Page 3625 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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Draft territory plan variation 303 complements this by creating a solar fence principle which gives householders a reasonable expectation of not being overshadowed by there neighbours. This is very important. If you build a solar house, you do not want it overshadowed by someone else’s house. Good solar orientation is one of the most cost-effective ways to get a good star rating and good energy performance from a house. It is the one thing you cannot fix afterwards. You cannot just pick up your house and move it round 90 degrees. It just does not work like that.
In his in-principle speech, Mr Barr said:
Since the introduction of the energy rating scheme government intervention has been minimal and the approach to assessors predominantly educational. Mr Speaker, the current approach is no longer viable.
The Greens are pleased that the government has finally agreed with what we—the Greens—consumers and the industry have been saying. Because of the problems with the energy efficiency scheme, last year I introduced a motion aiming to improve the energy efficiency regime. It led to a government discussion paper on the issue which got an overwhelmingly positive reception. This has culminated in this important legislation today. I do regret that it has taken over a year to get to this legislation.
I believe that part of the reason for this is COAG’s lack of action. Back in April last year it seemed that other jurisdictions were finally going to follow the ACT’s lead and introduce mandatory disclosure of energy efficiency ratings on sales of housing and for most housing rentals. However, they have not done so as yet. So I am very pleased that in this case the government has been prepared to act unilaterally and show leadership when other jurisdictions have just simply not acted. I hope that the government will show leadership in the future on other issues and not continually defer to COAG.
Because the current scheme has so many problems, my motion of last year required auditing of at least five per cent of all energy efficiency ratings. Previously, as was discovered as part of this motion, there really has been no auditing. In fact, anyone who looks at the Canberra Times real estate section on Saturdays will be able to see a number of houses which should have been—must have been—five-star houses when they were constructed. This is because there has been for a number of years a requirement in the ACT that all new houses must have at least five-star energy efficiency.
But when they go for resale the houses are re-assessed and their energy efficiency ratings change. Each week you will see some down at 3½ stars. I do appreciate that things can change in houses but they are not five-star. They probably at no stage were ever five star. It is sort of unbelievable that they could have been correctly certified in the first place if a few years later they have been re-assessed at a couple of stars less than they were certified at.
At last we hope that ACTPLA will finally now take energy efficiency seriously and use its new regulation capabilities. In particular, the bill will create a new occupation
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