Page 321 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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We take the view that in our community there is a tolerance amongst significant parts—though certainly not all parts of our community—to do their bit, to pay a little bit more. But people want to see that when they do their bit it actually makes a difference and that it is actually effective. They have only got so much money. They are already paying a lot, whether it be for electricity, for rent, for all of their household expenses, and, when they are asked to pay more, many find it a burden. Some are prepared to pay more, but they want to know that that money is being spent well and that it is actually making a difference. When people see that the scheme that this government wants to rely on cuts emissions at around the $400 per tonne mark, they rightly ask the question: why should I have to pay more for such an inefficient scheme?
Let us compare amounts per tonne. Large scale wind that we can purchase through green energy can be around $60 per tonne. It is quite effective in terms of cutting emissions. We can switch from coal to gas, and we can purchase that as well. There are forestry offsets and other offsets—there is a range of offsets—and fully accredited offsets can be somewhere in the range of $11 to $20 per tonne. We have got the mooted carbon price which is being pushed at a federal level and we are talking, certainly initially, about somewhere between $20 and $40 per tonne. Those figures put into stark focus just how expensive this scheme is. That is why I think there is a growing chorus against these schemes, saying we should focus on effective and efficient schemes and not be choosing, as this government has, the most inefficient schemes.
As I said earlier, the taxpayers, members of the public, are asked to foot the bill for a lot of things. They are asked to pay a lot in tax. In their day-to-day lives they have a lot of cost pressures. Electricity is going up for a range of reasons. But, when they have a government that decides that it will impose a cost burden of an extra $200 a year on their electricity bill, many of them get very annoyed. But even those who are prepared to pay something extra want to know that it is worth while. This is a scheme that is inefficient and expensive. It is inequitable because it places such a significant burden on low and middle income earners to subsidise others.
I wanted to touch on that because in this expanded scheme we are debating today it will not just be households who can afford solar panels who will be subsidised by low and middle income earners; it will also be big business. This is a scheme where families across the ACT, whether they be low income, middle income or other families—families in Amaroo, Chifley, Conder, Gordon, Kambah or Kaleen—will be forced, through their electricity bill, to pay an extra couple of hundred dollars a year to subsidise big corporations’ electricity bills.
That is what is happening here. So we have got the Westfields and the Woolies of the world, the big corporations, who will put the solar panels on their roofs, and the mums and dads, many of whom cannot afford it, many of whom are struggling, will be footing the bill. What kind of a policy is that? What kind of a policy is it that says to those families, “We think it’s reasonable that you pay more for your electricity so that Westfield can save a little bit on this”? Where is the equity in that? There is no equity in that. That is why we have had correspondence from ACTCOSS raising concerns about these things.
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