Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Again, it is the ‘energy efficiency lost opportunities’ legislation we are dealing with today. I wanted to comment on Senator Allison’s remarks regarding energy efficiency opportunities. Whilst the Greens amendment, in terms of implementing energy efficiency measures, did set out payback periods—as I said, very easy ones of not more than two years initially, going out to four years in 2010 and 2011—that is not to say that energy efficiency measures cannot be achieved with a longer payback period. That is the point. The easy ones can be dealt with in a short time but the more difficult ones may require a longer payback period. In fact there were a number of opportunities identified with longer payback periods of up to 10 years, which is why I have moved this particular amendment.

The fact of the matter is that boards do not tell their shareholders that those opportunities exist, and as we currently stand there is no requirement for them to even go outside the boardroom. That is why it is important that companies be required to identify the opportunities with a longer payback period—say less than 10 years—and to include those details in the annual report. Otherwise, how are shareholders going to have any idea that those opportunities exist?

The largest energy users are big corporations—they have many institutional shareholders—and there are ethical investment funds looking for opportunities, and so on. Why wouldn’t you require companies to identify those opportunities and let the shareholders know that decisions have been made not to invest in those long-term energy efficiency opportunities? It may be that shareholders endorse that view; it may be that they do not. But they cannot make a decision about that and they cannot look at the strategies of a corporation unless those energy efficiency opportunities, over a long period of time, are identified. I put in this amendment an opportunity for public reporting because it allows some transparency and some real involvement of shareholders in the operations of companies.

The greenhouse gas effort—I come back to this at all times—that the world has to make within 10 years is huge. It is dramatic. In my view we have to get more than 80 per cent reductions on 1990 levels by 2050 and at least 20 per cent, if not 30 per cent, by 2020. How are we going to get there if we do not give the community the opportunities to exercise the power as shareholders when it comes to making judgements about the corporations in which they have shareholdings? That is why I am keen to see this additional requirement for reporting there to allow that collaborative effort between the community, business and government to work towards achieving significant greenhouse gas reductions. I would like to know from the parliamentary secretary why he would oppose having this requirement for corporations to put this information in their annual reports.