Page 2454 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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national approach. What they ignore, however, is that action from the ACT could be a key catalyst in actually getting a national response.
Hot-water efficiency is another example. The Greens introduced legislation way back in mid-2009 to increase the energy efficiency of hot-water systems in new homes and to install replacements in existing homes. The government refused to support it. It wanted to defer to a national process. Two years later, that process has still not resulted in changes that match the Greens legislation. The ACT could have led on water efficiency—an issue that we know makes a significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
This happens in all kinds of areas and there is very little excuse except that the government is not sufficiently committed to policy reforms in these areas. The weakness of its national process has been shown by its willingness to go ahead of national processes in some areas. In OH&S harmonisation, for example, the ACT pre-empted a national process by a number of years. Now the national process has caught up and harmonisation for us is quite simple. It is not a problem. This could have been the case in areas like energy efficiency and animal welfare but the government chose not to do it.
Another area that the government has not quite grappled with enough is the triple-bottom-line analysis and reporting which would ensure that meaningful and measurable indicators would be established for our budget papers. If each ACT government portfolio included a detailed set of targets and the measurement of progress towards these targets we would have a better idea of whether our budget expenditure is making inroads into meeting key government strategies. It is frustrating that at present indicators do not help us establish this and we cannot be sure whether some of the programs being funded are efficiently addressing the issues they need to.
The same can be said for climate change impact analysis and poverty impact analysis. We have a clear target for greenhouse gas emissions and yet we still do not have a tool or a framework for analysing our major new legislative, policy and program proposals. We understand that this is on its way. It has taken considerable time but the sooner that it comes the sooner that this government will be able to make decisions that support our general government goals. On Tuesday we talked about poverty impact assessments and I noted that it has been six years since this was first raised by the government and we have yet to see any tangible outcomes. I certainly welcome the government’s undertaking in the motion from the other day and look forward to September’s report.
One area where the government led the nation for a good decade was with the ACT home energy rating scheme, which required an energy efficiency rating to be undertaken and presented with house sales information. Just yesterday we debated a Greens motion to ensure we maintained our position as leaders, but the government declined. It did not support it. On a more positive note, due to an item in the parliamentary agreement, new homes built in the ACT since May of last year have been required to meet a six-star energy efficiency rating, going ahead of the COAG time line—but only just.
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