Page 681 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I observed, in a conversation with Ms Lawder earlier today, that that argument applies to just about every product we buy in the ACT every single day. We do not produce a whole lot of things here in the territory in that raw manufacturing physical sense. Every product we buy comes from somebody else’s backyard. You cannot simply say that we are trying to fob this problem off. Right now a whole lot of our electricity comes from coal-fired power stations somewhere down the grid in the sorts of places we have just seen in Victoria where an entire community has been affected by the consequences of a fire associated with coal-fired electricity production.
The review of the auction process also recommended a review of the territory plan, with a view to where renewable energy developments might best be located. I would certainly welcome this being undertaken in a time frame that ensures we are prepared for further capacity releases under the legislation.
There are a number of technical details around the bill. I think Minister Corbell will speak to those. He certainly has made some reference to them in his introductory remarks. But I think a number of the technical amendments improve definitions and also extend the range of the generator sites to outside the Australian capital region if the minister is satisfied that there are exceptional economic development benefits to the ACT renewable energy industries.
I support this as it has become clear that there are economic benefits to the ACT and to the industry that can occur even when funded projects are located further away than the Australian capital region. I think it is consistent with the intention of the legislation to promote the development of the renewable energy industry in the ACT and more broadly across Australia. It is likely that still many of the wind projects that proceed under the latest release will, indeed, occur in the Australian capital region due to the great wind resource that exists on our doorstep. We know from the recent inquiry into regional development and regional cooperation that there are economic benefits to projects taking place in the region, even if they are not immediately within our borders.
So with those remarks, as I say, I am pleased to support this legislation today on behalf of the ACT Greens. I think this sets the ACT up very well. This means we will be sourcing our energy from sustainable places. It means that we are making our contribution to tackling the global issue of climate change, and we will be securing electricity prices for 20 years that I believe time will show positions the ACT extremely well economically compared to the increases we will see in the price of fossil fuel-powered electricity.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (5.25), in reply: I thank Mr Rattenbury for his support of this bill. This bill is a critical element of the implementation of action plan 2, the government’s climate change strategy, and a critical element in reaching our target of 90 per cent renewables and achieving a reduction in the city’s greenhouse gas profile of 40 per cent by the year 2020.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video