Page 1931 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.09): The shifting sands of Mr Corbell’s logic continue to shift. The opposition got told one thing in a briefing. The minister denied it and went to talk to the officials, who confirmed what Mr Seselja was told. The minister came back to justify what he said in light of the facts that he had just found out. We know that Mr Rattenbury has confirmed that what Mr Seselja said could happen will happen, because he wants to put in a review clause—and the minister still has his head in these shifting sands, denying it.
I wonder if the minister has actually seen the ACT energy efficiency improvement scheme document that was given to the opposition. What does it say about the scheme? It says:
Business activities
Will broadly follow VEET business measures
All residential activities excluding ceiling insulation and weather sealing have been extended to business under the Victorian Scheme
Also tipped for possible inclusion under VEET …
Here it comes. Here is the exclusion list:
Commercial lighting upgrades including street lighting
Replacing an existing three-phase motor with a HE motor
Replace an existing refrigerated display cabinet (RDC) with a HE RDC
Replace the fans in a commercial refrigerator or RDC with fans driven by electronically commutated motors
Implementation of energy saving measures under an Energy Performance Contract with an Energy Services Company.
It is a pretty good list if I was a small or medium business. We have got the Greens rep now checking the facts with the minister’s officials, but I guess if you are in a coalition they are your officials so you get to share them. But what is included in the briefing document, the official document given to the opposition, about the household activities? It states:
Examples—building envelope, heating, hot water service and non-fixed appliance upgrades
All of those are things which many small and medium businesses have. The staff who briefed the opposition actually said there are no big businesses in the ACT. So it will be small and medium businesses subsidising small and medium businesses, apparently, because, unless the officials got it wrong and the minister is going to disavow what they have said, there are no big businesses in the ACT.
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