Economic News, Investor News

Environmental Impact Of Australian Housing And What The Politicians Have To Say

The Housing Industry Association of Australia approached all major political parties and asked the hard questions regarding critical policy issues.

What is the policy position taken by each major party including the Australian Labor Party, The Liberal National Coalition and The Greens. Find out about the environment

The Environment 

What measures and actions will you support and progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s nine million existing dwellings?

Labour -

Energy efficiency is a crucial component of the Federal Labor’s response to climate change. Our buildings, homes, schools and appliances help determine the extent of our carbon footprint, the size of our energy bills, and the sustainability of our communities.

The Gillard Labor Government’s LivingGreener website (http://www.livinggreener.gov.au/) provides a single one stop green shop for information on energy, water, waste and transport programs. It gives practical tips on how to save money at home and on the road. The website has received more than 600,000 hits since it was launched, and has helped thousands of Australians find assistance from Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments.

The Gillard Labor Government, with the States and Territories, is helping phase-out greenhouse-intensive water heaters and energy inefficient lighting in Australian homes. This will help householders save money on their energy bills and contribute to the reduction of Australia’s greenhouse emissions. Currently about 50 per cent of Australia’s 8 million homes get their hot water from electric hot water systems. These systems produce up to 2.5 times more greenhouse gas emissions than solar or other low emission hot water heaters.

Federal Labor has also delivered more than 300,000 sustainability assessments to households around Australia. This advice helps households with practical advice on saving energy and reducing their impact on the environment.

Coalition -

The Coalition is the only major party with a serious policy to tackle climate change. Labor has recently announced yet another talkfest called a “Citizens’ Assembly” to camouflage their intention to put a price on carbon and fundamentally damage the Australian economy.

The Coalition has a Direct Action Plan to mitigate climate change. We will cut carbon emissions by 5 percent by 2020. Part of our plan is to establish an Emissions Reduction Fund that will directly fund projects that improve environmental outcomes and result in meaningful emissions reductions. It will fund a range of emissions reductions projects across Australia. These projects could include the development of new products that could make Australia’s dwellings more efficient.

Greens -

The Greens main policy to help reduce emissions from existing dwellings is an Energy Efficiency Target, to run in parallel with the existing Renewable Energy Target.

Just as electricity retailers are now required to surrender certificates created by the production of renewable energy, the Energy Efficiency Target scheme will require the surrender of certificates representing verifiable energy savings (often known as ‘white certificates’).

We have draft legislation, called the Safe Climate (Energy Efficiency Target) Bill, which provides for the creation of white certificates in any sector (residential, commercial or industrial) and harmonize existing similar schemes now operating in NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Australia’s energy use is growing, and without strong action from Government’s, total demand for energy is projected to grow by more than 20 per cent over the next decade. This bill sets an aggressive energy efficiency target of 3 per cent per annum to reverse that growth. In fact this Bill alone would reduce emissions from electricity consumption by more than 13 per cent by 2020.

Supporting the Energy Efficiency Target would be a scheme assist low income households substantially upgrade their energy efficiency, significantly reducing greenhouse emissions and the impact of higher energy costs.

This scheme would provide free energy audits to around 25 per cent of all households and fund the installation of all cost effect efficiency options, with savings due lower electricity and gas bills to exceed the cost of the repayments by a conservative margin.

Householders will pay back the cost of the upgrades through the tax system wherever possible (similar to the Higher Education Contribution System) or, if the homeowner is not a taxpayer, as would be the case for pensioners, repayments will be collected via Centrepay.

Will you commit to supporting an independent performance assessment of houses built under previous and current energy efficiency regulation before considering any further regulation to increase energy efficiency stringency of new housing?

Labour –

The Gillard Labor Government, with the States and Territories, has changed the energy efficiency of new buildings to six stars, and will review this before any future change.

Code Compliant Planning Assessments

Coalition –

The Coalition has no plans to initiate a performance assessment of houses built under previous or current energy efficiency regulations. But we would take into account the performance and impact of older regulations before introducing any new ones.

Greens – The Greens main focus is the Senate – also known as the House of Review. While Senators can write legislation, their primary job is to scrutinize and improve legislation proposed by the Government of the day. The Greens take this job extremely seriously, and we believe that any new policy should be based on the best available evidence.

We would want to see a credible and reliable, and if necessary an independent assessment performance assessment of previously built homes before passing more stringent energy efficiency regulation. That said, to date we have received numerous submissions from energy efficiency experts from within Australia and abroad arguing that Australia’s existing standards are below best practice and that it is in the best interest of future homeowners that efficiency standards be strengthened.

Source: HIA Media Release

 Subscribe to our FREE newsletter or RSS feed. Receive updates in My Yahoo!, Google, and others. .