Page 2997 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 August 2008
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and founder of Suntech, a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of innovative solar energy solutions. Its research and development team in China continues to pioneer technology advances in solar power generation products.
In the late 1980s, Dr Shi was in Sydney to study photovoltaics after obtaining a master’s degree in laser physics in Shanghai. In 1989 he became a PhD student in the groundbreaking photovoltaics laboratory run by Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham at the University of New South Wales. Dr Shi has been very successful, and Suntech has now become a very large company in China. He started off in 2001 with $6 million in backing arranged by the Wuxi government plus the assistance of ex-colleagues at the University of New South Wales. Dr Shi led his first factory operation, and sales boomed as the market took on. Today Dr Shi is a billionaire; he is one of the wealthiest men in China and, for that matter, one of Australia’s richest citizens.
The built environment award was won by a contestant from the ACT. That award is presented for buildings, development, infrastructure, services, technologies, and product, and it was won by Trevor Pearcy House from Australian Ethical Investment Ltd. The Trevor Pearcy House refurbishment has transformed an existing building and achieved a six-star, green-star office design, which is world’s best practice. The project was undertaken using accepted conventional and low technology design principles, technologies and materials which can be easily transferred to other projects.
Trevor Percy House produces 70 per cent less greenhouse emissions and uses 90 per cent less water than the average building. The refurbishment also reused a substantial amount of materials from the existing building fit-out, and the building has achieved these impressive environmental achievements while also providing a comfortable and productive work environment for the occupants with exceptional levels of user satisfaction.
These significant savings were achieved with focus on improving the building fabric through retrofitting insulation and shading upgrades, introducing natural ventilation through operable windows and thermal chimneys and a close focus on reusing materials or selecting new materials with a low environmental impact. Mr Speaker, I congratulate the Banksia Environmental Foundation on its leadership. I also congratulate all the winners for 2008, and I look forward to attending the awards next year.
Karinya House
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.10): I would like to echo Mr Gentleman’s words of support for the Banksia Environmental Foundation and for the spectacular winners of the awards. But tonight, Mr Speaker, in Homeless Persons Week, I would like to talk about some of the issues affecting a group of people who are sometimes homeless in the ACT. There has been increasing discussion amongst welfare groups about the difficult situation that young pregnant women find themselves in in the ACT. There was some discussion in the last few weeks about the difficulties encountered by one charity which is increasingly coming across young pregnant girls and young couples who want to be responsible parents but who are not finding the support from either
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