Page 2176 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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be used under that act to determine energy efficiency ratings. Thus we have been forced to use out-of-date software in sale of premises evaluations for the past four or five years.
We are suggesting that the Treasurer be able to prescribe criteria which outline the energy efficiency requirements for a building which would be eligible for a remission of fees. Ideally, the criteria set out under this instrument would set a standard of sustainability and of sustainable development far higher than the minimum requirements—for example, for residential housing possibly requiring eight stars and for a commercial building requiring six green stars.
However, it could also be quite useful if the government were to indicate a sliding scale of remissions in its regulations—for instance, if a house is nine stars EER or more, it gets 100 per cent remission; if it gets eight stars, a 75 per cent remission; or seven stars, a 50 per cent remission. I note that the Urban Development Institute of Australia does support this type of proposal. In their view:
Incentives are a particularly important part of encouraging more sustainable urban development and include:
Providing financial incentives and grants to encourage innovative sustainability initiatives in new urban developments and housing;
Providing tax incentives and rebates to home purchasers who choose more sustainable homes and home products; and
Fast-tracking the approvals process for more sustainable communities and housing products.
Another area where we are proposing a remissions category is for community purpose uses. The government has suggested that childcare centres could be eligible for remission of fees. However, the Greens do not think this is practical to enshrine this in legislation. Rather, again, it would be better to list the eligible developments in regulation. For example, it could be that community not-for-profit childcare centres receive a greater remission than a for-profit childcare centre is eligible for. Other community purposes which could be relevant for waivers could include aged-care facilities—especially if the government found that there was urgent need for more to be built—health centres et cetera.
There are a couple of other areas that the Greens suggest could be appropriate to allow waivers for. One of these is for heritage significance. The reason this could be eligible for a waiver would be that the developer needs to spend additional funds on retrofitting a building in order to maintain its heritage qualities whilst ensuring that the building is able to have a continued use. This seems like a better outcome than allowing old heritage listed buildings to remain unused and possibly become derelict just because it is too expensive to both update them and pay the lease variation charge.
We also suggest that environmental contamination could possibly be a reason for remission. This has, in fact, been done through the past few years through waivers of change of use charge for the disused petrol station sites. Although this could have been listed on the “certain areas” regulation, allowing for a waiver when a developer
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