Page 1451 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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personal experiences but does not reflect what is happening in the community where people who believe in the future, who believe that it is our job, as this generation, to do something now—not later, not some other time, not somebody else’s problem—are getting out there and taking action.
I think it is also important to put in perspective the cost of the feed-in tariff. The current pass-through from the ICRC that ActewAGL are allowed to charge is $27 a year. When we start talking about ordinary families and that cost, $27 is less than what it costs two people to go to the movies in this town. So we need to be really mindful of these impacts but we also need to put some of these things in perspective—job creation, industry diversification, all for less than the cost of a household going to the movies once a year.
I would now like to come to some of the comments from Mr Corbell on some of the amendments. In doing so, I would like to touch on my amendment, which I forgot to speak to earlier. But in relation to substituted paragraph (3)(d), having heard some of Mr Corbell’s comments, that is specifically why I put an amendment forward. I have actually changed it to read:
increase the energy concession to a level commensurate with energy price increases and establish a mechanism by which percentage increases in energy prices are automatically applied to the energy concession each year;
I heard Mr Corbell’s concerns about the specification of 20 per cent, that it might be a more appropriate level. So I have actually taken those words directly from page 19 of the government’s draft energy policy paper, right out of the government’s document. So I assume that the government will be happy to support my amendment because it is actually their own words. The Greens are happy to hear feedback and accept it as sometimes a better way to put something, and we have taken that on board.
But with regard to Mr Corbell’s other amendments, the Greens will not be able to support them in total. I think that the effect of Mr Corbell’s amendments is to gut the motion of all the concrete action points that are in there. But let me take it in parts. In part (1) he has sought to substitute:
that approximately, 22 000 households in the ACT receive the energy concession;
This is obviously a statement of fact. I have no objection to this additional information being provided. I am unclear why we need to remove:
that approximately 19% of ACT households are considered to be low income;
That is obviously just one of those drafting things.
With regard to Mr Corbell’s addition to paragraph (2), one of the key things is that the Greens are seeking to ensure that the community sector is adequately resourced to advocate on behalf of low income households. I think it is important that those households do have advocates on their behalf. People who are struggling through various other things in life are unlikely to be approaching the Assembly, to be
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