Page 3314 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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processes may well deliver things next year. He also said that if the COAG processes did not deliver energy efficient hot water services by next year, he committed the Labor Government to do so. So I thank Mr Barr very much for that contribution, although I would have liked to see him go further.
I am very pleased that Mr Barr has moved on from his earlier stance on this issue. In a letter to me about the first bill that I introduced, he said that he had a problem with the actual policy objective of the bill. He said that electric water heaters are highly efficient appliances and that the solution to the problem was to get everyone to use GreenPower. I am not trying to speak in any way against GreenPower; I am trying to speak in favour of environmentally and economically sensible outcomes, and hot water and heat pumps are both very effective ways of producing hot water. If you use GreenPower, you would want to use a heat pump or solar hot water. They are not mutually exclusive; they are complementary. I am really pleased that the government, and Mr Barr in particular, has now, it seems, realised this point.
The government has made play about the timing of this, that we really should not be too concerned about the timing of this because it will happen anyway. Well, as I said before, I am not so convinced that it will happen anyway through COAG. COAG has form. For example, in 2004 COAG committed to implement stage 1 of the national framework for energy efficiency. It said that it would do it within three years, but five years later these measures have not been implemented!
Yesterday, in the debate about waste, we talked about e-waste. Mr Corbell said that COAG had agreed only, I think, a month or two ago that it was going to do something about it. What Mr Corbell did not mention in his speech was that, in fact, back in 2002 COAG made basically the same decision with respect to e-waste. COAG has form for saying good things and not doing them.
The other reason that timing is really important, in case the government has not realised this, is that we actually have a slight problem with climate change. On the basis of what we are hearing, which is business as usual, CSIRO data indicates that we should—I will not use that word—that we expect that Australia will have a temperature rise of about six degrees by 2070. Now, I admit that 2070 is probably beyond the lifespan of everybody in this room—possibly not everybody, but certainly most of us. Certainly none of the ministers present will be ministers. However, it is—
Mr Barr: Are you killing us all off by 2070?
MS LE COUTEUR: 2070, Mr Barr. If you are still a minister in 2070—
Mr Barr: Still a minister? Right. You were not killing us off?
MS LE COUTEUR: No. I really do not think you will be a minister then.
Mr Barr: I have no intention of being in this place in 2070. I will assure you of that.
MS LE COUTEUR: It is not a long period of time. We are talking about an increase of six degrees in 61 years. This is a serious, urgent problem. It is really important that we act on it now. Mr Corbell and Mr Barr spent a lot of time in their speeches talking
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