Page 292 - Week 01 - Thursday, 13 February 2020
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There are options for cars when you need them. This is one area that we are not putting enough thought into, in terms of reducing cost of living pressures for people who live in Canberra.
Another area where we can reduce cost of living pressures is through the introduction of a fair fines system. We talked about this yesterday in the debate on Mr Pettersson’s motion on parking. He made the quite reasonable point that some people are considerably disadvantaged if they have to pay a fine. For low income people, paying the full amount in one go has a much bigger financial impact on their ability to meet other costs than for someone who has a higher disposable income. That is the reason why next week I will be bringing on for debate my bill on fair fines. Given the debate yesterday and the concern that the Assembly obviously has about cost of living, I am very hopeful that the Assembly will support this.
Another thing that the government can do to reduce costs for people is to help take steps to combat and prepare for climate change. One of the biggest ones we can do is to seriously improve our housing stock. There are two parts to that. We need to start building new houses to suit our new climate. Regardless of what people may feel is the reason for climate change, we are hard put after this summer to suggest that there has not been climate change. We should be building houses for the future, houses that will work in hot weather, not just in cold weather. I am pleased that one of the things that my colleague Minister Rattenbury announced for the budget update was money towards improving our building regulations so that new houses that are built work better.
The other thing that the government is doing, and Minister Rattenbury in particular, is running Act smart energy efficiency programs, which I am told have managed to save Canberrans a total of $240 million in terms of better energy efficiency, including a saving of $15 million on the energy bills of low income households. The current scheme has assisted more than 45 per cent of Canberra households, including 17,900 low income priority households and 15,000 rental properties.
As Minister Stephen-Smith mentioned earlier, because of the ACT government’s moves to buy renewable energy, renewable electricity, electricity consumers in Canberra are in the enviable position—enviable to the rest of Australia—of finding that their household electricity bill will go down next year, on average by $113 per year, which is a bit of good news. Switching to renewables is not only good for the environment in the long run and for Canberra in the short run but it is good for us financially.
The ACT government will ensure that new developments do not have to have a gas connection. This is good because of greenhouse gas emissions and because the price of gas in Australia is going up. In Canberra, 20 years ago, installing gas appliances was the economically and environmentally sensible thing to do. It is not anymore.
I should mention rates, given that that was one of the issues that Mr Wall talked about. I have to agree: rates are an issue, as is land tax. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, or in the minds of most economists—and, I note, in the mind of the Sydney Morning Herald, because it is the most prominent article in the middle of their
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