Page 1755 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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pollution goods and services. Compared to other jurisdictions, the ACT has proportionally less low and middle income households, so our compensation levels will be lower. This is fair and equitable. But to the extent that those households are present, the proposed Australian government compensation measures will ensure that low income households will be no worse off under the carbon price. In fact, many of them will be better off. Canberrans will have access to the same compensation measures as other Australians at the same income level.
This week the Assembly will debate the government’s Energy Efficiency (Cost of Living) Improvement Bill. This bill will reduce household energy costs and reduce the territory’s exposure to a carbon price. The bill establishes the energy efficiency improvement scheme. The scheme will work by establishing a territory-wide energy savings target and mandatory energy savings obligations for individual retailers. Retailers will meet their targets by undertaking energy efficiency activities in ACT homes and businesses. This scheme is expected to reduce the territory’s emissions by around 750,000 tonnes. In 2015 a reduction on residential sector emissions of about 6.2 per cent from business as usual is expected.
Importantly, the average expected net benefit for ACT households as a result of energy savings is $300 over three years. That is $300 per annum. Savings will continue well beyond the projected end of the scheme in 2015. This represents a real reduction in energy bills. It includes a reduction in the carbon price paid by our community, and it represents a real improvement in the welfare and prosperity of our community.
I thank Mr Seselja for raising this matter of public importance today. I say to him and his Liberal colleagues that if their true concern is for the cost on households of measures such as increasing electricity prices, a component of which is a carbon price, then he and they should support legislation which actually gives Canberrans the tools they need to save on average per annum by the year 2015 $300 off their electricity bills. They should be supporting the government’s Energy Efficiency (Cost of Living) Improvement Bill because it reduces demand, it reduces the need for us to use so much energy, it helps households save money off their electricity bills, and it reduces our exposure to carbon pricing. It is exactly the sort of complementary measure that has always been envisaged in the context of the carbon price, and it is incumbent upon those opposite to support it.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.35): The matter today raises the question of the impacts of carbon tax on the costs faced by people living in the ACT. At a time of extraordinary increases in the cost of living in the ACT over the life of the Labor government because of all the components already mentioned by Mr Seselja, the effects of the carbon tax will be another severe impost, and the key issue today is the price effect of the carbon tax.
The essence of this effect was seen in the use of the word “tax”. The decision that has been made by the federal government is to impose a new tax on all Australians. Clearly and obviously any new tax will be an additional impost for all Australians. In that context, there will be an immediate and direct effect on prices. Unfortunately for all Australians, the effect of the carbon tax will not stop with the tax itself. To use
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