Page 5675 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
What about federally? We have seen a climate change foundation campaign that gave activist groups approximately $13 million. We have seen the pink batts debacle, and you wonder that if Labor cannot put pink batts in people’s roofs properly, which saw the deaths of four installers and approximately 200 house fires, how will they manage the massive carbon tax? We have seen Labor’s green precincts fund which saw a $1.2 million grant to the Sydney Theatre Company to save about $100,000.
The list continues. We saw the axing of the $8,000 solar rebate program, the discontinuation of the solar rebate for remote areas program, the suspension of solar schools, the citizens assembly that never materialised, the $300 million botched green loans program, not to mention the flawed green start program that was later called the green stop program.
What about the track record of ACT Labor? I think my earlier comments about the government’s mismanagement of the small and medium-scale feed-in tariff programs say it all. Even today my office still receives complaints about the government’s development and mismanagement of this initiative. We have seen an unsustainable local solar panel industry wither because of this government’s incompetence. In the ACT in the 12 months to June this year 7,169 solar sites in the ACT produced 0.28 per cent of the ACT’s electricity requirement whilst adding approximately $1 million to the cost of electricity in the ACT with negligible emissions reductions.
Graham Downie of the Canberra Times characterised it best when he wrote that the ACT’s feed-in tariff is the most inefficient and inequitable method of producing electricity. What we have here is expensive tokenism, driven by the need to tout green cred rather than find real and tangible solutions. In fact, it was just last week that we learnt from the minister that his Environment and Sustainability Directorate purchased 64 per cent more energy than it uses. Let me refresh the chamber’s memory. Mrs Dunne asked:
So … you bought more power than you used?
The directorate said:
That is correct ….
I asked:
Would it not make more sense to purchase 100 per cent green power and then purchase the most cost effective offsets …
The response:
That would be one approach.
I then asked:
How much cheaper would that be?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video