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

I thank the minister, through you, Madam Chair, for that response. I did ask about the guidelines, which the minister mentioned yesterday, and the likely time frame in which those guidelines will be developed. I am very conscious of the fact that the Prime Minister has said that he will ‘knock heads together’ in relation to the states, that he has appointed a Commonwealth coordinator and that the states are expected to appoint a state coordinator, to make sure that this infrastructure rollout is as timely as possible. I am assuming that the regulations will need to be developed to govern that in as timely a manner as possible. I just want to ensure that, since the Commonwealth, in the case that Senator Sherry outlined, would be providing finance to assist someone to complete a development, then the Commonwealth could of course apply their own regulations to the partly completed development—such that, whatever was underway would be underway but, if a development was to be completed, getting Commonwealth money to go into it could be conditional on the regulations and the regulations could cover the standards to which those properties would be built. So I would like to have a bit of an understanding of the regulations and when we will get a clearer idea of the breakdown of how the money might be spent for new, partially built or already completed developments, depending on what the category is.

I also make the point that the Greens have consistently argued in this place that, when you build social housing, it is absolutely critical that the social housing has access to public transport. We know that the poorest people tend to live furthest from the centre of the city. We know a lot of these new houses are going to be constructed on greenfield sites, which are likely to be at the edges of the city. Unless they are built to the highest standards of energy efficiency, and unless they are built with access to public transport, you are condemning the people living in them to a greater level of energy poverty—because, as I have mentioned time and time again, I believe we have reached peak oil. I believe that the price of oil at the moment is artificially low because of significantly reduced demand and that ultimately the oil price will go back to $150 or $200 a barrel. While it is a tremendous thing that we are finally getting affordable housing—I want to be absolutely on the record saying that this has been an area of neglect and I am really pleased we are getting this housing—if the Commonwealth is going to make this money available, it provides an opportunity for the Commonwealth to use its influence to make sure that the states come to the party and that there is some arrangement for discussions with the state authorities in relation to access to public transport.

I am fully aware, for example, that people living in Western Sydney are essentially trapped in Western Sydney without access to public transport. When the oil price went up a lot of those people lost their jobs—they could not afford to take their cars to work anymore because they lived on one side of the city and had to drive to the other, without access to public transport and so on. I cannot make this point more strongly. If the Commonwealth is putting all this money in, there must be some mechanism to get a quid pro quo from the states in terms of upgrading access to public transport to these areas and building developments to the highest standards of energy efficiency so that, when we get a carbon price—which is coming—and the oil price starts going up again, people will be able to achieve permanent savings by reducing their energy bills and not having to rely on private transport.

But, anyway, since the minister now seems to have accessed some information on the regulations, I would be keen to hear about that—and also about the capacity for the Commonwealth to range across the public transport area in discussion with the states.