Page 4406 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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If the minister is serious about wanting unanimous support on renewables, he surely must see, and clearly has seen, that my amendment is sensible, appropriate and the right way forward. The necessary legislative parliamentary oversight by all members of this chamber on an issue that is as important as this to our future is something that all Canberrans deserve.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tertiary Education, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (5.22): I will comment briefly in relation to the principal issues that we are debating. Obviously, in the detail stage the Labor Party and the Greens will support the amendment that Ms Lee has put forward. I do not believe that is an issue of any great substance in the grand scheme of things. The greater achievement is actually procuring the renewable energy and electricity for our city. That has been a significant journey for this jurisdiction but one that has been done utilising, I think, a very innovative and best practice procurement methodology.
I am certainly encouraged by both the success of the ACT scheme and, indeed, its application now in other jurisdictions in this nation and the international interest in the way the ACT has approached this particular task. I think it highlights the excellent work commenced by former minister Simon Corbell and continued by Minister Rattenbury. It shows a level of maturity for this place that Ms Lee can come in and give a broadly supportive speech of the policy intent in relation to an issue that has been contested, and heavily politically contested, across this nation through this decade.
I like to take the opportunity from time to time to highlight where this chamber shows other parliaments up for their lack of maturity. Although we are only 30 years old, this parliament often leads this nation, and occasionally the world, in taking important steps in public policy development. This is one such example.
What we will seek to do, once this legislation passes, is to undertake further procurement of renewable electricity to meet our city’s ongoing needs and anticipated transition away from gas and from other non-renewable forms of energy generation in anticipation of a significant switch over the coming decades to electric vehicles—personal in terms of e-scooters, bikes and the like—and also electric cars, buses and other forms of transportation. The passage of this legislation today positions the ACT very well for the transition that we know is coming.
In light of what has been a bipartisan position on renewable electricity, it was somewhat disappointing to see the response to some other elements about forward plans for climate change adaptation, mitigation and response that were the feature of a debate in this place in the last month. Unfortunately, we deviated from what had been a tripartisan position in responding to climate change to a position that would appear to mirror some of the worst aspects of parliamentary behaviour and political party positioning that we have seen in other parliaments. This relates particularly to things like the transition away from natural gas over several decades, an anticipated transition in vehicle fuel types over several decades and, indeed, perhaps most disappointingly, the way that certain new initiatives in relation to trialling car-free areas and car-free days, for example, were so wilfully misrepresented.
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