Page 3311 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
houses in west Macgregor. Previous speakers have waved the flag and said that householders cannot afford this. We are talking about affordable housing in west Macgregor. Every house in west Macgregor already has a solar hot-water system because the Village Building Company, one of the companies we have talked about, has a bit of vision—far more vision that the ACT government seems to be able to generate for itself.
We have also consulted a range of other stakeholders, including the ACT Master Plumbers Association. Mr Corbell has said, “You never talked to the plumbers.” Actually, we have talked to the plumbers. We engaged with a bunch of people. We engaged with the ACT Council of Social Service because we also care about the social impact of these policies. We are mindful of these issues. We heard the feedback about ways to improve the bill. We accepted that there is a better mechanism, and that is why Ms Le Couteur brought forward a new version of the bill she originally tabled in April, unlike Mr Barr, who is too lazy even to come up with a single amendment. Some of those issues have been incorporated so that we can get the best possible piece of legislation in the ACT, but also deliver economic and environmental benefits.
We have also sought to engage with Mr Barr’s office. We indicated that if the start-up date is not the right date, let us talk about a new date. It has taken some time to get this legislation before the chamber because we have been trying to engage Mr Barr’s office, but unfortunately they were not interested in talking to us about it. We said that the start-up date is getting close now; let us talk about amendments. But, no, the government does not want to do that either. They agree with what we are trying to achieve, but they are too churlish to actually make it happen. It is simply a ploy.
If the government brought forward a piece of legislation and the Greens simply said, “Sorry, we are not interested,” the government would be howling. Mr Barr would be standing up here saying, “The Greens are irresponsible. How dare they stand up in this chamber and not even engage on a piece of the government’s legislation.” But it is okay for Mr Barr, because it does not suit him to actually engage. He is too lazy and too churlish to say, “We acknowledge this is good policy but we are not going to pass it.”
Let us talk about some of the environmental and economic benefits of this legislation. Look at the tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions generated by hot water systems per year. An electric storage off-peak system for a one or two-person household produces around 2.9 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year here in the ACT. This is all based on modelling for our climate and the latitude of the ACT. A solar gas-boosted system produces 0.2 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. Just to reinforce that, that is 0.2 tonnes compared with an electric storage off-peak system which will produce nearly 15 times as many greenhouse gas emissions per year. That is why we need to get this done, and we need to get it done now.
The government have brought out their zero emissions position for the ACT. Well, that is fine, but when are we actually going to start implementing the policies that are going to deliver that? Are they going to do it now or some time in the future when none of these ministers will even be here? We need to get on with these sorts of changes now if we are ever going to make a difference on climate change.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .