Page 2316 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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back a piece of legislation to amend the sale of premises act and we would consider that. I would not rule out supporting that. We would look at the arguments.
But we are not going to agree to effectively ticking off on the amendment of legislation without having a debate about the amendment of that legislation. There is a reason why we have a process where legislation normally has at least a month for consideration after it has been introduced. I think that on a number of levels the Greens are asking the Assembly to call on the government to do something which has cost implications without actually allowing the full consideration to occur.
If we look at the issue around requiring household EERs to be provided not only as the current star rating but also with a separate expected energy use for the whole house for a year, in megajoules per annum, as is done with appliances, I think that there are serious costs associated with that. We are talking about improving the regulatory scheme. Again, if the Greens are serious about this, I think that a little more thought needs to go into it, rather than just a motion such as this which calls on the government to do a number of things. This would be binding on the government. If we were to support this, we would expect that the government would do it. We would expect that they would accept the will of the Assembly.
What consultation happened with industry on this? To my knowledge, having spoken to parts of industry in the short time that we had to consider this motion, there was not any. When you look at the housing industry, the housing industry was not asked its thoughts on this.
Then the Greens want the government to look at expanding the existing ACT home energy rating system to include a rating for fixed heating and cooling appliances, water heating and fixed lighting, using a similar methodology to the New South Wales basic system. All new appliances come with star ratings. So using basics to calculate the energy efficiency of the house may be achievable. Unfortunately, existing homes range in ages, as do the appliances within them, and achieving meaningful results at a cost-effective and cost-benefit return is questionable.
Like the government, we think there are a number of things in the body of the motion which are reasonable and we think are reasonable in terms of what Ms Le Couteur has raised. But I think that we need to get serious about these things. If you are going to call on the government to amend legislation, firstly, you should consider bringing that legislation forward yourself. It is well within the competence of Ms Le Couteur to come back to the Assembly with potential amendments to this legislation.
I think that the proposal put forward by the Greens needs much more work before it is something that we could agree to. It needs proper and thorough industry consultation so that we could turn the aspiration into a potential reality, considering all of the implications of these changes, all of the cost implications for households, all of the practical implications and whether or not these things are achievable. So for those reasons, the opposition will not be supporting the motion.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (5.32): First, I will address Mr Corbell’s comments. Yes, Mr Corbell, I did say quite extensively in my speech that I do
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