Page 299 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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wants to wind it back; it wants to have a capped scheme. We need to have a lot of public discussion and it needs to be done in an open way. I am putting on the record my concerns about the clear words of the minister for the environment yesterday when he said that they were looking at capping the scheme and clarifying—that is always a weasel word for “cutting back”—generators’ eligibility. I put it on the record that we are concerned about this and we will be watching it very closely. I hope that the minister does not live up to my expectations on this one.
The Stanhope government has always failed to live up to the expectations of the people who have been concerned about these issues. Ms Hunter touched on it. In 2003-04—mainly 2004—Jon Stanhope as the Minister for the Environment went out of his way to constantly and persistently bag the greenhouse gas emissions strategy that had been in place in the ACT for a very long time. There were problems with that; I do not deny that. They were the first steps. It was the first greenhouse gas emission strategy that had ever been instituted in Australia. Yes, there were problems with it; yes, the Stanhope government commissioned a review of that strategy in 2002-03. The review document is worth reading. I commend it to the minister. The library has a copy—if I have returned it to the library. I think I have returned it to the library; I will make sure I do. I commend it to the minister because it has some very good advice about what a greenhouse gas emission strategy should look like. Weathering the Change does not meet any of the recommendations in the review strategy.
Ms Hunter is right: the Stanhope government in 2005 threw out the only greenhouse gas strategy that we had at the time and did nothing for two years. We had no strategy; we had no policy. Now we have a very poor policy on the part of the Stanhope government. This inquiry, which is broad ranging, gives us an opportunity to look at all sorts of policy initiatives, some fabulous policy initiatives that were brought forward during the last election campaign, and I would like to compliment the government on its proposal for a bulk-buying scheme—it is an initiative that probably has some merit—but that bulk buying scheme should be underpinned by a range of other things.
People need access to good finance. In the last six months or so I went to a lecture by a German advocate for the feed-in tariff scheme and I said, “What else did you do in Germany?” He said, “We didn’t have to do anything else. Banks will lend people money because the feed-in tariff gives them security.” People need to be able to have access to reasonable funds, because putting a PV array on your roof is not cheap and they need the upfront money. The bulk-buying scheme may address some of that, but it will not address the whole of it.
There are some substantial policies, of which I am extraordinarily proud, that we took to the last election. Mr Seselja touched on some of those—the home insulation policy; our policy for solar Canberra; our policy for climate change Canberra, an instrumentality that would be based on the London Climate Change Agency and the work done in Woking Borough in the UK. All of these are policies which should be looked at on their merits, not in a partisan way. I hope to see the inquiry coming back with really strong recommendations about a policy future which takes into account a lot of the good work that has already been done by members in this place.
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