Page 4213 - Week 11 - Thursday, 17 Sept 2009
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MR HARGREAVES: I thank you for your sage advice, Mr Hanson, through you, Madam Assistant Speaker.
I want to go to, as I understand it, the two signature points that Ms Le Couteur was concerned about. The first was for the north-facing aspect of buildings to complement a six-star rating and not be subsumed within a six-star rating, I understand. The second one was the location of the homes and how we may or may not have used the best opportunity to do environmentally sustainable buildings—and examples within a sensitive community.
Let me go to the first one, the north-facing one. In the context of stage 2, it is a significant feature of how those buildings will be constructed. They will have a six-star rating; that is the minimum. It is also possible that many of them—most of them—will be north facing, but I can say that it is not going to happen that every one of them will be. If we get such things as a clear block—say a school site at Mount Neighbour—and we build a complex, there will, by definition, be some that will not be able to face that way.
What is important for us to know, though, is that, in order to make sure that we do take advantage of sun, we need to make sure that the windows and the internal configuration of the buildings maximise the opportunity for the use of sunlight and solar power. We are aware of that.
That brings me back to the first point that Ms Le Couteur made. The homes in stage 1 were not done from scratch. Predominantly they are refurbs or renovations; “refurb” is probably the better term. So sometimes we are stuck with an existing building. We believe that we have tried to achieve six stars; where we cannot, five stars are the absolute minimum. For example, we will not buy a property that we cannot reconfigure to five stars. If the best we can do is three stars, we are not going to do it; we will not buy that property.
I know at least one example. Ms Le Couteur expressed, or had expressed to her, a concern about the lack of north facing for this particular property. A window was installed to make sure that we did maximise the effect of the north. That is the sort of approach we will take whenever we have got these sorts of properties. And we will, over time, try to go back and bring our existing properties up to date.
I just need to assure Ms Le Couteur and the Greens that we are committed to getting our properties as close to six stars plus as we possibly can. If there is a way in which we can go to seven, we will take it. I think I would like the chamber to record our commitment to doing that. If we fail in that, it will not be for want of trying, because we are trying our best to do it.
In regard to the location under the stimulus package, the significant part of our contribution to the stimulus package is the provision of land, so—
Mr Hanson: You said you would be brief, John.
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