Page 1435 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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(c) review the criteria for the energy concessions program every five years in view of the changing impacts of rising electricity and gas prices on energy poverty;
(d) increase the energy concession to a level commensurate with energy price increases and establish a mechanism by which percentage increases in energy prices are automatically applied to the energy concession each year;
(e) consider extending the methodology of the WEST program to other low income families;
(f) ensure that low income and other vulnerable households are specifically targeted in all energy efficiency policies and programs implemented by the ACT Government; and
(g) report back to the Legislative Assembly on progress on the above by September 2010.
I am very pleased to be debating this topic this afternoon. I think this motion is an important one and addresses the issue of impacts of climate change and future energy policies on low income households in the ACT. We know that as a community we must take action to reduce our greenhouse emissions and move towards clean renewable energy. The Greens support the development of an energy policy for the ACT that will deliver the significant reduction in carbon emissions that we need to meet our commitment to the global effort. We believe that local action is important in the global effort to reduce emissions.
I say this in response to what I know will be criticism from those who want to delay taking action—it is patently clear that reducing emissions in the ACT will not solve the global problem, nor will any other community individually solve the climate problem. But in the absence of international and national leadership, we are seeing communities right across the globe taking leadership and showing how the transition from a fossil fuel based society and economy to a smart, clean energy society can happen.
Theorists of social change might speculate that this is not unexpected, that the climate challenge is perfectly demonstrating how change happens not always from the top down initially but also from the bottom up. Community-driven change is powerful change indeed. For local communities, there are benefits in early action. The earlier we move forward, the better prepared we will be for the anticipated changes in the energy landscape—that is, rising costs of fossil fuels, decreasing costs of clean energy, the global oil crisis as the impacts of peak oil begin to bite, and the growing clean energy economy that will boom as the imperative to cut emissions translates into national policies.
Australia, and more specifically the ACT, has benefited over the decades from access to cheap and reliable electricity generated from our many coal-fired power stations. Energy prices in Australia have been kept low until recently, and so community
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