Page 1230 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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I present the following paper:
Home Energy Support Program and Business Fleet Advisory Service—Update—Ministerial statement, 5 May 2022.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the paper.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (10.17): I am pleased to welcome the minister’s programs today: the Home Energy Support program and the Business Fleet Advisory Service. We took real climate action to the election, and this is what it looks like; it looks like programs like these on the ground that are helping us cut our emissions.
The Home Energy Support program is a key part of our transition to a safer climate. It brings everyone along, especially those in social and public housing and our low-income earners. It is the best way to help everybody join in and help transition to a safer climate. It means that we are helping people reduce their energy while they are maintaining their lifestyle, and that is the best reduction we can get. They will use less electricity, less gas, less fossil fuel, they will have a more comfortable home and they will save money. And they will do all of that at the same time. I cannot wait to see the next raft of measures that are going to help renters out. They are coming soon.
The Business Fleet Advisory Service targets a really different group of people, but it is just as important, and the idea is exactly the same. That service is targeted at businesses to help them transition to EVs. I was really pleased to hear that we have already had 14 people take up that service. I reckon it will be 15 by the end of the day; I referred someone this morning.
I come from the recycling industry, and a lot of people get in touch with me all the time to ask how they can do it. It has been quite difficult to field those queries but right now I can say, ‘Here is a service. There are so many changes happening in your industry. There are so many ways you can save on fuel costs. There are so many companies that are out there transitioning fleet vehicles in your industry right now, and this service can help you navigate that system.’
So I think it is really going to be important to help a lot of our businesses transition. It is also going to support our businesses, because a lot of them have been hit pretty hard with petrol and diesel prices. What we are finding is that, in most companies, there is somebody who already understands climate change and already understands EVs and zero emissions vehicles and maybe has been pitching these things to their boss for a while. They are suddenly finding that their boss is very receptive because they have just paid a really big fuel price. It is a great time to be talking about this, and the quicker we can swap people over, the better. We are also going to get some really massive health and environmental benefits unrelated to climate. There can be a huge respiratory impact from diesel and petrol fumes in our cities, and if we can switch over to EVs quicker, then we will drop that down.
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