Page 1257 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (5.40): The government will be opposing these amendments. I acknowledge that on face value the amendments have significant immediate appeal. The issues that Dr Foskey raises in relation to climate change and the need for us to adopt sustainable policies in transport, and more generally in relation to energy usage, are of course fundamental and cannot be gainsaid.
The difficulty for the government with the amendment is that in the first place it would result in a fall in revenue; there is a cost associated with the proposed initiative. But that of itself is not, of course, a disqualifying fact. The difficulty for the government is that there has been no analysis and there is no evidence that the proposal would work or, if it did work, that it would be cost effective; the difficulty being essentially whether or not an incentive provided to motorists to buy a car with the lower carbon dioxide emissions would have the impact or the effect required, or whether the cost in terms of duty forgone would represent the best way in which the government can utilise scarce resources to pursue a reduction in energy use. That is essentially the government’s concern with a proposal such as this.
At face value one might draw the conclusion: revenue forgone, more cars producing fewer emissions; therefore, a good policy to be pursued without question. But any initiative that the government pursues in relation to, particularly, reduction of energy must be based on evidence. There must be a detailed analysis of the implications and the outcomes of pursuing a policy such as this, which would reduce revenue, which would have a financial impact and which does come at a cost to the taxpayer, though with a most laudable aim, namely reduction in emissions.
The government does not have that information, that analysis, around the costs and the benefits and the relationship between the two, and that is fundamental to a decision on whether or not this particular project should be pursued in this way. A detailed analysis and the evidence are required. There are also some issues around definition and a lack of information on how, for instance, the threshold emission standard that is required for the project to work might be derived, or how a vehicle might be assessed as having met the standard in relation to the threshold. There is no guidance within the provision on how the government might move to assure itself that a particular vehicle in relation to which duty is to be reduced meets the threshold standard in relation to emissions. That is the difficulty the government has, and we will oppose the amendment on that basis.
The idea is probably deserving of further consideration and perhaps some detailed work in the context of sustainable transport, and overall in the context of the need for us to reduce the consumption of energy. We know that 60 per cent of our energy emissions that contribute to greenhouse gas involve the use of electricity and that the vast majority of the rest is petrol. Here within the territory, with our narrow industry base, in the context of emissions produced within this jurisdiction, just under 60 per cent of all emissions are produced by electricity use and 30-plus per cent of the remaining 40 per cent are involved in the use of fossil fuels. So we do need to look at everything there is that we can do to reduce the use of electricity and reduce the use of oil and other fossil fuels, but most particularly oil and petrol.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .