Page 3733 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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basically that we want to see immediate action, or as close as we can to immediate action, on this proposal. Energy efficient hot water is one of those things where we could have a win for the environment and a win for people’s hip pockets, particularly at present.
As I am sure all members are aware, the federal government is offering substantial rebates for purchasing new energy-efficient hot-water services. You can get from the REC system about $800 to $1,200 off, and then there is the federal solar hot-water rebate, which is a $1,600 federal rebate available to households replacing electric hot-water systems. This means that the cost of a replacement hot-water system is about half what the cost would be otherwise. It is only a few hundred dollars more than replacing it with an electric hot-water system.
Mr Barr: Plasma TV?
MS LE COUTEUR: Much less than a plasma TV. According to the federal government’s figures, you should expect to save between $300 and $700 a year by having a more energy-efficient hot-water service.
I suppose I could say my major regret in this is that such legislation is even necessary. Why are not people doing it? Why is not everybody doing it anyway? I guess I know the reason why people are not all doing it anyway. Your hot-water system fails, you think, “I need hot water, I need it,” and then the simplest, quickest thing, you think, is to replace your old electric hot-water system with a new electric hot-water system. And you do not even think about the bigger implications: the fact that you might save money for yourself, the fact that you might do something positive for the environment. You just do what the plumber tells you to do.
But it is a substantial disadvantage. And here I am going to quote from Dr Hugh Saddler, who, I think again, we are probably all aware of. He is a local energy-efficiency expert and one of the many experts who did give us advice and feedback about our bill. He said:
The changes proposed by this Bill could make significant energy savings for Canberra houses. Canberra has a large proportion of houses with gas which still use electric hot water heaters. Converting these houses to efficient hot water systems when the existing system has to be replaced is the low hanging fruit, in terms of lowest cost and highest energy savings. This is particularly prevalent in rental houses, and passing this Bill could significantly reduce energy bills for low income renters.
I point this out to the Liberal Party in particular, because passing this part of the bill could have led to significantly reduced energy bills for low income renters. We discussed this with ACTCOSS and they also were supporting it for this reason.
I take Mr Barr’s point about it not being a positive step. We would be happy to support a positive amendment from the government. At any time you wish to bring it forward, we will be happy to do that. But given where we are right now, we will be supporting reluctantly the Liberal Party’s amendment.
Question put:
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