Page 3908 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
As a nation of 25 million people we are tiny in the context of global motor vehicle production. What happens in Asia, Europe and the United States—particularly in the biggest economy in the United States, in the state of California—will have the biggest impact on the types of vehicles we will be driving in the future.
Going to point (a) of Mr Gupta’s motion, it is important that we continue our focus on supporting all households in the ACT as we make this transition. The climate change strategy and indeed the interaction of that strategy and a range of other government programs sees us doing just that important work. We offer to Canberra households a range of concessions and incentives and initiatives designed to support the entire community as we transition our energy consumption.
For example, we provide a very significant $700 per year utilities concession to help eligible pensioners, renters and owner-occupiers with their energy bills—water, electricity and gas. We provide a life support rebate to help those Canberrans who need electrically operated life support equipment. In a partnership with ActewAGL, we co-fund the energy support fund, which provides energy vouchers for distribution to the most vulnerable Canberrans to help them with energy bills.
We have a range of programs in place to help Canberrans save energy, to reduce their emissions and to cut their energy bills. The energy efficiency improvement scheme, for example, is a key mechanism in helping to ensure a fair transition towards a zero net emissions future. Since 2013 around 74,000 territory households and businesses have already participated in the scheme, including around 19,000 priority low income households and 16,000 rental properties.
Upgrades undertaken as part of this scheme so far are expected to deliver more than 6.5 million gigajoules of lifetime energy savings and $400 million of lifetime energy bill savings. This scheme is helping households save around $5.80 per week on their energy bills on average and has a focus on achieving ongoing energy savings for low-income priority households.
The next stage of the scheme will see a range of programs expanded. We are, for example, encouraging a shift away from gas appliances towards higher efficiency electric appliances. It is an encouragement scheme. Some of the accusations that have been made, maliciously and deliberately seeking to misinform the community on the government’s intention, have suggested that somehow the gas network will be turned off and people will have to make a change next week, next month, next year. No, they do not. Not even next decade.
It is my expectation that, with the rate of technological research and the work occurring already to reduce the emissions intensity of our existing natural gas network, a reduction in emissions intensity will be sustainable in the short term without requiring appliance changes and that, over time, the emergence of new renewable gas technologies may well see by the point of transition in the mid-century that we can maintain a renewable gas network. There was an interesting article in the newspaper in the last week on the work already underway in relation to that.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video