Page 3304 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.43): We look forward to the contribution of the environment minister to this very important debate as well. We will be supporting the bill in principle but there are a number of parts of the bill that we will not be supporting. I have to say, in response to part of what Mr Barr has had to say, that I disagree with the entirety of the policy in that there are some aspects of this policy we simply cannot agree with. That is particularly so in the replacement area.
But in our dealings with the Greens, versus our dealings with the planning minister’s office, even though we do not agree with them on everything, we have found them far more forthcoming with information. The discussion and dialogue we have been able to have to get a picture of what they want from this bill and what they are prepared to put forward have been very useful, on the one hand.
Requests to the planning minister’s office for information have not been met with the same courtesy. In fact, very few, if any, of these arguments that Mr Barr has just made in the chamber have been put to us. And we have asked on a number of occasions for this to be done so that we could look at it in the most informed way possible. We want the government to put forward their ideas and their concerns but it seems Mr Barr and his office would prefer simply to continue to play politics with these issues rather than actually seek a good outcome.
If Mr Barr wants to move sensible amendments, we would look at them but to date we have seen nothing. He has come out with this proposal at the end of his speech that actually it is a really good policy but it will be put in place in May or June. Where was this dialogue earlier? Where were the amendments circulated to us, delaying the start-up date, raising these concerns? We have not seen any of them and it really does not reflect very well on the planning minister and his processes when he puts it through in this manner.
We have considered the bill as it applies to new developments and existing developments and, given that the bill in relation to new developments is essentially an adoption of the Canberra Liberals’ election policy, although not absolutely, we of course welcome the endorsement from the Greens. We will be supporting the components of the bill as they reflect our election policy in relation to new developments. We do have a slight difference of approach in new developments in that we believe that five-star electricity should be part of that mix.
The aim of the bill, as outlined by Ms Le Couteur, is to reduce the environmental and financial impact as it relates to hot-water systems used in the ACT. There is certainly no doubting the environmental gain from the use of low-energy hot-water equipment. The financial gain is evident also in the sense that, as with many issues, if one has the capital start-up, significant savings can be achieved over the life of the equipment.
However, it is important to me and important to the Canberra Liberals that we consider the reality facing many, if not most, working families that the start-up cost is often too great in many circumstances. I am referring particularly to the issue of replacements.
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