Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014 before us is another example of this government's repealing of a once bipartisan effective piece of legislation introduced by the Howard government to enable Australia to deal with this century's inevitable transformation of energy generation and supply. Its repeal is another irrevocable and incredible indication that this coalition government is more reactionary and owns less foresight than the Howard government, characteristics which many of us might not have thought possible back in 2007. But just like the Renewable Energy Target, the energy efficiency opportunities legislation is being repealed because it was too successful.

Energy efficiency refers to gaining the same or higher level of useful output using less energy input. Increased energy efficiency is a very effective economic driver. It reduces overall demand for energy and delays the need for new energy generation equipment. Energy efficiency is also about productivity. It is about lower inputs and bigger outputs. It is about lower costs and doing things better, doing things smarter and doing things more cost-effectively. Improving Australia's uptake of commercial energy efficiency opportunities has the potential to increase our economic health and lower the rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2004, along with the Labor Party, the Howard government recognised that bipartisan energy policy action was needed. The energy white paper in June 2004 entitled Securing Australia's energy future identified the improvement of Australia's energy-efficiency performance as a key part of the Howard government's energy policy in order to achieve greater prosperity, sustainability and energy security. The Energy Efficiency Opportunities Bill 2005 was to establish the mandatory energy efficiency opportunities assessments announced in that white paper. It was part of a wide-ranging effort to ensure the careful and prudent use of our valuable energy resources by industry and the community.

The Energy Efficiency Opportunities program—the EEO program, as it was known—requires corporations who use more than half a petajoule of energy to identify and assess energy efficiency opportunities and subsequently report the outcomes of those energy assessments, both publicly and to the government. The EEO program was part of a framework. It took its place alongside a range of measures to pursue the benefits of using energy more efficiently: energy market reforms, solar cities, improved appliance and building standards, and targets for reduced energy use in government agencies—all good stuff. It stood alongside energy market reform, important measures that were put in place to help make our national energy market more efficient. And it complemented the Solar Cities program, important ideas to introduce large-scale solar energy into the power supply of our Australian cities. It worked next to improved appliance and building standards at a time when many appliances were transitioning from older technology to newer technology. This program was an industrial counterpart to the domestic measures that had been in place to assist families with their own family budgets to manage more sensibly the electrical goods that they purchased. This broad range of energy efficiency measures had the potential to improve economic health and lower the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Those measures and this program enjoyed bipartisan support.

And just like the Renewable Energy Target, the EEO has proven to be extremely successful. In its predetermined review of the Renewable Energy Target, the government's hand-picked review panel criticised the RET because it was too successful. The RET has created thousands of jobs, which apparently is too many jobs for this government. The RET has encouraged billions of dollars of investment, which is too much investment it seems for this government. And just like the RET, the EEO has achieved exactly what it was designed to achieve. In fact, let me refer to the review of the EEO program at the end of its first cycle that was completed by ACIL Tasman at the request of the former Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism. 'The EEO program has been successful,' it said. Just like this successful RET, the government is getting rid of the successful EEO program. Go figure.

The 2013 Full Cycle Evaluation of the program found that the EEO has been successful in its objectives of raising awareness and embedding energy efficiency practices in Australian industry since 2006. The program has been effective in driving down emissions and has saved industry approximately $323.2 million per year in power expenses. Corporations found the government's regulation to have been beneficial in providing a structure and framework for companies to embed energy-management systems. It has delivered benefits to participants well in excess of their costs and, extremely importantly, there is still more benefit to be gained by continuing with the EEO program through the second cycle. The program has significantly lifted the energy-management capability and awareness with many corporations reporting the key elements of the program are now standard business practice. These achievements would not have been made possible without government intervention. The independent FCE report showed that corporations found government regulation to have been beneficial in providing a structure and a framework through which information and data were used for energy efficiency.

Despite the benefits still to be gained, the progress still to be made and the energy efficiency improvements yet to be achieved, this Abbott government argues that the program has run its course and is no longer needed. The explanatory memorandum reads:

Through its application businesses have built up a bank of energy efficiency projects which can be considered based on current energy prices and specific circumstances. With energy prices driving companies to use energy more efficiently and the increased capacity to respond embedded in industry, the government considers this program, underpinned by the EEO legislative framework, to be no longer required.

There is no real disagreement about whether the program has been effective. I think we all do agree about the incredible effectiveness of this program. But our argument is that its closure now, by this government, is nothing more than ideological and myopic rather than logical and prescient. Australian companies cannot be too energy efficient in this century. If energy prices rise, the discovery and exploitation of efficiency opportunities will become more necessary, from both a business and an environmental sense.

On what bank of case studies and projects will these businesses rely in the future if this impetus for driving efficiencies as technologies change is undermined?    As the explanatory memorandum makes clear, from now on the government will rely only on high energy prices to drive any efficiencies into the future. 'Let's just put the price up'—it says—'Let's hope the price drives efficiency instead of common sense, discussion, best business practice, and allowing that best business practice to be shared amongst peer companies.'

The FCE report conservatively estimates that, during the first cycle, the EEO program was responsible for about 40 per cent of the energy efficiency improvements in the Australian industrial sector. The evidence suggests that there is still more benefit to be gained by continuing with the EEO program through the second cycle. It has been estimated that it could be responsible for a further 20 per cent of energy efficiency improvements achieved during the second cycle. It is impossible to argue that a 20 per cent efficiency gain is insignificant and unnecessary. How can a government argue against that? A gain of that magnitude is undoubtedly worth pursuing for a further seven-year cycle. But the government claims that they are closing down the program to remove unnecessary regulatory burden, at the same time, I note, as opening up the nightmarishly burdensome regulatory shambles of Direct Action and the Emissions Reduction Fund. It is all right to have that regulatory burden, which is a policy not supported by any economist or scientist out there, but it is a very effective bipartisan policy that has been in place since John Howard's term—that is, use the regulatory burden argument there and get rid of it.

I agree it would be inefficient for a policy to provide further information if the cost of doing so outweighs the benefits that could be expected.    But the review found that this is not the case. The cost of providing further information does not outweigh the expected benefits—in fact, quite the contrary. Let me again refer to ACIL Tasman's review:

Our conservative estimate of the ratio of industry's cumulative benefit to cumulative cost attributable to the EEO Program is 3.67, net of implementation and compliance costs.

That is what it said—a very conservative estimate.    ACIL Tasman did not simply conclude that the benefits of this program outweigh its costs. They concluded that the benefits of this program over the full-cycle analysis had generated savings to industry in power expenses of over $300 million. This government is strangely, today, dismissing $300 million in savings to industry as red-tape. For example, the steel maker Arrium benefited enormously from the EEO program, showing the benefits to job protection and business solvency that energy efficiency brings. Arrium has itself reported:

Since commencement of the EEO program in FY07, Arrium has assessed 340 opportunities and reported implementing 118 projects resulting in a total energy reduction of 4.16 PJ/yr, equating to 508 kt CO2-e/yr. A further 0.88 PJ/yr is expected to be saved through projects committed for future implementation, with an additional 2.17 PJ/yr remaining under investigation …

In its first recommendation the review states:

We find that the EEO Program to date has delivered benefits to participants well in excess of their costs

I think the Arrium example shows that as well. Significant improvements have been seen in the performance of participating corporations against the elements of the assessment framework. Many barriers to improved energy efficiency have been reduced and the identification of opportunities is increasingly integrated into normal business operations.

What does the government do in response to that? It says, 'Let's get rid of this program because it's red tape.' The government is saying, 'We'll just get rid of something that has saved industry over $300 million and is helping the environment because it is red tape. That makes sense to us!'

That is what the Abbott government is telling these corporations. That is what the Abbott government is telling the industry. It is absolutely blind, nonsensical policy to get rid of this effective program. What else are they saying? They are saying, 'We don't break promises; we are the government that doesn't break promises, that doesn't break the bipartisanship that we had for over a decade.' Instead, they try to argue their red-tape, black-is-white justification.

This program has enjoyed bipartisan support. It has provided, as I have outlined, a benefit both to the bottom line of businesses and to the environment—and there is still more benefit which could be derived from continuing this program. As with the potential abolition of its own renewable energy target, this is just another example of this government's misguided ideology overwhelming its understanding of the effective, logical energy policy instituted by the Howard government. The repeal of the program will be unhindered by the opposition, but we will not pretend that this means we support it. We do not support the repeal of good policy that has future life in it, as this policy does, and we do not support the blind, ideological argument put forward by this government—that it is repealing the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Program in order to reduce red tape. This is a policy that has been very good at creating energy efficiency opportunities for industry, for buildings, for consumers, for households, for just about every Australian. I cannot understand this government's stupid, ideological decision to get rid of it.

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

It is really disingenuous and dishonest of the Labor Party to have one of its senators give an entire speech on why we should keep the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Program, how good this program has been and why energy efficiency is so important—and then, at the end, say, 'However, we will not hinder the government in repealing it.' This why so many people are disengaged and fed up with politics—people tell them one thing in public and then do an entirely different thing behind closed doors.

I have just checked on what happened in the House of Representatives, because I was rather confused here after hearing a whole speech saying why the Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014 should not be passed. That is of course my view—that the act should not be repealed—and I will get to that in a minute. I found that Labor did not call a division in the House of Representatives. They just let the bill pass in the hope it would drift through in the Senate. Clearly they wanted to be able to go out to the community and put out this speech saying how great the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act has been and how Labor has totally supported it—whilst voting with the government to repeal it. It is just disgraceful behaviour.

It is no wonder young people are so disengaged. They say to me: 'We are told one thing. We vote. We change the government—and then they just say something different. No-one does what they say or believe.' Senator Singh obviously believes the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act should stay, but her party clearly does not. So we get this case of: 'Go out there and make a big scene and say you support something. Kick the government as hard as you can and then quietly let them do as they like.' It is disgraceful—and I can tell you that the Greens will not be behaving like that.

I am wholeheartedly supportive of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Program. It is disgraceful that the government is getting rid of it. I spoke on the bill establishing the program when it came through in February 2006. At the time Senator O'Brien, a Labor senator, said that the bill did not go far enough. Now we have the Labor Party—after the success of the program has been proven—backing the government in getting rid of it. We are in a ridiculous position in this country. We are a laughing-stock around the world. It is a no-brainer to go after energy efficiency opportunities. How can a government that goes on about the costs of energy then take away one of the only bits of legislation—and it is actually a pretty weak piece of legislation; nevertheless it has achieved some results—that gets people to reduce the amount of energy they use? The basis of this action is, the government claims, that it is too costly for industry to report on how they could save energy.

This is where I want to say how disgraceful the business leadership of Australia is at the moment. What a bunch of climate-denying cowards they are, whether it is the Business Council of Australia or ACCI or any of the others. They are saying to their own members that they do not care, that they should go ahead and use more energy. Why do they want people to use more energy and use more power? 'Don't worry about the climate, just get those coal fired generators cranking. Let's use more power.' That is what Dick Warburton wants. That is what he was saying in his RET review: 'Use more power.' He talked about 'when electricity demand recovers' and about how 'electricity demand must recover'. In other words, he is saying, 'Use more power.' He is saying this in an age when everyone else in the world is saying that business needs to be superefficient and that the best way to get your costs down is to have energy efficiency—that you should make your production process so energy efficient that you bring down your costs.

But not in Australia. No, we say: 'Rev'em up. Rev up your costs. It does not matter how inefficient you are or how much power you use; let's just rev up the cost—but let's make sure the power you use is coal fired power. That is what we want—not renewable energy but coal fired power. Let's get those coal mines revving. Let's get those coal fired generators revved up. Let's get Australian industry to go backwards and become such a rust bucket that it is uncompetitive with industries in the rest of the world.'

Energy efficiency, whether it is commercial, residential or industrial, is important. The Europeans have now perfected prefabricated wooden houses with triple-glazed windows that are energy neutral. Within 10 years, they hope to have energy-positive housing—that is, you can put up a house that will generate energy for the grid and create a net energy benefit. That is an extraordinary thing, but should we try to do that in Australia? 'No.' Do want a national energy efficiency target? 'No, why would we want that? We have plenty of coal. We don't care about the climate. We don't care about whether industry operates efficiently.' It is an absolutely disgrace.

Let me just go through where we are. When this program was set up, I said that it was not enough for it to be voluntary. We did not want to see companies identify where they could save money on energy efficiency but then have their boards say: 'We have other priorities. We want to spend our capital on this or that. We are not actually going to do this.'

So at the time I said we should make it mandatory—not only mandatory to report on where energy efficiency opportunities are but mandatory to implement them on a sliding scale. At the time, I said that all what we wanted to do was make it mandatory to implement them if there was a two-year payback initially. What a no-brainer—requiring a company to implement something if, over two years, there was a full payback on whatever the technology or improvement was and thereafter there were permanent savings. But I could not get Labor or the government to agree in 2006 to mandatory implementation of whatever energy efficiency opportunities had been identified. Now we have gone backwards even further. We are not even going to require them to report on the energy efficiency identified.

So what have we got? We have gotten rid of the carbon price, which is leading to increased emissions from coal and is driving greenhouse gases harder. We are now getting rid of energy efficiency opportunities. That means we will not have an energy efficiency target. We have nothing. We have a measly five per cent emission reduction target, which will have to go higher. The question is: if you are not going to support renewable energy or energy efficiency, where on earth are you going to get a five per cent emission reduction from, let alone the 40 per cent to 60 per cent reduction that will be necessary if we are to keep global warming to under two degrees? Australia agreed to that but apparently the Abbott government does not agree with it.

I also want to say how disgusted I am by these regulatory assessments that have come out saying that the benefit here is the reduced cost from not having to do the report without looking at the cost benefit of the outcome—reduced energy use and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. What is even more extraordinary is that the UK has just adopted our scheme—the Australian scheme—to drive transformation of their big emitters. Just as we are dumping it, they are picking it up because they realise it has been so successful in Australia and could be even more successful. Why are they doing it? It is because they have already done a huge amount on energy efficiency at a residential level and now they want something for their big emitters. They have some sincerely good transformational energy strategy in UK to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. We took from their green climate bank to create the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That is where I got the idea from to put into the clean energy package. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation came from the UK, and they have now picked up our energy efficiency opportunities. But here we are trying to smash everything good.

There is a complete lack of professionalism from the assessors doing these jobs. There is the Warburton assessment. It is all based on completely wrong assumptions, telling modellers to make an assumption with the RET review that they do not have to take into account the commercial realities of coal. They just suspended commercial reality because they do not want a report that is going to do anything other than encourage coal fired generation. What a disgrace.

Where is the rigour in any of this? Where is the science? Where is the technical rigour? Where is the sense? Ultimately, you are talking about big industry in Australia—the big energy users. They are going to shut down if they are not competitive. They will not be competitive if they are allowed to be lax and wasteful when it comes to energy. They are not going to be able to bring down their costs and compete with the Germans, for example, or anyone in Europe, who will be sticking with very strict energy efficiency rules. That is exactly what we should be doing.

Not only do we think that we need to keep the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act, but I say again that payback periods needs to be made mandatory. I can only assume the reason for doing this is to allow for more corporate welfare from the government under Direct Action. They want to get rid of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act and get rid of any reporting, keep the complete lack of transparency, keep the fog and then get these big coal-fired generators to come along to the government and say, 'Give me some money to put in some energy efficiency equipment and I will do it.' That is what it is about. It is about taking away any regulatory arrangements so that taxpayers' money can be given to the corporates under Direct Action. It is a precursor to where we are going with the government's Direct Action.

It will not be additional—that is the point. They want to get rid of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act and get rid of any regulatory requirement to report and then fudge the figures on additional effort. Under Direct Action it has to be Kyoto compliant. To be Kyoto compliant, it will have to be additional. But now we are getting rid of all the regulation. The rest of the world is going to look at us and say we are cheap. They are going to start auditing how Australia is calculating what it is doing on climate change because of the dodgy deals going on. All of this legislative effort is designed to facilitate dodgy deals that will be done in the name of energy efficiency and Direct Action. You have to think that the intention to repeal the act is that it places a small compliance requirement on huge businesses and the government is committed to arresting the rapid decline in energy demand that has occurred since 2009 and 2010 in order to prop up its associates in the failing fossil fuel generation sector.

That is what I said at the start. This is all about using more energy, using more coal, getting the coal fired generators cranked up, making Australian business less efficient and ultimately putting people out of business. Then, when they are going out of business because they are so inefficient in a rust bucket economy, they will have their hands out to the government and Mr Palmer's new inquiry about manufacturing assistance because the government will have facilitated them in being less efficient and competitive than they should have been. What a disgrace. That is not the action of a clever, innovative country. That is not the action of a country moving to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, pollution and fossil fuel generation. It is the action of a country saying, 'We want to lock together economic growth and coal fired power,' which has been a disaster in this century and a recipe for backwardness. This is very bad legislation.

I conclude by saying to the Labor Party: do not go out and try to con the community by saying one thing and doing another. You are facilitating the end of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act because, no doubt, the coal and gas fired generators out there want this legislation gone. The big polluters want it gone, and Labor is facilitating them while making speeches saying how bad it is. It is so dishonest.

The Greens will not be supporting this legislation. We remain committed to a national energy efficiency target. I remain committed to bringing back this legislation with changes making it mandatory to report and introducing a mandatory schedule for implementation of the recommendations those reports make in relation to energy efficiency for big emitters and big users of energy in Australia.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014. The Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act gave rise to a program which was designed to address market failure relating to the availability and use of energy efficient information.

More broadly, this bill leads me into a discussion on where we sit in the world at large. Recently, Australia signed a Korean free trade agreement. Energy features large in that particular agreement; energy and mineral products account for approximately 80 per cent of the value of Australia's merchandise exports to Korea. While many Australian minerals and energy exports to Korea enter duty free, Korea has applied tariffs of up to eight per cent on a range of priority resource products and tariffs of up to 13 per cent on manufactured products. This tells me where in the globe the energy efficiency opportunities are. Even Korea itself has passed legislation setting up a national emissions trading scheme.

The Labor Party is the party of jobs, investment and growth. We have consistently been the party that has supported economic growth underpinned by a responsible social safety net. We believe in growth combined with fairness; we have been champions of free and open trade that serves the national interest. As a party, we have perused deals for the benefit of Australian industry that suit the current and future economic times. We have delivered outcomes for Australia that fully recognise our strengths and positions in the world. We are the party of APEC, the party of the G20 and the party of gaining a seat at the UN Security Council. We have a strong track record over the last 30 years of advocating for trade liberalisation. That record has delivered economic growth, created more competitive industries and benefited Australia's consumers and workers. We are committed to an open global trading system because reducing global trading barriers and expanding trade is a pathway to a high skills, high wage future for Australians.

What concerns me most about this legislation and the position that those opposite have adopted is that they are not the party of those things. We saw that in the recent report of Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which reviewed the free trade agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the Republic of Korea. As that report stated, the Republic of Korea is Australia's third-largest export market, our fourth-largest trading partner and a growing investment partner. In agriculture, resources and services, Korea is a significant export market for Australian industry. Our two-way trade is valued at over $30.5 billion in the last financial year. That free trade agreement covers beef, sugar, dairy, wheat, wine and horticulture. Combined, those sectors employ 20,000 workers.

We have a government that does not want to support opportunities in energy; it does not want to support programs designed to address market failures relating to the availability and use of energy efficiency information. On the other hand, we have former Labor governments that commenced negotiations with Korea for a free trade agreement. The Abbott government finalised those negotiations earlier this year. The role of the committee is to assess free trade agreements against the national interest. Further, its role is to scrutinise and assess the quality of any agreement signed in Australia's name, and that is what the committee's report did. The current state of play in relation to Australian-Korean trade is a story of tariff walls and increased competitive disadvantage. However, they have moved on an emissions trading scheme. The regulation impact tabled with the FTA shows current average Korean tariffs on agricultural goods of 53.6 per cent. Australian exporters to Korea are facing stiff competition with other countries. The European Union, the United States, the ASEAN group and Chile all have preferential arrangements in place with the Republic of Korea. New Zealand and Canada are close to concluding their own arrangements. The Centre for International Economics puts Australia's potential disadvantage without an FTA at a reduction of five per cent in exports by 2030. Under this agreement, tariffs will be zeroed on 84 per cent of the imports from Australia to Korea immediately. In 10 years, tariffs will be zeroed on 95.7 per cent of Australia's imports.

The Korean FTA is an important vehicle for Australia's beef producers—both farmers and meat-processing companies. The United States already has an FTA with Korea which gives American beef producers significant tariff cuts in the Korean market. Those tariff cuts will grow over the coming years. This means Australian beef producers risk being placed at a competitive disadvantage against their American counterparts in Korea. The government has failed to recognise that that is a problem which can occur in other areas, such as here where energy is so important. The Korea-Australia FTA will address this problem but not the root cause of this government not addressing energy efficiency. It will help improve Australia's industry-competitive position in the Korean market through significant reductions in Korean tariffs on Australian beef. The challenge, of course, for Australia is to decide whether to accept higher tariffs and less market access and disadvantage to other trading partners or to strike a deal in the national interest. Whilst forming the view that it is in the national interest to have a Korean FTA, there is a legitimate role for criticism as there are real concerns with the treaty. It is appropriate for these concerns to be ventilated and weighed against national interest.

Labor does have concerns about the quality of the Korea-Australia free trade agreement delivered by the Abbott government. There are two areas of concern to note: intellectual property rights and the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provisions. Rightfully, the committee report highlights the ongoing concern of the inclusion of intellectual property rights in the FTA. The Productivity Commission has raised this issue as well, noting:

… any IP provisions that are proposed for a particular agreement should only be included after an economic assessment of the impacts, including on consumers, in Australia and partner countries.

This is sound advice, and the majority report notes this concern. I want to credit the work of Mr Tim Watts in this area of the inquiry in highlighting the importance of the issue in that report.

The most significant and contentious issue raised by this free trade agreement is the inclusion of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, known as an ISDS clause. I acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns with ISDS provisions, and at the outset these need to be taken in context. In short, the ISDS is not new. As a nation we have had 28 such provisions with other economies. More than 3,000 international investment agreements include ISDS provisions. Safeguards unique to the Korean FTA are in the agreement, and I welcome them. For its part, Labor does not believe the ISDS provision should be included in Australia's free trade agreement. That was our position in government. However, the government's position is that ISDS clauses should be considered on a case-by-case basis. This agreement, as the report noted, includes carve-outs for public welfare, health, culture and the environment. I understand that the agricultural sector are positive or at least neutral in relation to the addition of such clauses. The report detailed correctly the argument for concern on ISDS clauses.

The European Parliamentary Research Service has examined this issue in some detail. I note that the highest level of treaty based dispute were registered in 2012, in a growing trend of increased disputes. The European parliamentary paper further highlights ISDS concerns of transparency, independence and impartiality, costs and the chilling effect on state regulatory powers.

Of course, in the alternative, the United Nations has drafted models reform that include boosting transparency measures, establishing powers within the international investment court to handle matters, and instituting appeal mechanisms. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has stated:

Challenges posed by today’s investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) regime create momentum for its reform.

Further, it states:

The proliferation of ISDS under international investment agreements (IIAs) shows the importance this mechanism has gained. But it also increasingly reveals that there are a number of problems.

It is stated fact that the Korean government would not sign the agreement without an ISDS mechanism and so it appears here. But noting all the legitimate and real concerns, the question still stands as to whether the agreement is in the national interest. The majority report recommendation demonstrates where the committee landed on that question.

When this government looks across the world, it looks with blinkers on—shocking blinkers. It looks at specific areas that do not have emissions trading schemes and that do not have energy efficiency programs and highlights those as being the places where we should all look. If you look across our major trading partners, you do find important work being done in Korea on an emissions trading scheme and in the US on an emissions trading scheme. You find important work being done across the globe for programs which require large amounts of energy efficiency. And where there is market failure we should assist. We should talk about how to drive down emissions, which can save industry significant amounts of money per year in power expenses.

The independent ACIL Tasman review of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Program found it has delivered benefits to participants well in excess of the costs. All of that tells us why Labor should allow the passage of the legislation on the basis that it was a Howard government policy implemented before there were any credible and long-term clean energy initiatives.

This government have not been up-front with the Australian people about what they are going to do under Direct Action. How are they going to manage that program to ensure transparency, to ensure that it drives down emissions? The Korean government have implemented an emissions trading scheme that is transparent, open and accountable; whereas this government has not even provided the design of what Direct Action is going to look like. With those few short words, I will leave the debate at that, recognising that it is a noncontroversial opportunity to speak and that I should not incite the coalition too greatly on this issue.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank contributors to this debate, in particular Senator Ludwig, for a wide and far-ranging contribution that at times seemed to have little particular relevance to the legislation before the chamber. But I acknowledge his interest in matters that stretch further afield than perhaps Australia's energy efficiency arrangements.

The Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014 is important legislation, because it removes another red tape burden from Australian business. This bill has a commencement date that is retrospective of 29 June 2014, in line with the announcement that was made for the removal of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Program. Repealing this program will save Australian businesses over $17.7 million per million. That is $17.7 million that can be funnelled into energy efficiency practices rather than being wasted on unnecessary red tape compliance. Ultimately, this program as it currently operates is all about assessment and reporting requirements placed on businesses. We hear others claim that those requirements have saved industry money. The truth is that it is the actions of industry and energy efficiency that have saved industry money. Businesses do not need regulation to tell them that they should save money by keeping their electricity bills as low as possible. It is common sense for businesses, for households, for anybody to be able to keep their bills as low as possible,

With this in mind, this program, although it has of course seen some achievements in its life, ultimately comes at a cost to business such that when it is removed we will be able to see that money go into efficiency elsewhere. I acknowledge that the Labor Party and the Greens do not seem to have seen any regulatory reporting arrangements, taxes or the like that they have not liked. But in this case I am pleased that Labor appears to not be a block of the change. We want to make sure in this place that across all areas we reduce the red tape and green tape burden as much as humanly possible. I heard during the debate comment about the Renewable Energy Target and the claim that it has created thousands of jobs. Well, the thing those opposite all need to learn is that when it comes to input costs like energy, when it comes to compliance costs like regulation, you want to keep them all as low as possible, because that is how you strengthen every other business in the economy and the rest of the economy. With that, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.