Page 2829 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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and given that the government has failed to meet its agreed renewable energy purchase this year—due to, it has said, budget constraints—the government has a duel cost incentive to reduce its energy use: firstly, to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions generally; and, secondly, to increase the proportion of renewable energy the government uses, which will mean meeting the renewable energy purchase targets in the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement and thus saving funds in subsequent budgets.
I am glad to hear that, as part of the retrofitting of its office buildings, the government is installing smart meters. Hopefully, when the government has actually had experience of them, which will be shortly, it will start to understand just how useful they can be for people and agencies to better monitor their energy use. Then, for instance, it might be keen to install them in public housing tenancies, which would help low income households reduce their energy use. I am also hopeful this monitoring will enable individual agencies to improve—or rather reduce—their tenancy energy use.
One of the most interesting things that the government is doing in the LAPS department is the move towards an ACT government office building. I have some mixed feelings about this, but it certainly sounds like there are some positives in it, and I can understand the benefits to the ACT government of centralising its workforce, reducing its building and property leasing and management paperwork—and, of course, it will make it easier for ACT public servants to communicate with each other without travelling. I certainly look forward to improvements in intra-government communications, as those do seem to be a lot more complicated than they should be, judging from some of the responses that we get from various ministers and departments. I also recognise the benefit to the business sector, who may need to liaise with a multitude of ACT government agencies. Once this is established, they will know where to find them. It will be more of a one-stop shop for them.
In the context, however, of the new office building, I would think that the government need to look quite seriously at the capital improvement they do to their existing buildings. Two come to mind: data centres. In the InTACT budget they revealed that they were planning to upgrade the air conditioning in their data centres in Macarthur House and the Callum building. If we are going to no longer use those in a few years time, as is predicted with the ACT government office building, this would seem to possibly be a foolish investment—as would, possibly, the rainwater tanks at the Dickson Motor Vehicle Registry. I understand from the Canberra Times that there was well over $100,000—I think closer to $200,000—expended on this and, again, if the planned government office building eventuates, this will soon no longer be an ACT government building, and it is almost certain that any new owner would make significant changes, such that the rainwater tanks are unlikely to be in the most efficient place.
It does seem that the construction of the centralised ACT government building will just be the beginning of a whole heap of changes for ACT Property Group. If we move out of all of the current buildings that our agencies occupy, this is going to leave a huge amount of vacant office space across the city. Of course, the government appears to see this as providing huge redevelopment opportunities. If we think about
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