Page 332 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011

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She said, “We support the bill and we go into this with our eyes open.” Maybe the Liberal Party have shut their eyes now. Maybe they now resile from those comments and their previous support for this legislation as espoused by Mrs Dunne in 2008. It just shows the hypocrisy and the failure of leadership on the part of the Liberal Party when it comes to the implementation of this very important piece of legislation.

In the final time available to me today, I will briefly address the issues raised by Mr Rattenbury in relation to his amendment. The amendment proposed by Mr Rattenbury will not be supported by the government. The reason for that is that we are confident at this time, based on advice and the research that we have undertaken, that the existing measures in the scheme as devised and in place in current legislation and in this amending bill give the government the tools it needs to manage the uptake of renewable energy generation in the microgeneration category.

The ability of the minister, as proposed in this bill, to move allocations within the overall scheme cap gives the necessary flexibility needed to avoid any sudden shocks or closures of particular categories. That, combined with the regular price review mechanism that is advised to me by the ICRC, will also provide a certain level of surety. I commend the bill to the Assembly.

Question put:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 9		Noes 4
Mr Barr	Ms Hunter	Mr Coe	Mr Smyth
Ms Bresnan	Ms Le Couteur	Mr Doszpot
Ms Burch	Mr Rattenbury	Mr Seselja
Mr Corbell	Mr Stanhope
Mr Hargreaves

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Detail stage

Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.

MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.49): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 341].

I did speak at some length before about the rationale behind this amendment and I would just like to add a few additional comments. This amendment specifically seeks to remove the legislated provision for a 15-megawatt cap. As I highlighted before, the Greens have a great concern that this is going to provide a boom-bust moment where there will be a rush, then the industry will hit the wall and we will see a collapse of orders and, therefore, a significantly detrimental impact on small business operators in the ACT.

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