Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection! This legislation basically deals with the commercial building sector. It is important that good governments understand the role that the commercial building sector plays in terms of contributing to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. I am informed that they contribute about 10 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions—and, unfortunately, this figure is rising. However, the good news is that energy efficiency represents one of the fastest and cheapest ways we can reduce our nation's greenhouse gas emissions. That is what the Howard government was committed to in the lead-up to the 2007 election, and obviously the Rudd government—and it continued under the Gillard government. We believe that this nation must act. As a Queenslander, coming from the state which is arguably the worst per capita emitter in the world—there is some argument about Qatar—I understand the need to do more. It is not enough to just let things continue unabated. This legislation reflects that commitment of good government to pull whatever levers are possible.

Labor's Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill, introduced in 2010, established a legal requirement for owners of large commercial office buildings to obtain energy efficiency information for their building and disclose that information to prospective purchasers and lessees—people moving into the building. The energy efficiency information disclosed is in the form of a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate—a BEEC. This includes a star rating of the building's energy efficiency, an assessment of tenancy lighting and additional guidance on how the energy efficiency of the office may be improved. It is a sensible bit of information—information that all good people purchasing a building would track down anyway, but it is creating the culture that this is the norm, that this is the standard bit of information that should be available to people when they purchase a building.

It is interesting that when Labor brought in this legislation two property industry reports showed that buildings with the higher energy efficiency ratings are actually commanding better returns in the marketplace. People are obviously prepared to pay more for the tenancies and the buildings because of this higher star rating. And switching to efficient lighting can cut tenants' lighting bills by 30 to 60 per cent. So, it makes good sense for commercial buildings to disclose as much information as possible and then to create the culture that this is the norm. And those stars are something to brag about. If you are a landlord who has a property portfolio and people want with good conscience to invest in a property portfolio, you can say, 'We only own buildings that have these star ratings.' It makes good commercial sense, it makes good environmental sense, and that is why Labor introduced this legislation and it has been largely supported by those opposite.

The amendment bill in front of the chamber now, proposed by the government, is largely a housekeeping measure in response to changes that have been proposed in stakeholder forums, and these changes will reduce red tape. Obviously when the program was brought in it started to achieve its outcomes, but we need to tidy up a few things. The changes before the chamber include providing exemptions to building owners who receive unsolicited offers for the sale or lease of their office space, and this will lead to a suggested $300,000 reduction in regulatory burden. It will also allow transactions between wholly owned subsidiaries to be excluded from the disclosure obligations. So, rather than running around and tracking down information when an entity is largely giving it to itself, there is a reduction in red tape. It also addresses ambiguity in the BEED Act in relation to the status of assessments undertaken by assessors accredited under the National Australian Built Environment Rating System program but not accredited under the CBD program. So, it is largely technical, but it makes sense to streamline this.

It will also introduce the ability to determine a commencement date for a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate which is later than the actual date of issue. This will provide greater flexibility for businesses wishing to proactively maintain their current BEECs for their property portfolio. It will remove the need for new owners and lessors to reapply or pay the application fee for fresh exemptions if there is an existing one in place for a building and remove the requirement for six pages of standard energy efficiency guidance text on the Building Energy Efficiency Certificate, as well as provide live and interactive online information about improving energy efficiency for office buildings instead. It makes sense to get rid of paperwork if the whole intent of the legislation is to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions.

The Department of Industry has appointed Allen Consulting to undertake an independent review with the purpose of assessing the program's objectives, the effectiveness of the program in promoting energy efficiency and its interaction with the proposed Emissions Reduction Fund. This needs to be seen in the context of the Direct Action climate change policy embraced by the Abbott government. That is a $2.55 billion program, or $2,550 million, committed to reducing Australia's emissions. Let us put that in context. That is about $110 for every man, woman and child, yet this program that they are committed to—that the so-called environment minister is committed to, that the Prime Minister is committed to—cannot find a friend who believes it will actually do anything effective. It is effectively giving money to polluters. That is the policy that the government has embraced. We actually saw the Prime Minister rule out ever introducing an emissions trading scheme, which is, as every economist knows, the best and quickest way to obtain a price on a product.

So here we have the party of Menzies abolishing markets, saying that we will never have a market for something that is going to cause harm to our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and causing harm to farmers right now. The Prime Minister has said—

Dr Jensen interjecting—

I will take that interjection from the member for Tangney, because remember your policy, the very policy that your party has embraced, is to combat climate change. So, come in spinner! I am looking forward to your contribution on this, because it is always out there. Your contributions are almost at Mars when it comes to climate change. So, the member's party has committed to spend $110 for every man, woman and child in Australia to combat climate change. But we cannot see how it will work. The real risk is that you give some polluters money to not pollute, but then other polluters can step up—because there is no cap on what Australia's emissions could be—and just be able to increase their emissions. There is no cop on the beat, there is no market mechanism to ensure that that does not happen.

So we are going to have every man, every woman and every child in Australia paying $110, all for a mirage. I think the member for Fairfax extracted out of this government a commitment to provide a report on whether there should be emissions trading. They paid $2.55 billion for this report, but the Prime Minister has said, 'We will ignore that report'. So everyone in this chamber should take out $110 and just give it to the environment minister and say, 'Don't worry about the report, because you're just going to waste that money.'

We saw at the G20 meeting that Australia is not in step with the rest of the developed world. We saw China and the United States embrace action on climate change. We have seen India, which is buying a little bit of coal from Queensland, sidestepping that whole coal-fired power generation stage—in terms of bringing those hundreds of millions of people in the rural areas out of poverty—and, instead, they are going to go into solar and the other renewables.

The reality is that Australia had a golden opportunity, under the Labor government in the 42nd and 43rd parliaments, to be ready for a carbon-constrained global economy. Instead, we have lost that opportunity. Those billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in renewable energy have now evaporated and gone to other places—gone to sunnier places, gone too windier places than Australia. Instead, we have a government that fundamentally does not believe its own policy. That weathervane of a Prime Minister is prepared to sacrifice $2.55 billion for something that he actually, one day or another, does not believe in.

This legislation, the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Amendment Bill, is part of that Labor legacy of changing the culture. I saw it in Brisbane during the droughts in the early part of the noughties, where the dams in Brisbane were down to nearly 16 to 17 per cent water and suddenly Brisbane, a subtropical city, changed its water consumption patterns all but overnight. I have seen cultures change quickly, and that is what was happening under the Labor government in terms of responding to climate change.

We are obviously the party of jobs. We are not the magic-happens, crystal-hugging party that does not believe in jobs. We are the party of jobs. We wanted Australia to transition in a realistic way so that we could look after the jobs in the mining sector, look after the jobs in manufacturing and the like and end up with jobs in the long term.

Where were the jobs being created under Labor? They were in the renewable energy sector. We have had nearly 71,000 more unemployed people under this government since they came in last year. They do not understand jobs and, worse than that, they do not understand the future, the challenges that are coming our way. We know that there are some revenue collapse issues coming our way, and all the braying of those people that occupy the backbenches up there in the third 15 corner are not going to change that reality. Australia needs to be prepared for a carbon-constrained future—that is the reality.

This legislation is not something for Labor to be concerned about; however, obviously the review that is coming might be something that we need to look at. Under Labor, we did flag that eventually this model of providing certificates for buildings would turn into a cost-recovery model. That was something flagged by the Labor government when it was announced, because the program is only funded for five years. However, this is an opportunity for the government to show its leadership—not mislead, leadership—and make sure that this program continues. Because it is slowly changing the culture, and it will then flow out into households so that when people buy their home, buy their building, rent their building, rent their home, they will be saying, 'What are the long-term costs associated with this?' Because there are many things that can be done early.

That is another reason why this Direct Action policy will not work. That is because almost all of the low-hanging fruit has gone. That is why this $2.55 billion white elephant of a policy is not going to achieve the goals that they are talking about. Ken Henry suggested that it could cost up to $4 to $5 billion per year between now and 2020 just to get to the government's five per cent reduction target.

So it is going to cost even more taxpayers' dollars to achieve the target, or the Prime Minister will have to give up on his attempt to reduce Australia's carbon pollution, and that would make us even more of a pariah. Canada is happy to commit the world environment fund so that Canada gets it. The Prime Minister's only friend at G20, when it came to climate change, Canadian Prime Minister Harper, still understood that climate change is real. You might have a few people that scoff and surf the dark edges of the internet for some crackpot scientists wearing tinfoil hats that support their programs, but that is not the reality of the CSIRO and the mainstream science. The reality is—

Government members interjecting—

Member for Tangney, I know you have a tinfoil hat at home—I understand that—but the reality is that Australia needs to act on climate change; otherwise, we will miss out on economic opportunities and miss out on jobs and, worse, people will start to see us as a trading pariah, and that will be bad for our farmers, bad for our jobs, bad for our manufacturers and bad our grandchildren, who will be lining up to slap the people that betrayed Australia.

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