Page 3315 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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about how we have to do more studies and more consultation; we have to do more work on energy and the cost benefits. This work has already been done. Go and have a look at the federal environment department’s website. It tells you about the cost benefits of solar heat pumps. The government already knows that these are effective. That is one reason why we would like to see this introduced sooner rather than later.
The federal government at present has some very positive subsidies to put in solar hot water systems and heat pumps and we would really like to see the people of Canberra take advantage of these rebates. People like us are really into doing these sorts of things and we know that if our hot water service dies we should say, “I do not want it replaced with an electric one.” Not every person in Canberra pays as much attention to these issues as we do and some of them will just say, “My hot water has died and therefore I must replace it with exactly what I have got now,” without being aware of the fact that they could get the federal government to pay for half the cost of an energy efficient hot water service. We want to see the people of Canberra take advantage of the good deal that is on offer to them, and we think the easiest way to get them to do that is for the plumber to just say to them, “Yes, this is how we do it these days. This is a way that will save you money and this is the way to do it.”
Mr Barr talked about a number of technical problems that he thought that my bill had. I really would have appreciated it if Mr Barr had mentioned these to my office earlier. As we have said, this has been in place since April and there has been no cooperation from Mr Barr’s office. I may have missed something because I was taking notes, but Mr Barr mentioned temporary systems. Yes, I agree that my bill does not deal with temporary systems. However, what my bill does say is that ACTPLA can make technical amendments if there is a situation where technical amendments are warranted, and possibly this could be one of them.
He said that it does not deal with anyone in Canberra who is currently using renewable energy generation for all their energy needs. I am not sure that there are a lot of these people, and I am not at all sure that any of these people are using electric storage hot water systems. In fact, I would be fairly confident, 100 per cent confident that no-one in the ACT is generating enough renewable electricity on site that they are using it to power an electric storage hot water heater.
Mr Barr made a mistake—obviously he has not actually read the bill—about instantaneous electric systems. We have allowed for smaller households to use small electric hot water systems. If Mr Barr is correct that the climate zones are wrong, and I think that he is not, I will admit to some plagiarism from the COAG bill and say that if they are wrong, then, please, Mr Barr, amend them.
On the subject of amendments, given that it sounded to me like the major problem certainly that Mr Corbell had with the bill, although possibly it was not Mr Barr’s problem, was the start date. I am expecting amendments shortly from the government just to change the start date to 1 May. I would welcome discussion on that, were it to come.
There is really not a lot more to say. This is something that we, the ACT Legislative Assembly, can do that will be very good for the environment and will be very good for the people of Canberra in terms of saving them money. When
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