Page 1721 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .


numeric targets might well have been helpful, it is possible that they were not, in all cases, the correct targets.

One thing I have learned as a result of talking more to ACTPLA is that ACTPLA does a desk audit of 10 per cent of all the building certifications, and that includes the energy efficiency rating. However, it is only a desk audit in most cases, so from that we cannot tell whether the building was actually built from an energy efficiency point of view as per how it was rated and whether the rating was done correctly; perchance it might have been done for the wrong climatic zone or something like that.

The second item, (b), reads:

clarify arrangements under the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act, in particular:

(i) confirm the continuance of existing provisions and use of first generation software pending consultation and final decision on any transitional arrangements to the real estate industry and energy auditors;

That, in my mind, is a particularly important commitment because the first organised group that came to see me after I became an MLA was a group of energy assessors, saying they were really confused about what was going to happen on 1 May when, from the Building Code of Australia point of view, the software use would be changed. So I am very pleased that the government are clarifying what may well have been very clear to them but unfortunately was not clear to the industry, as to what will be happening with the sale of premises act.

The next commitment, (c), is to “commence consultation on energy efficiency ratings in the ACT beginning with the release of the discussion paper produced by ACTPLA by the end of April 2009”. Again, this seems a very positive commitment. There is a commitment to a discussion paper in this month and a commitment to quite a number of useful things within this discussion paper, and then a commitment to continued consultation on it. I look at this as being a very positive way forward. Hopefully, out of this will come the numbers as to how we do our auditing. This process should be more rigorous in terms of working that out.

The final part of the new motion is to ensure that the department of justice and ACTPLA in their annual reports include information about the operation and enforcement of the two different energy efficiency schemes, and it will be reporting on a number of relevant numeric factors. Again, I think this should considerably advance the debate in the future and enable us to finetune anything if we discover more problems in the future. I commend this new motion to the house and thank you for your cooperation.

MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (5.51): I thank Ms Le Couteur for her speech and for her cooperative efforts in ensuring that we have before us today a very good, forward looking motion. There is no doubt that, following the adjournment of this discussion last week, a lot of effort has gone into arriving at this motion, which has gone really to the heart of the


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .