Page 330 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Party? They vote against legislation that does exactly that. They vote against legislation that creates jobs—green jobs in a green economy. They vote against legislation that Mrs Dunne said should be open to larger scale generation.
The hypocrisy of the Liberal Party! They have been caught out. They have been caught out saying one thing and doing another—saying they believe in creating a sustainable economic activity and saying they believe that larger scale renewable energy generation should be driven by a feed-in tariff and then opposing measures that do exactly that.
This legislation is important legislation. The legislation provides an opportunity for us to build on the outstanding success of the feed-in tariff to date. From the starting base of 521 installations in March 2009 there are now solar arrays on over 3,750 ACT households and community group and business premises, representing more than seven megawatts of clean energy generating capacity.
Arrays have been installed in all Canberra suburbs and by households of all income types. An analysis undertaken of the figures provided to the ICRC indicates that suburbs in the lowest quartile of average household income had the same number or a higher number of renewable energy generations as suburbs in the highest quartile of average household income. The spread of generators across the territory is uniform; lower income households, higher income households and average income households are taking advantage of the feed-in tariff to make their contribution towards climate change measures and abating greenhouse emissions—but also to hedge against rising utility costs and protect their household budgets. Lower income households and higher income households—all of those suburbs, all of those income types—are taking advantage of this scheme.
Of course, there are jobs, as Mrs Dunne said in 2008. This is an important tool in creating jobs.
Mr Seselja: What did the ICRC say about that?
MR CORBELL: What did Mrs Dunne say, Mr Seselja? What did Mrs Dunne say? Mrs Dunne said:
The feed-in tariff will be an important tool in addressing the issues in relation to turning the ACT economy into a greener economy.
I agree, and the figures demonstrate that that is exactly the case. Since the scheme commenced, we have seen the number of businesses grow from four to 35. We have seen 150 full-time staff employed and another 120 subcontractors on the job. The expansion of this scheme into the medium-scale generation category will build on that success. It will create more economic opportunities for those businesses, more incentive for the investment to occur and more renewable energy generation in our city.
Mr Seselja has said some things about cost. Cost is an important consideration, and one which the government always has at the forefront of its mind. But the measures
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video