Page 1446 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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inevitably have to bear much of that burden. The example I use is the feed-in tariff scheme. Many high income earners will put a solar panel on their roof and will potentially get a financial windfall. Low income earners, as they should be, will be compensated. Those in the middle will end up paying the burden, as they often do.
In terms of bang for your buck, we talk about the solar feed-in tariff. But if you were to ask many middle income families in Canberra, “Would you be prepared to pay a little bit more for energy in order to get a good environmental outcome?” many would. They would then also want to know and want to be assured that we are getting maximum bang for our buck, that what they are paying extra, those few dollars a week or more potentially down the track are getting strong environmental outcomes. The solar feed-in tariff, in many ways, does not meet that. It does not meet that because of the inefficiencies inherent in the scheme that we are seeing.
It is worth just going through some of the policies that we had at the last election in terms of issues around climate change. We had the solar power plant and renewable energy park. We had the energy and emissions savings, public and private, through climate change Canberra, the climate change task force based on the UK model that was about driving efforts to identify energy and emission savings in government and the private sector. We had green loan funds with strong interim and long-term targets and investment in greenhouse gas reduction with insulation for those who need it. That suite of policies would have significant environmental benefits but we always try to take care, in framing our policies, to limit the financial burden and to ensure that we get the maximum bang for our buck.
I now move the amendment to Mr Corbell’s proposed amendment that has been circulated in my name:
Omit paragraph (3)(c), substitute:
“(c) ensure that the financial impact of clean energy policy on low and middle income and vulnerable energy customers is minimised.”.
As I say, if this amendment were accepted we would be prepared to support Mr Corbell’s amendment and then we would be prepared to support an amended motion. It simply recognises that we should be looking to minimise the burden on the middle income earners.
I am not quite sure why it appears the government would not be willing to support something like that. What is it about protecting middle income earners that the government have concerns about? From the indications I have had, they will not be supporting it. I understand that I will not get the opportunity to speak again, so I will just deal with those issues now.
We believe that those families, whose primary earner is on $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000 a year, perhaps with part-time supplementation, are not wealthy. They are families who often are doing it tough, who have a lot of pulls on their finances. These are the nurses, these are the police officers, these are the teachers, these are the labourers, these are the public servants—the APS 4s, 5s, 6s and EL1s. These are the
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