Page 2646 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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meet their bills in a flexible way and also having that consistent approach across the country as people move so they know that if they still find themselves in the same circumstances they can access similar conditions in different jurisdictions.
The Greens support the intent of this bill. We support it in principle. I will flag that later in the debate I intend to move some amendments. Those amendments are not about the specifics or the policy issues in relation to the national energy retail law; rather, they come to the issue of how a state or territory jurisdiction should operate in the context of these sorts of national frameworks. The Greens certainly have a number of concerns regarding the way that the national laws can be amended and apply in the territory without any oversight from the Assembly. This is an area of concern for us.
I will be moving a number of amendments, and I will speak in more detail on those amendments during the detail stage.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.14): This bill will apply the national energy retail law to the ACT as part of a national legislative initiative made up of all jurisdictions except Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This is the third national energy law established under the Australian energy market agreement.
In essence, this bill will bring energy supply under a national regulation, joining together the national electricity law and the national gas law. As noted in the government’s explanatory statement for this bill, the national energy retail law provides for specific enforcement, licensing and other functions to be carried out by the Australian Energy Market Commission, ACAT and the Australian Energy Regulator.
This bill will also see the regulation of non-price retail and non-economic distribution functions shift from the ACT’s ICRC to the Australian Energy Regulator, the AER. The national energy retail law as applied in this bill will replace provisions of the Utilities Act. Equally, the consequential amendments that follow today’s bill primarily comprise minor amendments to clean up various pieces of allied legislation.
This bill is part of ongoing federal initiatives in energy market reforms dating back to 1995, when all jurisdictions endorsed the national competition policy agreements. It is worth noting that many of the energy market reforms to date occurred under the Howard administration. In 2001 COAG agreed to a set of core national energy policy objectives and principles to underline the development of effective, open and competitive national energy markets. In 2003 the Ministerial Council on Energy made recommendations to COAG on reform in the areas of governance of energy markets, regulation, electricity transmission, user participation, national gas penetration and greenhouse gas emissions. In 2004 the MCE developed energy market reforms formalised in the intergovernmental Australian energy market agreement, the AEMA. The essence of today’s bill can be traced back to 2006, when the AEMA was amended to include the transfer of retail and distribution regulation to a national framework.
The bill, I note, does not have a set commencement date, which will allow for the coordination of other participating jurisdictions.
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