Page 1278 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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improvements. The reason for this is to encourage the purchaser to improve their new home.
Next Tuesday, 31 March, is the 10th anniversary of the commencement of the Energy Efficiency Ratings (Sale of Premises) Act 1997 which was introduced by former Greens MLA Kerrie Tucker. At the time it was a world-leading innovation, and it still is. It has been adopted in principle by the rest of Australia and is part of the national framework for energy efficiency. The commonwealth government is working on ways to implement this nationally. However, I do not think we should wait while the commonwealth scheme is being sorted out. We do not want to erode our local scheme which has been running successfully for a decade.
Energy efficiency ratings are important but there are problems. Houses must be at least five stars to be built, according to the Building Code of Australia. So, of course, there is pressure to ensure they are rated as at least five stars. When a house is rated, sometimes the ratings are based on things like house awnings or floor coverings which are not there in practice. Maybe it is said to have double glazing; maybe it is not double glazing that is actually there. I have even been told that houses have been rated on different climatic zones. Basically, what this is saying is that five stars are not necessarily five stars.
Most consumers, of course, are not in a position to tell if their house is accurately energy rated or not. So the ratings are important, and it is important to ensure that the government audits them to make sure they are right. The government does this for other parts of buildings, such as major plumbing and electrical work, where I understand that 10 per cent of the work is audited by ACTPLA.
When I became an MLA, I started asking questions. In December, I asked ACTPLA some questions about energy efficiency ratings and they responded by telling me that “the energy rating report for the purposes of the sale of residential housing is a requirement of the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003, which is administered by JACS with assistance by ACTPLA with regard to the energy rating tools”. They also said that the requirements for energy efficiency are enforced by licensed building certifiers, not by ACTPLA.
I followed it up and asked JACS in February how many energy efficiency ratings they have done. They replied this week, saying that they are “not responsible for energy efficiency rating audits on residential homes”, as this is “the responsibility of ACTPLA” and suggested that I might like to approach ACTPLA for a briefing. This was actually back to square one, as that was my first move. So as far as I can tell, the government does not actually know who is responsible for auditing. I have been told by the industry that no systematic audits have been carried out for five years, although I have heard of an interesting one-off exercise.
My motion today recommends that the government immediately start auditing the energy efficiency ratings undertaken last year for new houses and existing houses for sale. They should start by setting a target of auditing at least five per cent of ratings on an annual basis. The most important thing is that a part of the government take responsibility for this and actually start doing it. I would think it would be logical that
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