Page 1818 - Week 06 - Thursday, 14 May 2015
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DR BOURKE: Minister, what other impacts will there be for women as a result of the federal budget?
MS BERRY: Unfortunately, there is not a lot of good news for women in this budget. The commonwealth really does need to get a handle on how many of its policies have a disproportionate impact on women. University deregulation—$100,000 degrees—is still on the cards. The cuts to community services are continuing. There are continuing cuts to foreign aid. It is women that will be affected most by the cuts to foreign aid.
This budget quietly recommitted to deregulation for Australian universities, the starting point for high fees and higher student debts. Low income, female and regional students will inevitably be hardest hit by these changes. As the gender pay gap persists and they take career breaks around children, this policy will just perpetuate the inequalities that Canberran and Australian women need to face each day. We need more women going to university, not fewer. And, quite clearly, we need more women in the federal cabinet.
Mr Barr: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.
Supplementary answers to questions without notice
Energy—solar
Hospitals—University of Canberra
MR CORBELL: Yesterday in question time Ms Lawder asked me a question about reporting of the output of the Royalla solar farm and why it did not appear on the website of the Australian Energy Market Operator, or AEMO. I can advise Ms Lawder as follows. Under the national energy rules, the NER, AEMO is responsible for collecting data for the purposes of market settlement. FRV has a licensed meter service provider that collects and provides data to AEMO for the purpose of market settlement and market regulation. That is commercial-in-confidence under the national energy rules. Under another national energy rule, generators over 30 megawatts are obligated to provide data to AEMO, which it publishes. FRV is not a generator over 30 megawatts and therefore is not required to report under this rule.
In addition, FRV is providing data to AEMO on a voluntary basis for an AEMO solar forecasting project. Whilst AEMO did publish FRV data for a short time, they subsequently became aware that the data was not provided under any national energy rule requirements and that, as it was provided by FRV on a voluntary basis for a specific purpose, they therefore did not have the right to publish the data. The ACT government had no involvement in this issue. FRV are required to provide an annual generation report to the territory under their deed of entitlement. Under the Electricity Feed-in (Large-scale Renewable Energy Generation) Act 2011 the distributor is required to provide quarterly reports to the minister.
Also in question time today I took a question from, I believe, Mr Coe in relation to the tabling of the statement provided by ACT Health to the ABC in relation to the University of Canberra public hospital. I present the following paper:
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