Page 1597 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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because once the houses have been made over they will need less energy to heat and cool so less energy will be used and less greenhouse gases produced. It will cost occupants less for heating and cooling and, as many of these houses are owned by ACT Housing, it is a winner for the ACT economy. For instance, the jobs of insulating houses are inherently local jobs which can be done by local businesses.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts report on appropriation bill No 3 of 2008-09 called for tax incentives or other forms of incentives and related education programs to encourage the private rental sector—that is, the private landlords—to make energy efficient modifications to their rental properties. In our response to the PAC report, I mentioned the recent Australian Council of Trade Unions and Australian Conservation Foundation report Green gold rush, which identified that green industries could grow an additional 500,000 jobs and take on a significant global market share.
Leaders around the world have taken to the green economy as a key part of the economic recovery. I have already mentioned President Obama. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, chaired a meeting of business leaders in early March at which he called for a new industrial strategy to promote a green economy which he said would employ 1.3 million Britons by 2017, 400,000 more than now.
Estimates are that the world has already committed close to $200 billion to the green economy under economic stimulus plans—especially the United States and the European Union. The recent CSIRO report Growing the green collar economy: skills and labour challenges in reducing our greenhouse emissions and national environmental footprint calls for concerted action by government, business and educational institutions to develop and implement new approaches to green education, training and jobs, the aim being to produce cost savings and greater competitiveness, greater wellbeing and reduced environmental impact.
We note that the Chief Minister has reopened the issue of pay parking in the parliamentary zone. This represents a great opportunity to broaden the ACT’s revenue base. This was examined in 1994 and 2003, and we support the ACT government going down this track once more. We hope that there are better results. This is certainly an area where we can be looking at increasing revenue across the city. Another area to pursue to improve the financial base is putting in measures to collect the existing outstanding revenue—running to millions of dollars—from traffic fines. These measures need to take into account mechanisms to prevent such a backlog building up again.
In conclusion, the Greens see that the ACT’s economic future can be green. The government has a range of options to help get there. We call upon government, business and the community to support investment in our future to make it so.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (3.44): It is interesting to hear what the Treasurer has to say. She gave Mr Doszpot a quick slap and said it was quite simplistic to suggest that the tax base here was narrow. But it is interesting that, on page 26 of the government’s own economic white paper, there is actually a subchapter devoted to a narrow economic structure and revenue base. When you compare the old economic
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