Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The committee is considering the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Amendment Bill 2006 and amendment (8) on sheet 5179, moved by Senator Milne. The question is that that amendment be agreed to.

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

When the debate was adjourned for the lunchbreak today I was speaking on the need for Australia to establish an energy savings fund to look at providing funding to encourage energy savings and raise public awareness, to look at cost-effectiveness and to stimulate investment in innovative energy-saving measures. I consider it a completely unbalanced approach that the government is focused entirely on supply and not on reducing demand for energy.

For example, the government has recently announced its ban in relation to light globes. I am very pleased that we are going to see a transition to more energy efficient light globes. But what the government has not considered is the fact that many of the new varieties of light globes have mercury in them and also trigger epilepsy in a number of people. So there are going to be serious issues with the introduction of these. There will need to be some exemptions for people with medical conditions. Also, there may well need to be a deposit component so that you are required to take cradle-to-grave responsibility for these light globes.

If you had this kind of fund, it could fund the necessary research, policy development and so on for energy-saving devices, and there are endless numbers of them. There are different ways of reducing energy. We are going to have the rollout of smart meters—to whatever extent that occurs. I am unsure as to the level of commitment the government has to them. And of course we have all the issues surrounding mandatory energy performance standards, changes to the building code and so on. If we had such a fund, a whole range of innovative measures and technologies could be looked at.

It is exactly the same principle as a low-emissions technology fund to look at the supply side. I propose such a fund to look at the demand and energy efficiency side. It is quite a straightforward proposition, and I would be interested to know why the government is opposing setting up a fund for energy efficiency when it has in principle agreed with the notion of setting up a fund to increase renewable energy. Even though that has been distorted, it is still an in-principle decision to support the supply side but not the energy efficiency side.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to 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.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Likewise the government does not believe that a levy which effectively is an energy tax is the appropriate way to progress this matter and therefore will not be supporting the amendment.

Question negatived.

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

Mr Temporary Chairman, can I have it recorded that both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party opposed that amendment, and that only the Greens and the Democrats supported it.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can have your votes recorded.

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

I now move Australian Greens amendment (9) on sheet 5179:

(9)    Schedule 1, page 4 (after line 25), after item 6, insert:

6A  At the end of Part 9

Add:

42  Review of operation of Act

        (1)    The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of this Act to be undertaken as soon as possible after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of Energy Efficiency Opportunities Amendment Act 2007.

        (2)    The person who undertakes the review under subsection (1) must give the Minister a written report of the review.

        (3)    The Minister must cause a copy of the report of the review to be tabled in each House of Parliament within 12 months after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Amendment Act 2007.

This relates to an independent review of the operation of the act to be undertaken as soon as possible after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of the act. It requires that there be a written report of the review and that a copy of that review be tabled in each house of parliament within 12 months after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of the act.

There is a need for an independent review. We have had enough evidence over a decade of the government being in power—undertakings that were made that did not come to pass—to show that you need independent reviews of the operations of many of these pieces of legislation, as Senator Allison just indicated. We want to make sure that there is an independent review so that there is an honest appraisal of the effectiveness of this legislation. The government has refused to mandate implementation of energy audits and only requires that the audits be carried out, not that action has to be taken. As such, there has to be some assessment of the legislation’s effectiveness and of what energy savings have been made so that we can move to the next step. It is inevitable that there will be mandated implementation.

The independent review will occur after five years. Frankly, I would like to change it to a review after one year and would be happy to take an amendment to that effect if the government would support it. Five years is a very lenient time frame. We need to know who is right. The government is saying that you do not need legislation making it mandatory for companies to implement these audits. It is clear that both the Democrats and the Greens believe that you do. After 12 months or so, let alone five years, it should be obvious. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument for an independent review of the operation of the act.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government does not support the amendment. There is an evaluation time line in the explanatory memorandum of the act. The government sees this as an ongoing program that should be subject to continuous improvement. I agree with Senator Milne, though, that because of the public reporting that we talked about earlier it should be evident in a year or so how effective this measure has been in reaching the outcomes that we are seeking. There is public reporting of the outcomes on an annual basis, so there is effectively an annual review process of the effectiveness of this legislation. With the review and evaluation process that was noted in the explanatory memorandum, the government sees that it has the procedures in place to effectively consider the continuous improvement of this process and therefore does not support the amendment.

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

I would like Senator Colbeck to clarify how the ongoing review—as he has described it—is going to let us have some insight into this. My understanding is that the review will be of compliance with the need to conduct an audit and not of what amount of energy savings have been achieved as a result of the audit being in place. The whole point here from my point of view is that we need to know whether conducting an audit is sufficient to change behaviour, result in investment and achieve outcomes in energy savings. We do not want a review that simply tells us that X number of companies conducted their audit. That is an administrative detail. I would like to know from Senator Colbeck what we are going to be told. At the end of 12 months, are we going to be able to see exactly how much energy was saved as a result of the implementation of the audit?

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Companies, as well as reporting the efficiencies that they see might be achieved, are also required to report which energy savings they are going to implement. So there is a two-fold process there that provides for public disclosure of both the identified savings and the actioned savings.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.