Page 3230 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (11.34): The greenhouse gas abatement scheme requires electricity retailers in the ACT to procure an increasing proportion of their supply from cleaner and/or greener energy sources. That is a response to a view held by the interjurisdictional working group—in which the ACT participates—that a national emissions trading program is, as yet, a way off. That is still a temporary scheme, but the national scheme—I understand that both major parties support this in the federal election campaign—will come into play on 1 January 2010, which is not all that far away.
Our scheme here runs in tandem with a similar scheme in operation in New South Wales. This bill brings us into line with the approach taken by New South Wales. The minister stated that the ACT participates in the interjurisdictional working group developing a national emissions trading scheme. It has become increasingly clear that early progress on a national emissions trading market is not likely. New South Wales chairs the committee, and it accepts that its scheme needs to be continued past 2012.
The government gives the rationale for this bill as follows. New South Wales has recently amended its legislation to extend its effect to 2020 with a provision that the scheme will be terminated once an effective national market is established. For operational consistency and maintained industry investment certainty, the ACT should also extend its relevant legislation. All ACT electricity retailers also operate in New South Wales and have already adjusted their reporting and purchasing policies to reflect the new time line; this scheme allows the ACT to enjoy sustained greenhouse gas reduction outcomes at minimal cost.
I think that the last part is the real effective rationale for the scheme. I would like to see a lot happen between this bill going through—which it will; the government has obviously got the numbers there—and the national scheme coming into play on 1 January 2010. Here is a bill and a scheme where the government is very keen to do it and NSW is doing it with valid reasons. Yet in other areas, the government is very reluctant to introduce sensible legislation from across the border—from the state that surrounds us and affects us.
This is still a temporary scheme, but it is quite clear now that we should have the national scheme up and running from 1 January 2010. As Dr Foskey says, there is no more important issue than climate change. It affects us all. It was proposed as a matter of public importance in the Australian parliament on 21 May, when the federal minister, Malcolm Turnbull, commented:
… we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our times. The world needs a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the course of this century …
He reminded the house that Australia emits just 1½ per cent of global greenhouse emissions. But, in return, we receive, and I quote him again, “100 per cent of the consequences of climate change”. Those figures are very sobering. They mean that, even if Australia was able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero, it would still endure the full effects of climate change. And how do we feel when the recent report under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change tells us
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