make the most of this opportunity and seek to implement further schemes to reduce the greenhouse gas and carbon emissions produced by the energy industry and its consumers.
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