Page 1936 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video

---

What about the homeowner who replaces an inefficient resistive electric heater with a mounted split-system reverse-cycle heater? They have got savings of $280 per annum. And if their landlord replaces an electric storage hot-water system with a gas-boosted solar system, they can save another $450 a year. That is what this scheme delivers. It does not deliver more cost burdens on Canberra families. The statement that this actually does make it more difficult for low income Canberra families is blatantly wrong. It is wrong and is part of the scare tactics that this opposition are trying to create in this town. They are creating a straw man so that they can tear it down. The simple fact is that if you have a look at those figures that I have just quoted, if all of those incentives come off, then we are talking about low income families being almost $1,500 a year better off.

If you are earning $190,000 and you are buying your own home or own your own home, you do not care about that. You just cop it. But you do care about it if you are in a two-bedroom rental apartment. You do care about it if you have three kids and you are in a three-bedroom home and you have to rent it because you cannot actually get the start to save enough money for a deposit. If you are trapped there, you do care about it. If anybody comes up and says, “I am going to save you $500 a year,” you want to know about it. You want to encourage it. And quite frankly, if somebody in this place earning well over $190,000 a year has to pay for it to support somebody to get that $500 a year because they are earning $35,000 a year in family income, bad luck! This is the sort of thing you should be supporting, instead of coming in here and being Tony Abbott-like: “No, no, no.”

MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.28): I have just done some checking on who has such schemes. The minister was clutching at straws. His first story, he got wrong. So he had to come back with a new story. He invented the fact that Queensland currently have such a scheme. I am told South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales have such schemes. Queensland does not. And he should correct the record and apologise.

MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, I heard clearly the minister say “I believe”. He did not actually claim that Queensland has the scheme.

Amendments agreed to.

Question put:

That this bill, as a whole, as amended, be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

---

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video