Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats will support this amendment, but I do want to caution against this approach. It is our preference for there to be energy efficiency trading rather than a levy system, which would have its own particular problems. As someone who negotiated $400 million in the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program, I frankly do not believe that it is reasonable any longer to ask governments to do this, or at least not some governments. This one has managed to spread that money over a very long time frame. Some of the money is being spent on administration. The projects that were funded were only low-risk projects. There has been lost innovation and very poor demonstration projects at the end of the day.

I do not know that it is the best way to achieve the outcome that we are looking for, but I think Senator Milne recognises that. In many ways it sounds a good kind of project, but in some respects it is the fault of what this government does—gives grants and handouts for things which are not necessarily universal and which do not deliver the change that more structural changes might. Having said that, we will not oppose the amendment, but I think that the history of such proposals shows that there are better ways of doing it.