Page 4379 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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Secondly, giving people peace of mind that they have a place to charge their electric vehicle is vital in order to make consumers confident enough to purchase an electric vehicle in the first place. That is why it is excellent to see the NRMA announce the rollout of vehicle recharging points. This will see at least 40 chargers, or more than double what is in the current network, provided in New South Wales and the ACT. ActewAGL for some time now has had an ACT network of three rapid chargers, taking 30 minutes to recharge, and five fast chargers, taking a few hours to recharge your car.
There are other ways that governments can assist in this area. Other countries have looked to providing free parking and charging points in city areas, providing travel in dedicated bus and transit lanes, exempting EVs from registration taxes, providing road user charges exemptions, and looking at ending sales of petrol and diesel vehicles within a certain time frame.
We also need to consider our current laws and regulations across a whole range of areas to support batteries and chargers, particularly how battery chargers can be facilitated in new developments and retrofitted in existing developments. That is why it is important that the ACT government continue to explore mechanisms that are right for us and our circumstances, to encourage greater use of electric vehicles here in Canberra.
Our territory and our government have a lot to be proud of. We are on track to deliver 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2020. We are working to improve the up-take of battery storage for households and businesses. We are also actively working to curb emissions from vehicles, particularly in our public transport system.
As we continue to work within the ACT Labor-Greens agreement to reach zero net emissions by 2050 at the latest, it is important that we encourage the government to investigate ways to harness the opportunities battery storage provides by working with ACT energy retailers to provide for aggregated demand responses. As we strive to reduce our carbon emissions, encouraging the take-up of public transport and looking to provide best practice regulatory and policy responses to encourage greater take-up of private electric vehicles, we will be on the right path to a clean energy future. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MS LEE (Kurrajong) (5.45): I thank Mr Steel for the opportunity to speak on this motion today and to respond on behalf of the Canberra Liberals. I understand that one of the functions of the admin and procedure committee is “to ensure that the practices and procedures of the Assembly remain relevant and reflect best practice”. Mr Steel and indeed all members might benefit from some guidance from the committee about the drafting of motions, particularly with respect to length and relevant points on the topic.
I do not intend to go through each point. Indeed, if I were to do that I would certainly run out of time. I can only assume that Mr Steel’s intent was to ensure that any and every possible reference to anything vaguely related to, or in the vicinity of, energy
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