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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1621 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I was amused to hear Ms Dundas say she was surprised at Mrs Dunne calling the Labor Party elitist. I would have thought that started with Gough Whitlam. I can remember references to wine-and-cheese, pinko, leftie elitists and things like that. This has been around for a while and does not surprise me.

The minister for housing mentioned insulating government housing. I am not sure whether that was started by us or you. It is certainly a good thing. I can recall that when I was minister we were doing it, but I would not claim credit for starting it. I am uncertain whether I started that or whether David Lamont or Terry Connelly did.

A very useful guide to what Mrs Dunne is doing here is what we did with smoke alarm systems. When I was minister we started putting them in every ACT government house. The fire brigade was made available to assist in installing them, perhaps even in private homes, although private owners had to buy their own detectors. They are fairly simple to install. I can recall buying some for my place.

That scheme was primarily for those who were least able to afford to buy a smoke alarm but who would clearly benefit from one: ACT Housing tenants. We also encouraged people who owned their own houses to install detectors. The detectors were fairly cheap. They started off at about $20 a unit, but came down to about $10 because of the number of houses they were going into. That was a particularly good scheme. The solar hot water scheme is a similar scheme.

Members have said that some houses are not suited to solar systems and that it would be impractical to install such a system in them. Extending the scheme to ACT Housing would follow on from our last budget, which provided money for improvements to hot water systems. You might find, Mr Wood, that some money is already available.

Mrs Dunne realises that it would not be appropriate to install a solar system in every instance. That is why in paragraph (2) of her motion she talks about "immediately commencing the installation of solar hot water systems in all suitable, new developments constructed by or on behalf of ACT Housing". Obviously some developments might not be suitable and it might be impractical. But certainly for all suitable new developments there are savings to be made in lower bills.

Families in government housing are entitled to electricity rebates unless they are paying their full market rent. But the vast majority, between 87 and 89 per cent, pay subsidised rents and are entitled to rebates. Even so, electricity is still a huge impost. My office regularly gets calls from people who have trouble meeting their payments. It is incredibly difficult living on a pension, even with rebates and assistance from state government authorities and the Commonwealth government. Everything helps. Solar hot water in suitable new developments would help quite a number of ACT Housing tenants. Every cent they save helps them.

Paragraph (2) (b) of Mrs Dunne's motion talks of "initiating a program whereby all replacement hot water systems on suitable ACT Housing dwellings are solar systems". Obviously not all of our current dwellings are suitable, for whatever reason. I am not a structural engineer. I would not have a clue. Obviously there are places where you could not do it. But another dwelling in which the hot water system hits the dust might be suitable for a solar system, which would the tenant less in electricity.

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