Page 2644 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 July 2008
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At 6.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted and the debate made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Standing orders—suspension
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (6.00) I move:
That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the debate on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill continuing.
MR SPEAKER: Do you want to speak to the motion?
DR FOSKEY: I want speak to the motion because this is probably the last chance we will have to finish this item of business; we are nearly finished. I will complete the debate in a short time and it does not seem to me to be too onerous. We have sat here night after night so that the government could get through its business.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (6.01): The government will not be supporting the motion. We have indicated at government business meetings and others our intention to adjourn at 6.00 this evening. Members have made plans on that basis and that is the position we are sticking to.
Question resolved in the negative, with the concurrence of an absolute majority.
It being past 6.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the motion for the adjournment of the Assembly was put.
Adjournment
Housing—energy efficiency ratings
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (6.01): I suppose, in a sense, it does not matter that we did not finish that debate, because it would have been lost, on the numbers. I would say I would have been the only person voting for it. The only joy for me would have been that I could have called for a division and shown the government voting against a measure that is in its own climate change strategy, which no doubt it plans to present in a pre-election package. It does not really like the idea that the Greens might have brought it up perhaps not in its time line.
I think that we need to remember what this bill was about. It was really about asking landlords to do what they are already required to do, and that is to publish their energy efficiency rating, if they have one; and where they do not, to seek to have one. That is something that is pretty much already on our books. This city has energy efficiency ratings required for stand-alone dwellings when they are sold, and all this was about was extending it to rental housing.
This argument that it is going to add to the cost of rental housing is a non-argument. I might be the only person here renting in the private market at the moment—I do not know—but I do know that I really appreciate and look for a dwelling where my
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