Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Bills
Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025
Please do not quote
Proof only
Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025
Council’s amendments
Message from Council relating to following amendments considered:
1. Clause 1, page 3, after line 13 insert –
“(ea) to amend the Electricity Industry Act 2000 to enable licensees that sell electricity to more than 5000 customers, rather than the Essential Services Commission, to set the rate or rates at which those licensees purchase small renewable energy generation electricity from customers; and”.
2. Clause 2, line 17, after “7” insert “, 7A”.
3. Insert the following New Part after Part 7 –
‘Part 7A – Amendment of Electricity Industry Act 2000
97A Section 40FBA substituted
For section 40FBA of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 substitute –
“40FBA Rates for purchases of small renewable energy generation electricity
For the purposes of section 40FB(2)(a), in each financial year the amount to be credited against the charges payable to a relevant licensee by a customer who is a relevant generator is the amount determined at the rate or rates published as part of the general renewable energy feed-in terms and conditions under section 40G.”.
97B Section 40FBB repealed
Section 40FBB of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 is repealed.
97C Retailer licence condition relating to purchase of small renewable energy generation electricity
(1) For section 40G(1)(a) of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 substitute –
“(a) to publish general renewable energy feed-in terms and conditions including, but not limited to, a rate or rates for the purposes of section 40FBA; and”.
(2) After section 40G(1) of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 insert –
“(1A) A rate included in the general renewable energy feed-in terms and conditions for the purposes of section 40FBA must not be less than $0.00 per kilowatt-hour.”.
97D New section 124 inserted
After section 123 of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 insert –
“124 Savings provision – Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Act 2025
(1) Despite the amendments made to this Act by Part 7A of the amending Act, the rate or rates applying for the 2024 financial year under section 40FBA (as in force immediately before the commencement of section 97A of the amending Act) for the purposes of section 40FB(2)(a) are taken to continue to apply until 30 June 2025 for the purposes of section 40FB(2)(a).
(2) This section does not affect or take away from the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984.
(3) In this section –
amending Act means the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Act 2025.”.’.
4. Long title, omit “and the Land Act 1958” and insert “, the Land Act 1958 and the Electricity Industry Act 2000”.
That the amendments be agreed to.
I wish to say some words in support of this. No government has supported more households to access the benefits of rooftop solar than the Allan Labor government, through our $1.3 billion Solar Homes program, the largest household solar program in the country. The huge uptake of solar in Victoria has helped push daytime wholesale prices to historic lows. This means lower power bills for everyone but also means that the minimum feed-in tariff is no longer required. Solar customers will continue to benefit enormously from using the power generated on their own rooftops, with customers who maximise their solar saving over $1000 a year. Although there will no longer be a minimum feed-in tariff, solar customers can still find better feed-in tariff rates using the Victorian Energy Compare tool – again, a first for this country. It is independent, supported by government and a tool that every Victorian can have confidence in to get the best advice that suits them.
Victoria’s independent regulator of essential services, the Essential Services Commission, annually sets the minimum feed-in tariff rates for Victoria on a financial year basis. The proposed minimum rate for 2025–26 is 0.04 cents per kilowatt hour, down from 3.3 cents in 2024–25. This continues a decline in feed-in tariffs. Now that the feed-in tariff is effectively zero, the Victorian government is committed to removing the requirement for the ESC to publish a minimum feed-in tariff, via an upper house amendment to the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. This would bring Victoria into line with Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Each of these states does not have any minimum feed-in tariffs any longer.
The Victorian government has ruled out ever charging customers to export their solar, even when daytime prices are negative. Feed-in tariffs reflect wholesale prices during the day, when solar is generating. Feed-in tariffs are falling because of declining daytime wholesale market prices. There is so much solar entering the grid during the day that wholesale spot prices are often falling into the negative. The administrative costs of setting a minimum feed-in tariff can no longer be justified due to the rate being effectively zero.
Ending the minimum feed-in tariff would reflect the success of Victoria’s Solar Homes program. By driving the take-up of solar the program has reduced the costs of solar installation and helped place downward pressure on wholesale prices for everybody. The free solar being generated during the day is great for all customers because it drives wholesale prices lower. It is one of the reasons that Victoria has the lowest wholesale and retail power prices in the country.
For households, the Victorian default offer for 2025–26 will be $448.90 per year, or more than 21 per cent cheaper than the equivalent default offers in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland.
For small businesses, the VDO for Victoria will be $1582.80 per year, more than 30 per cent cheaper than the draft average default offers across the other states. Households and businesses can visit Victorian Energy Compare to shop around for a retailer who will offer them a better rate. However, Victorian retailers tend to default to the minimum rate. The overwhelming financial benefit of solar for customers is the savings to their own electricity bills gained by using the electricity their solar systems generate to avoid paying the retail rates for electricity. Solar Homes customers who maximise their solar are saving more than $1000 a year. Solar Homes will help Victorians save more than an estimated $500 million a year on their electricity bills once the program reaches its completion. That means more money back into the pockets of hardworking Victorians.
I do want to say that those opposite have never supported this government’s programs to help Victorians save money on their energy bills – not once. Through our $1.3 billion Solar Homes program we are helping more Victorians access the benefits of solar. The program provides subsidies to reduce capital costs for solar systems. In fact 2024 was the biggest ever year for our program. More than 80,000 applications were approved, and more than 79,000 systems were installed in 2024 alone. Demand for rebates is already up 22 per cent this year. In February Victoria surpassed 360,000 solar battery and hot-water systems installed through the successful Solar Homes program, including 300,000 solar rooftop systems. The program is very accessible. More than 6800 renters have had rebate applications approved to install solar PV, 30 per cent of rebates are going to regional Victorians and 57 per cent of solar rebates have gone to households with incomes of less than $100,000. We will always help Victorians save on their energy bills with our rebates and discounts to make their homes cheaper to run and more comfortable to live in. I commend the amendments to the house.
James NEWBURY (Brighton) (14:57): I rise to briefly speak on the amendments that the government has moved be agreed to, which effectively kill feed-in tariffs in Victoria. You might be surprised to hear about it, because there was no real announcement and there has been no ministers statement. In fact this is an amendment that has been snuck in on a bill in the Council quietly in the dead of night. There has been no associated announcement with it, which is the form of the government. In the upper house we made the point strongly, though we did not divide on the amendment, that what this amendment does is kill feed-in tariffs in Victoria.
A concern that we have as a coalition is that people made decisions based on information at the time, and the feed-in tariff was a significant part of many people in the community’s decision-making factors when taking up solar. And why wouldn’t it be? For the government to scrap it effectively without any notification, without any real consultation and certainly without any ministerial fanfare – I mean, on this side of the chamber we look forward to the minister doing a dance in her ministers statements and getting up and about. On this one we have heard nothing about scrapping the feed-in tariffs. What I found very interesting when the minister spoke about the scrapping of the feed-in tariffs earlier was that taking money away from people, in the minister’s own words, was proof of success. Only Labor could possibly say taking money away from people is ‘proof of success’.
I know that many of the colleagues I have spoken to about this have had the reduction in the rate of the feed-in tariff raised with them over time. I certainly have. When people have made decisions about solar, it was certainly in their minds. The minister said something about what the coalition had previously done, and of course it was all wrong – I mean, clearly, there would be no other way.
At the last election, some three and a bit years ago, we made a significant policy announcement around solar and batteries. We leaned in on batteries because we knew we were not having anywhere near the uptake on batteries that we needed as a state, so we proposed extending the rebate scheme. At the time, people could seek a rebate for either solar or battery. We sought to change that, because we knew that it was important. I do note the government has worked out what a battery is more recently and they tried to come up with policy to do something about that, some several years after we made our policy announcement, which I would have loved to implement had we won the election.
The minister also spoke about people who rent and live in apartments, and it is a big challenge. We talked about it when we made that huge announcement at the last election on policy. We talked a lot about renters and people who live in apartments and the need to provide them with an option. It is a very difficult policy issue. When the minister talks about solar being rolled out, it is true, but what the minister does not talk about is the absolute disparity for people who do not own their home. It is something that, frankly, governments have failed on – to ensure that home owners who provide accommodation through rental have the policy levers they need to make sure that solar is available for those people too. I know in my own community in places like Elwood people who rent would love to have that choice on their property. We spoke about that as a coalition and the need to incentivise home owners to take up that choice for their tenants where their tenant is requesting it and, frankly, remove the financial hurdle to make that happen. When it comes to providing for renters, this government has not yet fixed that policy space that absolutely requires addressing. When it comes to batteries, the government has worked out what a battery is, so they should be acknowledged for that. But in terms of the actual policy response, it should be noted that several years ago we had a very forward leaning policy at the last election, which the government has obviously read in terms of recognising some of the things we raised. It should be noted that at the same time we did announce legislating climate targets, which the former Premier dead opposed. Post the election, the government again obviously read our policy and recognised the need – after the Premier had left. The Premier changed and was on the way out, so they recognised again the need to legislate. I remember having an argument in this chamber with him about it where he said, ‘Absolutely,’ I think he said, ‘when hell freezes over,’ to me on legislating targets.
A member interjected.
James NEWBURY: It is in Hansard, Minister.
I would say this amendment, when it comes to feed-in tariffs, has been snuck in. No-one outside this chamber, and I am pretty sure most people even in the chamber right now who are not listening, would even know feed-in tariffs are being scrapped. People do not know, and it is shocking that taking away that financial incentive, which people leaned on when making a decision, has been described by the minister as proof of success.
As I said before, only a Labor government could take money away from people and say that is proof of success. There are people who will find out about these changes and who, having not been aware of them, will say, ‘When did this happen? How did this happen? Why did no-one tell us?’ Those are very fair and reasonable questions. Although we will not be dividing, we would certainly put it to the government and say that the least the government could do is advise people of the sneaky change they have made.
Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (15:05): I am surprised, to be honest, to be standing up and following the member for Brighton, having heard him manage in a great creative way to yet again, as the Liberal Party has always done, oppose our program and the energy transformation that we have been driving in this state. For those who have a long memory of this debate it is particularly remarkable that the Liberal Party, who opposed the introduction of feed-in tariffs for solar when they were introduced by the then Bracks–Brumby government in, I recall, 2009, are now here in 2025 opposing us as we seek to wind them up. The minister has already touched on this, but I will certainly go into some detail about exactly why it is that the Liberal Party were wrong in their decision in 2009 and are wrong again now in 2025. The principal reason for that is that between 2009 and 2025, in that 16-year period, we have seen a remarkable transformation of our energy system, led almost entirely by Labor governments.
But it is a pleasure to rise more generally in support of the amendments we have in front of us to the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025, which as we know has come back from the Council with additional changes to the Electricity Industry Act 2000 through the introduction of new part 7A and those other changes. More broadly, as I said, it is a pleasure to be speaking on this government’s energy agenda. I did have the opportunity in a previous sitting week this year to speak to the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025, which the Minister for Energy and Resources also introduced. As we know, that bill was debated cognately with this bill in the Council yesterday afternoon, because of course they are both part of the minister’s broader agenda for our energy transformation. I will say I am grateful to the member for Eureka, who is here, and also the member for Footscray, who have allowed me to speak a little earlier today on this matter than otherwise might have happened. I know that our energy transformation and the growth of renewables is very important to them and their communities, and I look forward to their further contributions on that topic.
The question in front of us does relate to the amendments, as the minister has addressed, regarding the winding up of the minimum feed-in tariff setting arrangements of the Essential Services Commission. As I say, it is important to understand that work and, particularly with the remarks of the member for Brighton, these amendments, which seek to wind up those feed-in tariffs. Certainly if you had introduced these amendments on their own in 2010, when we were just introducing feed-in tariffs, they would have been a disastrous idea. But now, in 2025, they are a good idea. As I have touched on, that is because of the transformation that has happened in the 16 years since. If we think back to 2009, it was remarkable back then the extent to which our energy system was entirely dependent on large-scale fossil fuel generators – of course at Hazelwood, Loy Yang and Yallourn – and the pipelines coming in from Bass Strait.
Many people here will of course remember the tragic circumstances of the Longford plant explosion, which from memory killed two workers and injured others. It is an event that reminds us of the critical importance of workplace safety but also an event that I suppose illustrated to everyone in Victoria at the time our dependence on that particular processing facility. From memory, Melburnians were without gas for days and possibly weeks after that particular event. But under this government, that set of circumstances where we relied entirely on these four key fossil fuel processors or generators, has now changed, and renewable energy is a much bigger part of the picture. I had the pleasure to work with the minister in an earlier role on the Victorian renewable energy auction scheme, which was a key part in getting I think now over 1000 megawatts of installed capacity of large-scale renewable energy into our system. Also, of course, this government has led the introduction of what we now refer to as distributed renewable energy. I cannot remember the exact figures, but that is a very significant contributor – certainly of the same magnitude, really, as large-scale renewable energy – in helping to move us away from fossil fuel dependency.
We have met through those two broad sets of initiatives our target to have 25 per cent renewables by 2020. That is done. I think it was 40 per cent in 2025, which we are going to achieve. Then most importantly we are on our way to 95 per cent renewables in 2035, and that will have completed what is an absolutely remarkable transformation from that starting point in 2009 that I alluded to. And as the minister knows well, that change to that more distributed system, which is so important, does change the nature of our energy industry. Any of us who have been involved in upgrading our own homes knows that those jobs are quite large and quite complex. They are very different to some of the jobs that might have been done in earlier work under the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) and our other initiatives, so we have seen bills, including the one in front of us, that are about ensuring that we have the right regulatory framework in place to support that very important work.
Turning then to the specifics of the bill – and I will come to the specific amendments that we are debating – those of us who followed the debate in the Council saw there was a significant debate about the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee, which this bill does wrap up. I do just want to touch on the very important work the member for Northcote has been doing with the minister on the way in which electricity lines interact with trees and particularly urban trees in her part of the world. That is also an issue up in Preston, and I am grateful for the way she is thinking through ways in which local councils, instead of lopping down trees unnecessarily, can apply conductor covers, install aerial bundled cables or indeed put lines underground to avoid the need to remove mature urban trees that she, I and many Labor members value. I will observe just briefly on the debate that occurred on that committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee that we as a government absolutely support the important technical and independent advice that people like the members of those committees can provide to us. I am lucky enough to be a person who has an engineering background. I know there are some other people in the house who have an engineering background, and we would never disparage the importance of that advice. But we do know that, in getting that advice, these days there are a lot of different ways you can do it. As Minister Stitt said in the other place, the changes here are not in any way to stop us getting that advice. They are just to give the minister and indeed to give Energy Safe Victoria a little bit more flexibility in terms of how they do so.
I will come back, then, to the very amendments that we have in front of us following that debate in the Council. As the minister said in her remarks, the key point is that these amendments will remove the process by which the ESC was setting a minimum feed-in tariff rate. It follows similar moves by Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. She has made it very clear we will never charge consumers for solar, so there will be a minimum. That minimum will simply be zero, and we will be saving ourselves the administrative costs of going through that exercise. Exactly as the minister said, that reflects the success of our program, where we now have the position that wholesale prices are in fact often negative because there is so much abundant solar in our system, and that is a great point for us to have gotten to. Those who introduced those feed-in tariffs in 2009 would be thrilled to hear we have finally got to the point where they are no longer needed. Of course, as the minister has also touched on, we are by no means stepping away from our very solid incentives for continuing energy transformation. It is just that those incentives are now taking a different form. And we have the VEU incentives that we spoke about in the previous debate and Solar Homes. I had the pleasure actually of joining the minister when we launched the Solar for Apartments program with Henry, I think it was, in Fitzroy North. We had a fantastic morning hearing from Henry, and we heard just earlier that Henry has now been joined by 6800 other renters who have taken up that particular program.
We were very happy to see a federal Labor government re-elected recently, and they have made a further range of commitments, notably their cheaper home batteries program, which many of us are looking forward to taking up and continuing to work closely with them as we worked closely with them on that Solar for Apartments program that we launched with the minister. Of course, as the minister said, unfortunately the Liberal Party have a different view, and I believe it was not that long ago the member for Murray Plains was going around saying that sustainable energy is light-years away from being a viable solution to the state’s energy needs. Unfortunately, I still see this stuff circulating myself, where people say because of nickel prices or lithium prices that our transformation is not feasible. I am going to ask those people to look around this state; look around at how we are generating our energy right now. They will see the work that we have done since 2009 to bring us to the place where we are right here today able to support these amendments that remove those tariffs because of all that work that has been done. And they will see it is not impossible but in fact has to a large degree happened. It is continuing to happen, and this government has met every one of its targets for renewable energy and will continue to do so.
This is a bill that does a lot of very important work in terms of safety, but I particularly commend the amendments that we are debating here today. As I say, they are an important part of our energy transformation to move off fossil fuels and onto renewable energy.
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:15): I am just going to say a few words on this, but I will just take up the last comments made by the member for Preston about how the transition is going, because it is very easy these days to quickly have a look at what is currently happening with electricity supply. If I look on the National Electricity Market app, currently and pretty much for the last 24 hours around about 80 per cent is coming from brown coal, so good luck when that goes. I am very happy to support renewables – very happy to support renewables, Minister – but 100 per cent renewables is not going to work to keep the lights on.
Lily D’Ambrosio interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: Who said 100 per cent, Minister? You are the one that is opposed to gas. You do not even want gas, let alone coal.
Lily D’Ambrosio: You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Danny O’BRIEN: I don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, Minister, this is how well it is going for your renewables at the moment: 80 per cent brown coal powering Victoria for the last 24 hours – and it has been sunny, I might add. It has been a beautiful, sunny couple of days. Anyway, on the on the amendment, because it would be wrong of me to digress away from the amendment –
Lily D’Ambrosio: He opposes energy efficiency. He said so on Sky News last week.
Danny O’BRIEN: I have not done Sky News for a long time, Minister. I think you have got your members confused, Minister.
This is a continuation of the sort of energy policy that we are having a debate about – that the government is bringing in an amendment like this literally under cover of darkness in the upper house last night. This is a significant issue, to remove the feed-in tariff for solar on homes. Every MP, I am sure, is aware of this issue because we have all had the complaints over the last few years about the solar feed-in tariff dropping. I understand the market realities. We have got so much solar on rooftops, and in the major market large-scale solar, that in the middle of the day there is just not any demand for it because it is oversupplied. Particularly when people are at work power usage is not as high as at the shoulders of the day, and as a result the feed-in tariff has had to keep coming down.
But this is news for all those people that the government has encouraged to go and get solar over the last few years. The people will be very angry about this, quite frankly, that the government has messed up its policy on energy so badly that it has to sneak an amendment like this into another bill at the last minute, and it is a considerable amendment. The solar feed-in tariff has been a feature of solar on rooftops of households for around about 20 years. There were those lucky few that got in early and got locked in at 60 cents a megawatt hour and the like. Those days are long gone; we understand that. To be frank, for people coming to me over the last 10 years, if anyone has asked me, I have said, ‘If you can use the solar yourself, by all means go ahead and do it, but please do not make an investment decision based on the feed-in tariff, because it is going to continue to come down’, and as we are seeing now, the government is abandoning it all together. I had complaints considerably last year when it did drop to 3.4 cents. The fact is that the Essential Services Commission mandated figure is now down to 0.4 cents – as the minister herself said, that is effectively zero – so it becomes pointless.
I think this situation highlights the policy melange that the government is involved in when it comes to energy, that this has been just snuck into a different bill at the last minute to finally abolish the solar feed-in tariff. It highlights the government’s ineptness on electricity generally and energy more broadly, and I think Victorians, particularly those who have invested in the last couple of years, will be very upset about this decision.
Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (15:20): I too rise to speak on the house amendments to the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. First of all, I would really like to start my contribution by thanking the Minister for Energy and Resources for the incredible work that she has done in this space. I guess the point I really want to make is it is not just a thankyou from me, it is a thankyou from all of our children. This is going to impact many, many generations to come, and the work that she has done in this renewable space will make my children’s lives better now and into the future.
If I may paraphrase the member for Gippsland South, who spoke of a policy melange, I would point him to the opposition’s position on energy. We have the wonderful nuclear offering coming out of the feds, and we have seen how the public reacted to that proposition. Indeed their then leader, Peter Dutton, did not visit any of the electorates that he was proposing to put nuclear in, so I am not even sure if he supported that policy.
A member interjected.
Michaela SETTLE: He was indeed.
What I would also point to is this opposition and their opposition to the Solar Homes program. This is a program that has benefited thousands upon thousands of Victorians. I know I had solar panels on the house I have just moved out of, and it was an absolute delight to get my electricity bill every two months. It was tiny; it was absolutely tiny. We know that the Solar Homes program is saving Victorians thousands and thousands of dollars a year, but of course those on the other side decided to oppose and criticise this very program. The member for Caulfield claimed that solar rebates were a disruption to the market and unnecessary. On the one hand, they did not support the rebates back in 2016, but then when we come to discuss the reality of those rebates, they flip yet again.
I would like to remind people of what happened to energy prices the last time the coalition were in government. They absolutely crushed renewable energy investment, and the big energy companies just ran riot. I know that Gina Rinehart is a good friend to Peter Dutton, and certainly they spent a lot of time together. While you have got friends like that, who needs enemies? But the result of the policy from those on the other side when they were last in government is that we saw retail electricity prices increase by 34.1 per cent in the four years that they were in power. Since we have been in government we have seen the lowest default offer in the country, and we have supported consumers in many, many ways, not least of which was the power bill support program and of course the very many wonderful programs to which this bill speaks. The Victorian energy upgrades program has been an absolute success story, and it has really made such a difference to so many people.
The amendments here should indeed be a celebration for everybody in the house, because what they speak to is the absolute success of the solar program. It makes complete sense that with so many solar cells on people’s houses, not only are they saving money but of course that generation of electricity impacts the wholesale price. So, this amendment speaks to the success of the program, and I think that in fact it should be something that those on the other side would celebrate rather than speak against. But as I say, none of us is entirely clear what those on the other side believe we should be doing to keep the lights on. We have such wonderful proposals as the nuclear option, which Australians and Victorians have absolutely made clear their feelings on. But of course at every step those on the other side have opposed the programs that we have brought in, like the Solar Homes program and of course now these amendments.
I started by saying I thank the Minister for Energy and Resources for what she is doing for my children’s future and their children’s future. I would ask that those on the other side stop playing political games and ask themselves: what is the best path forward for Australia and Victoria’s future? That is under renewables, and I would ask them to support this house amendment.
Tim READ (Brunswick) (15:25): The Greens will support this house amendment. The Greens were strong supporters of feed-in tariffs when they were first introduced as an incentive years ago to encourage the uptake of rooftop solar. But now, with so much household solar coverage and often negative wholesale power prices in the middle of the day, they have served their purpose and are no longer required. In fact probably the up-front installation cost of solar was more of a barrier to people installing solar, and still is, compared to how much money people might make over time subsequently. While we are supporting this amendment before us today, at this stage of the transition we do urge the government to concentrate their efforts towards increasing the capacity of our renewable grid. I know that they are working on this, but we are pushing them to go as fast as they can.
Now, for example, would be a good time to introduce initiatives such as flexible solar exports, which South Australia has, which give greater flexibility for households looking to export excess power to the grid. A lot of people may not be aware that people with larger systems on their roof generally may not export more than 5 kilowatts to the grid. But in South Australia, if the grid can cope with it, that cap is temporarily lifted. That allows for a greater proportion of the energy generated in that state to come from solar energy. If South Australia can do it, I think we can too.
There is also a lot more we can do to improve storage capacity by both investing in big batteries and subsidising household batteries. I know the government is doing both of these things. I would encourage the government to invest more in this and in encouraging bidirectional EV charging, and I note that the other place is considering an inquiry into this very topic. Most importantly, the government should be working to remove barriers for the more than half of Victorians who still have trouble accessing solar for their own homes – primarily renters, people living in social housing and people who cannot afford the installation cost even with the existing subsidies, as well as those who live in apartments with uncooperative owners corporations.
I just want to comment briefly on the amendment from the Liberals to prevent the abolition of the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee, which was also in this bill. We thought long and hard about this, because obviously we support the intention to retain as much tree canopy as possible. However, we are taking the government at their word that removing the committee and having a regulatory impact statement to update the regulations may well actually help to improve the regulations and keep more trees where possible. For example, they may not go down to the 300-millimetre clearance, but they might achieve 500 millimetres, which would definitely be a step forward and retain a lot more canopy across Melbourne. Obviously the Greens would support going to the 300-millimetre clearance where that is possible. However, we understand the arguments from the minister’s office, and we do appreciate they are engaging with us and answering our questions about this bill. I am going to conclude my comments there.
Motion agreed to.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): A message will now be sent to the Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.