Page 1935 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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We believe that this is a scheme that cannot be fixed. We believe that the responsible thing would be not to pursue schemes which are just going to place more cost burdens on Canberra families. They will place more cost burdens on Canberra families. They will punish those who have already done the right thing. Those people will not get any benefit and big business, large and medium businesses, will be able to benefit from this scheme.
We do not believe it should be the role of government to be pushing people’s electricity prices up for this purpose. We see it time and again. We were told if we all paid hundreds of dollars extra a year for the solar feed-in, it would be wonderful in terms of jobs and the region and all this, and it has not eventuated. But Canberrans are paying that price. We have seen government after government walking away from these schemes that do not work because they place these kinds of cost burdens on families. And now we see that even on the basic detail, Mr Corbell cannot get it right.
The Labor Party and the Greens have signed over a blank cheque to Mr Corbell for this government, if they were to be re-elected. If they were to be re-elected, we can only imagine how this scheme will get out of control, like the other Greens schemes have. We will not support that kind of blank cheque and we will not support a scheme that again slugs Canberra families. We have got the triple hit from the Labor Party and the Greens. They hit people with the carbon tax, they hit people with the feed-in tariff and now they hit people with this latest piece of legislation.
But the minister has been caught out. He has been caught out and he has had to change his story during this debate as to how this will work. He has changed his story from “it cannot apply to big businesses” to “it probably will not because of their contractual arrangements”. That is an acknowledgement that the scheme allows it. It allows it, and it is one of the reasons why this party, the Canberra Liberals, will not support it. But Mr Corbell has to be honest. He cannot go around and just make up facts as he likes. His officials have been honest and diligent with us. Unfortunately, he has not shown the same levels in the chamber today.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (12.24): I am a bit amazed at Mr Seselja banging on about this adding more cost burdens to Canberra families. I find it rather remarkable that a man who is on well over $190,000 is talking about the burdens on Canberra families and saying that this legislation is a burden.
He referred to a rental tenant. That is a bit of a tautology, I know. What about the saving of $287 per annum for an up-front cost of $140? What part of that is bad news for a low income family? Let us say that the people who are forced into renting do not earn $190,000 a year. They are more likely to have a family income of about $60,000, if we are really lucky, in this town. What is the bad news about a saving of $45 per annum by purchasing a higher efficiency refrigerator? Where is the bad news in that? It is because of these sorts of initiatives that that has happened.
What happens to a tenant if a landlord installs insulation in a rental property? They will not do it unless there is something in it for them. But if there is something in it for them and there is an incentive scheme, they will do it. So if they put that insulation into a rental property, it is going to save the tenants—remember, the tenants are not on $190,000-plus, they are on $60 thousand-odd and less, probably $35,000—$500 per annum, $10 a week. That is a lot of money to people on that small income.
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