Page 2063 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 June 2015
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December 2016 has been set as the cut-off date for installation and connection. That is relatively generous, given when applications closed for the scheme. But I acknowledge that some of the medium-scale projects in particular could be of a substantial size and proponents may require some time to ensure that they can fulfil the projects by the cut-off date.
Clause 13 amends section 10(1) of the act to remove the requirement on the minister to determine a FiT rate annually but leaves open the possibility that a rate may need to be set into the future. Clause 14 changes the reporting requirements under the scheme. It probably reflects the current status of the scheme better. It changes reporting to annual reporting and instead of providing information like the number of applications received it now reports the number of compliant generators, the total capacity of the compliant generators and the cost to electricity users in the ACT.
Clause 14 also tightens up the reporting requirements for electricity distributors and NERL retailers and adds offence provisions. If the reporting information given to the minister is considered to be untrue, misleading or incomplete, section 11C will now allow the minister to require the reporting entity to undertake an audit of the information provided.
At this point I indicate that the Greens will be supporting both the two drafting amendments that have been tabled by the government and the amendment foreshadowed by Ms Lawder. I am pleased to support the bill and the amendments to be moved in the Assembly today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (12.09), in reply: I would like to thank members for their support of this bill today. The bill amends the Electricity Feed-in (Large-scale Renewable Energy Generation) Act 2011 and the Electricity Feed-in (Renewable Energy Premium) Act 2008 that respectively provide for the ACT’s large and small-scale feed-in tariff schemes.
These amendments will help provide greater certainty for investment in renewable energy generation under the schemes which are demonstrating how states, territories and cities can achieve significant emission reductions on the scale required to help contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions globally and help secure investment in one of the largest growing industries globally—renewable energy generation.
Last week it was reported that Antarctica’s once massive Larsen B ice shelf is melting rapidly and will likely be entirely gone by the end of this decade. Whether it be droughts or floods in Queensland or wild storms in Sydney, extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent. They are happening now, so actions to respond to our change in climate are critical if we are to prevent the worst of possible impacts on our way of life.
Such actions also make sound economic sense. The International Monetary Fund recently released a report finding that subsidies for the fossil fuel industry are much
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