Page 3310 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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time and they should have been ready to have the debate today. Why are they not ready to have the debate today? This bill has been on the table for months. Why are they not ready to have the debate today?
The Liberals do not know what they are doing. This is an opportunistic response from a party that is not serious about climate change, that flip-flops all over the place on climate change policy, on energy policy and a range of other issues.
The government’s approach on this matter is consistent. We have signed up to a national strategy. I will repeat it, for the sake of Mr Hanson, who has obviously missed that part of the debate. We have committed to a national strategy that will deliver the phase-out of greenhouse gas intensive hot-water systems by 1 May next year for new homes and by later in 2010 for existing detached homes. That is what we have signed up to, and we signed up to it in December last year, well before there were any proposals from any other party in this place on that matter. That is the bottom line.
Unfortunately it is simply a case of the Greens wanting to get the brownie points by saying, “We will do it a couple of months earlier but without consulting industry in the process.” That is why the government is adopting the position it is adopting. It is a sensible position and one that I think the Assembly should consider.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.06): I rise in support of Ms Le Couteur’s bill, which I think is an excellent initiative. When she introduced her legislation in April this year, she basically sought to set a standard, an energy use standard, for new or replacement hot-water systems installed in ACT houses and townhouses. She did this to reduce the environmental impacts of the production of hot water in households—and we know that is a significant greenhouse source for every household in the ACT that does not have these systems—and also to reduce the financial costs of hot-water systems for households. So this bill delivers a two-for-one policy outcome. We get improved environmental outcomes and improved financial outcomes for households.
The response today from the government is one of the laziest acts I have seen since I arrived in this place last October. It is simply embarrassing for the government for Mr Barr to stand in this place and give the earnest, heartfelt speech that he gave and yet his officers completely refuse to engage in discussion on this legislation. Mr Barr came in here with a series of technical points—he obviously got the department to write him a speech—and he has not offered a single, not one, amendment to this piece of legislation. It is an embarrassing contribution by a minister in the government of this territory.
Both Mr Corbell and Mr Barr have sought to take some delight in their assertions that the Greens have not undertaken any consultation on this bill. They did not bother to actually check their facts before they came into the chamber today. I might read out just some of the people that the Greens have consulted in the process of putting this legislation together, and that is bearing in mind we do not have a department to actually go and do the work for us.
They include companies like Rheem, Reece and Dux. The Village Building Company, one of the builders, is installing solar hot-water systems on all their its new affordable
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