Page 1934 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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This is legislation that is supported by Liberal governments in New South Wales, in Victoria and, I believe, in Queensland. So here we have the three most recent successful incumbent Liberal administrations in the country saying that energy efficiency legislation is legislation that should be implemented and expanded to include small and medium enterprises and potentially large enterprises.
But the Liberals here keep their heads in the sand. The Liberals here refuse to engage in a serious policy discussion about measures that can reduce demand on the electricity network, that can save consumers money and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is a terrible indictment of their position as a credible alternative government in this place.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.19): I think Mr Corbell may well be incorrect again in another one of his assertions, that somehow Queensland has adopted this scheme. I am not aware that that is in fact the case and if it is not—we will check—maybe he can come back and correct the record again. But the point I would make is this: I think he is now having a clutch at straws. He is having to say, “Some other people have done it and so you should do it,” because he cannot explain it and he has been caught out on this fundamental question.
He tried to claim we were wrong when we said it could apply to big business. So he went to his officials and checked with them and we saw, when he came back, that he actually had nothing to say. So he had to concoct a new story. He had to come up with a completely new justification as to why it will not apply to large businesses. The reality is that it can. It absolutely can. And that is why the honest and diligent public servants, when we asked them, told us the truth. There is nothing in the legislation that stops it. And when we asked the officials could it apply to big business, one of the officials, having said they did not think there were any big businesses in Canberra, said, “Actually, yes, there is nothing to stop it.” And there is nothing in any of the documentation that will limit it in that way. So Mr Corbell has had to concoct a new story.
They would not do it anyway, even if it did apply to them. That was the argument he came back to. He said they could not do it. It is not that they could not do it under the scheme, he is saying that, because of the contracts that they have, they would not be able to. On that logic, anyone who is not bound in that way by a contract, anyone who is doing business here with ActewAGL, will be able to benefit from this scheme, be they small, medium or large.
Again, I find it extraordinary that we have got a minister that does not understand his own legislation. This is a blank cheque that the Greens have given him, and that is what the Greens have acknowledged. That is why Mr Rattenbury had to come back and try to belatedly fix it. This is the problem with the Greens. They fall into line so quickly with what the Labor Party does. Maybe that is why we are seeing a dramatic fall in their poll numbers. When you just attach yourself to the Labor Party, maybe people do not see any difference. What is the point of voting Greens? We see that again. On this issue they have attached themselves so closely to the government, without thinking about it, and then at the last minute they have thought: “Maybe the opposition is right. We had better try to fix it.”
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