Page 3626 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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of energy efficiency ratings assessor which will require licensing. Assessors for new buildings were previously registered but since the removal of EER requirements from development assessments in March 2008, the people who carry out energy efficiency assessments on building plans are not registered. We have seen in recent months a number of complaints about various parts of the building certification process. In this context, we are particularly pleased that this is one part of the industry at least where there will be some improved regulation.
Another thing this legislation does is consolidate all guidelines for preparing energy efficiency ratings and certificates into a single code of practice under COLA. Finally, it introduces a complaints mechanism for the energy efficiency ratings. This will give both industry and consumers some protection. Our hope is this will lead to an improvement of the reliability and accuracy of assessments.
As well as the regulation introduced with today’s bill, there needs to be an ongoing commitment to the auditing of energy efficiency ratings and other parts of the building certification process. We have all recently seen the problems of lack of auditing in the building industry ranging from the federal insulation installation program to problems that led to the building quality forum earlier this month.
The other issue that I understand still requires urgent attention is that the sale-of-premises energy efficiency regime still uses first generation software. The certification regime under the building code of Australia for new buildings uses second generation software. This is confusing for the industry and consumers. It should be fixed by the government. Previously, the government has said that it would not take action because it was waiting to be part of a new national regime. Given that the government has taken action for this part of the energy efficiency regime, I call on the government to take action on that part of it as well, because it is simply confusing.
As I said, while the Greens are very pleased that the government is finally acting to bring some much needed rigour into the energy efficiency regime, the Greens believe there is more work to be done. There are some other issues which I will highlight related to this which have not yet been tackled.
We could quite reasonably extend energy efficiency ratings to other housing choices, not just the standard single dwelling or multi-unit residence. Particularly here I am thinking of retirement homes, transportable homes and hostels. This is especially important for retirement villages, caravans and mobile homes—at least those which are occupied on a long-term basis. These are often occupied by the more frail and vulnerable members of our society who may have very limited ability to improve the thermal performance of their dwellings after purchase and very limited financial resources to pay high heating and cooling bills.
Ideally, some form of energy efficiency rating would also be extended to include hostels and nursing homes as the organisations who are running them will always need more recurrent resources. Therefore, it is particularly important that the buildings that they occupy are well designed. I assume that the current scheme would not be suitable for these more complex buildings. However, I think that it would be a useful extension at some stage, possibly of the commercial schemes.
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