Thursday, 31 October 2024
Bills
Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024
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Bills
Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024
Second reading
Debate resumed on motion of Gayle Tierney:
That the bill be now read a second time.
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:24): I will not say I am pleased, but I am very determined to make some points as I rise concerning the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. This is an omnibus bill; it does lots of different bits and pieces. There are some parts of the bill which we have no difficulty with, but there are other parts of the bill that the Liberals and Nationals vehemently oppose. We think that the gas aspects – and I will come to all those in due course – are misguided and destructive and will cost families and businesses very dearly indeed. The bill provides regulation-making powers, as I said, for the government’s Gas Substitution Roadmap, but before I get to that I am just going to deal with these other matters.
The bill contains provisions to empower municipal governments and other relevant building surveyors to serve building notices and make certain orders that may require the owner of land, a building or a place of public entertainment to take certain necessary actions.
The bill also provides for clarifications to ensure that limitation periods for bringing building or plumbing actions under the Building Act 1993 are subject to the provisions of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Act 1998. These enable courts to extend limitation periods for the commencement of proceedings in circumstances where VCAT has referred a matter to the court and the court is satisfied of certain preconditions.
The bill also establishes a new scheme under the Architects Act 1991 requiring registered architects to annually renew their registration and for approved partnerships and companies to annually renew their approvals. It also introduces requirements for registered architects to be fit and proper persons and to give statements to that effect as part of annual probity checks of registered architects. Working backwards on this, the opposition has communicated with the architects associations, and that was in the person of our Shadow Minister for Planning Mr Newbury. It is clear that there is no objection to the changes in the Architects Act, and to that extent we have no concerns about that matter.
The bill makes a number of technical and miscellaneous amendments also to the Building Act, more generally the Architects Act, as I have said, and the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017.
There are various building aspects of this that, as I said, we do not fundamentally disagree with, but on others we do. The provisions around requests to council relating to protection work – the building notices and building orders – are not objected to; those are in clauses 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. We do not have objections to those parts of the amendments. As I said, the limitation on time, which is an amendment to enable VCAT to provide greater flexibility, is a sensible change, and the insurance provisions in division 4 are not opposed.
There are, however, as I said, some very difficult parts in here with respect to the Gas Substitution Roadmap, and I think it is important to put on record the context in which this bill comes to the chamber. Victoria obviously has targets, which have been broadly accepted, for greenhouse gas emissions and for other lower emission technology aspects, and we are broadly not opposing those decisions. However, the government’s mechanism of going around this has been deeply flawed, and the government, through the person of Lily D’Ambrosio, the minister, has led a war on gas – a deliberate charge, a deliberate attack on the choices of consumers and the role that gas could play.
It is clear that Victoria has a very large distributed gas network, larger than other states. We have many more homes on gas, and as we saw in February this year, it is a significant advantage. When the electricity went out across large parts of Melbourne and into country Victoria, those who had gas had some power in their homes. The were able to cook. They were able to have hot water. In some cases houses were off the electricity grid for many days and in some cases weeks, but if they had gas, they were in a much more secure position. There is what I would call a systems theory approach that would say having an energy network that is in place and providing an alternate source of energy into homes and businesses actually gives significant redundancy and protection to the consumer. The state government’s stated plan is that they want all of the gas network stripped out, ripped up, and they want every single house in Victoria off gas. They want most businesses off gas too, and they want to do it in any way that is required. They do not care if it is draconian, they do not care if it causes grief to people and they do not care if people cannot pay for it. They do not care if families are cold and children are left freezing in winter. They do not care. It is an ideological crusade that is being driven by this government in a nasty, vicious way to target gas and to strip gas out of homes in particular but also out of many businesses.
The government in its quieter times does concede that there are some businesses that will always need gas in any foreseeable future period. They occasionally concede that some of those businesses will need gas supply. The question is: how on earth do they get the gas? If you tear out the network, if the network is allowed to decline and run down, there will not be the ability to deliver gas in a cost-effective way. We have seen this today. We are seeing an early playing out of what is going on here. AusNet has applied to the Australian Energy Regulator to pass through tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure charges to consumers, households and businesses. It is a direct link. They have made the direct link, and I urge people to go online and read the document that AusNet has submitted to the energy regulator.
It says the reason for this is because of the Victorian government’s policies; that is what it says. The reason they are applying to increase the charges to consumers, the reason they are going to hit consumers, families and businesses with a huge slug in a cost-of-living crisis, is because of the Victorian government’s plan to strip out gas. That is what they say. It is clear. We have had a lot of shillyshallying around by the government and others in this recent period – ‘Oh, it won’t cause any concerns.’ Well, here it is; it is actually written in plain English. Go online and read it. The Victorian government’s Gas Substitution Roadmap, its plan to unwind the network, will cause increased infrastructure costs. They want a different depreciation regime. Who can blame the company, which is being lumped with this government policy. They say that is the basis for their application for increased charges to be passed through to every household and every business.
A member interjected.
David DAVIS: No, we give people the option. You are the one who is forcing people off gas.
A member: Where are you going to get the gas from, mate?
David DAVIS: Well, we have talked about that. It is time to start looking onshore to find the conventional onshore gas that we know is available. I have spoken to a lot of companies, and they say the conventional onshore gas is there. Ten years and not one single permit for exploration has been delivered by this government.
Members interjecting.
The PRESIDENT: Order! Mr McIntosh, you are not in your place.
David DAVIS: President, I am responding to interjections and provocations, so I am directly responding. As you know, President, I try to resist these things, but occasionally I will break out.
The fact is we now have proof positive that the state government’s gas policies are forcing up the cost for those who are going to have to pay it. That is families and it is small businesses. They are going to be slugged and hit very, very hard.
One of the rabble over there made some comments about where the gas will come from. Let me be clear. There is conventional gas onshore that is available. The fact that the government has not issued a single exploration permit since it came to power in 2014 is an indictment of this government. The fact is that there is conventional gas onshore, and we should have been giving permits and we should have been looking for places to find it and drill it. The truth of course is that Victoria has a lot of gas – everybody knows that. Further, there are other and innovative sources. In recent days we have seen the announced commencement of the hydrogen proposal in Wodonga. Five or 10 per cent of the gas going through the network in Wodonga, in Albury–Wodonga I might add, will actually be hydrogen introduced into the pipes. That will be in effect a shandy of gas, if you want to call it that. That is a way to put additional gas in the system.
I was honoured to attend and speak at a forum on biogas in Shepparton just a couple of weeks ago. There were more than 100 people there. It was a very good forum. There were people from industry, people from water bodies, some people from government and others. I thought some of the regulators made useful contributions. As part of my work for that, I went and read the submissions to the government’s biogas process, which is delayed. It has stalled. It has stopped because Lily D’Ambrosio hates that three-letter word: gas. She starts to quiver when you say gas. She becomes unhappy. Biogas is an alternative that can be used for part of the system. Nobody should pretend it is an entire replacement – of course it is not. But can it make a contribution to our gas? Yes, it can. We know in New South Wales that Jemena is actually doing this with one of its water sites. It is injecting biogas back into the grid. Further –
A member interjected.
David DAVIS: Your own authorities here have submitted to the government process, so if people want to go online and read the Melbourne Water submission to the biogas paper, what they will find is that Melbourne Water say they take the biogas from the eastern treatment plant – the largest of the plants that they operate. Most of the eastern side of Melbourne’s sewerage goes down there, and they take the biogas from there. Some of it is used to generate electricity, but a large part of it is simply flared. Every day it is simply flared – that is what the submission says. Do you know what Melbourne Water says? They would like to clean up that gas and inject it next door into the trunk gas pipe that runs past their premises – seems a pretty good idea. Rather than flaring the gas and not helping with greenhouse issues, they would rather inject it where it will actually be used by businesses and households. This is a very straightforward point that I am making here. We actually have access to more gas in this circumstance from a government authority –
David DAVIS: Well, they actually have some figures in there, and I invite you to go and read them. It is clear that it can make a meaningful contribution, and the Shepparton forum made it clear that in certain regional situations, biogas could actually provide full security for a number of the food processors and others in that city. There is access to biogas. People need to go and understand this stuff and understand that there are alternatives, that there are choices here and that it might be a good thing in the long run to have hydrogen down the system.
Also, if you look more broadly, we know that it is possible to run a house on hydrogen, and I invite members there to go to Wollert, where there is a hydrogen house.
Sarah Mansfield: It is very cheap.
David DAVIS: No, not in the current form, but they are testing. They are quite sensibly testing.
Members interjecting.
David DAVIS: Let me answer this first – one at a time, if you do not mind. The hydrogen house is able to use hydrogen for heating, for hot water and for cooking. I have to say that it is quite interesting to look at the hydrogen, and it goes up more than the methane that we are used to, where the heat comes out a bit more.
My point here is that this is functioning technology today. Indeed the Acting President will be pleased to hear that they can do a gas barbecue as well; they actually have a gas barbecue operating. The point here is that a lot of this technology is there. They are testing it. It is being used in other parts of the world, and nobody can say that hydrogen cannot be used as part of the network. It can be used as a shandy, but also in some circumstances it can be used for whole estates, particularly where they might be near a low-generation option where they can split water.
Tom McIntosh: Ah, renewables! Cheap renewables!
David DAVIS: I have got to say they are not always cheap, but they are cheaper where you do not need long-distance wires to get them to the relevant estates. You might be able to do this on a local basis. A good example might, in the end, be up around Wodonga and Albury; there could be options up there. The point here is Lily D’Ambrosio’s solution is to tear out the whole gas network, to break the redundancy option that we have –
Tom McIntosh: And you might use potential future technology – maybe, one day.
Richard Welch: On a point of order, Acting President, the member is pointing across the chamber and interjecting relentlessly.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I will direct Mr McIntosh to not point and to calm down a little bit, please.
David DAVIS: I will try to desist from responding to the interjections.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I uphold the point of order.
David DAVIS: I will return directly to the bill. The problem here is that the government has an ideological war on gas.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Order! Mr Davis to continue, without assistance.
David DAVIS: I am returning to the bill now. I have been diverted by discussions on all manner of different things – biogas, hydrogen and other points. The truth is that the government’s ideological war on gas will see the network stripped out and it will see people pay more, and we are seeing the first steps of that today with the distribution bodies pushing forward to say, ‘We’re going to have to be paid for the unwinding of the network and the infrastructure costs that are implicit in that.’ I would have thought that this is going to be very hard to answer, because those costs are true and if you do unwind the network, those who remain will pay more, whether they are businesses or whether they are households.
At the moment very few Victorians think that they can bear more energy costs. We have already seen electricity and gas costs surge massively. We discussed this in the chamber yesterday, but I return to the St Vincent’s work – Gavin Dufty’s work. He makes it very clear that last year we saw an increase in electricity costs of 28 per cent in Victoria – the highest in the country – and we saw gas go up by 22 per cent, also the highest in the country. That is the record of what people pay, so it is no wonder that families are burning. It is no wonder that families are feeling the pain. Already we have got interest charges and this state government’s massive tax increases, and now we have got this huge surge in energy costs driven by the failures of the Andrews and now Allan Labor government. That is the story. Victorians are already paying much more than they should and they are already paying much more than they did. That is the record of this particular Labor government: families and businesses have been hit.
I have had businesses come to me and indicate that they are moving interstate or overseas because of the surging gas costs. Again, it was a decision of the Labor government to not assist with exploration, to not assist with finding gas from other sources and to not keep the price down. It is likely that we will also end up with an import terminal, at least at Port Kembla and perhaps elsewhere down near Geelong, and that import terminal will mean additional gas will come in. One of the concerns with import terminals is that they tend to be more expensive, and that puts more pressure on the gas price and more pressure and challenges on families and businesses. Again, this is a direct result of Daniel Andrews, Jacinta Allan and Lily D’Ambrosio. Over 10 years they have not searched for more gas, they have not put more gas in the network. They are now actually targeting the gas network and stopping people’s choice. Many families want to have a choice. Chinese families have talked to me and said, ‘I want to have the option to cook with my wok on a gas stove,’ and that is a legitimate point. I am not opposed to that. I understand what they are saying. Indian community members have said the same to me. They actually like to cook on gas, and I understand that too. I personally prefer to cook on gas. I have got an electric house in in the city, and in the country I have a house that has got gas. I can tell you what, the gas heats the house better and it cooks better. That is actually the truth of the matter. It is actually better; it is cheaper and it is more effective. That is the truth. This government actually wants to target those who would choose to keep gas going.
First, I am just going to indicate what we intend to do with this bill so that the community and Labor –
David DAVIS: I propose that at the end of the second reading we refer this bill for a two- or three-week inquiry and hearings, likely by the Environment and Planning Committee. We think that that would be a very suitable way forward to get some hearings and actually understand further the cost and to allow industry to have their say. That is an important step. If that is not successful and the bill goes into committee, I will propose that on clause 38 we amend that clause. It might be that the amendment is distributed. It would be actually helpful to do that.
Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.
David DAVIS: The amendment will effectively lay out what the government itself has said. The government itself has said that, with respect to cooking appliances, people will be able to keep their cooking appliances. That is what they have said. So we will entrench that in clause 38, that people will be able to keep their cooking appliances. Anyone who votes against that is voting against the government’s own announced policy. It is a bizarre thing that clause 38 did not incorporate that point from the start, and it should have incorporated that point.
We are quite clear: we actually do not like any of this Gas Substitution Roadmap. We think the government has gone off on an ideological frolic. In doing so, we would oppose the whole approach, including the whole of that clause, but we think it is worthwhile offering members an alternative here and saying, ‘Do you agree with the government’s policy?’ They have brought this bill in, which has got a catch-all clause in clause 38 which gives them a head of power to regulate as they will on any reticulated gas matter in a new building, in an existing building. The reticulated gas approach would give them the power to really come down heavily on the plumbing industry, and that is a very wide and draconian power that we think is an overreach by this government.
But even if you just accepted what the government said, you would want to make sure that those cooking appliances are protected, and this amendment will do that. It will protect the cooking appliances in line with what the government has said. If you vote against this, you are voting against the state government’s own policy. You are crossing the floor in effect on the state government’s own policy to protect gas appliances. If you vote against this, you are voting against the rights of people to have the cooking appliances that they want.
As I said, clause 38 is an overreach on every level. We oppose that clause in itself. We think it is a huge overreach. It is not targeted, it is not thoughtful; it just gives the government power to do anything on reticulated gas on any premises anywhere in Victoria. We think that that is an overreach, and we will oppose that strongly.
There are many other things about the gas transition, as the government calls it, that have not been thought through. One of the issues is the electricity network itself. What we have discovered is when you look at the electricity network and you start to look at the capacity of individual houses, the government’s costings are completely cock-a-hoop. The cost to electrify houses is much greater in most cases than the government is estimating, and vastly greater.
I know Mrs McArthur will give some examples down in the Western District of houses where the cost to electrify is vastly greater than the government is admitting to. The government is also not costing in the cost of the local distribution network. When you electrify one house, two houses or three, four and five houses as you go along the street, suddenly the demand for electricity in the street is much greater. The government has nowhere costed the need to upgrade the whole electricity network in metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria – the whole network. If you are actually going to strip out gas everywhere, which is what the government says it wants to do – they have banned it already on new estates and they are in the process of banning it for rental properties. The replacement of equipment or appliances in rental properties is already well advanced. We know the government’s internal bureaucratic process is operating already, drafting up regulations to ban the replacement of gas appliances in every single house in Victoria. So if your gas heater carks it because it is old, you will not be allowed to replace it with gas. Let us be clear what is going on here. This is a very Stalinist approach. It is a sharp authoritarian approach. That is what we are looking at here. If you want to replace your hot-water service or your cooker when it has reached the end of its life, you will be banned from doing so. That is what the government is intending to do. That is the sort of power that clause 38 gives it.
Parallel with that the government has not thought about what happens to the electricity network. If you take all of that energy out on a cold winter’s night or a cold winter’s day in Melbourne, which gas provides currently, where will the electricity come from? There is a question about how it is generated and brought to the city or the country town, but then there is also the question of the street-level capacity. How is that capacity to be upgraded, and who will pay for that upgrade? Will it be you, Acting President? Will it be the clerks? Will it be the people who were here before from one of the schools? Will they be the ones who pay? I tell you what, every Victorian will be paying. We are tearing out one perfectly good system, and we will need to upgrade the electricity system. That will cost billions of dollars. Nobody is looking where the cost of that comes from, and nobody is admitting that you will have to pay through your electricity bills or elsewhere for that.
David DAVIS: Some people might want to trivialise points, but this is actually a very serious point. You do not have to be a rocket scientist. You do not have to –
David DAVIS: On a point of order, Acting President, we have a contribution of cackling over there that goes on and on and on relentlessly, and I think it is an interjection that is not needed.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I will allow Mr Davis to conclude his contribution in silence.
David DAVIS: Thank you. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realise that tearing out a perfectly functional system, the gas system, is cutting people’s choice and cutting people’s options, forcing them to pay more. They are going to pay more to maintain the gas system for a little while. That is the plan. We disagree with the plan, but that is the plan. Then we are all going to be transitioned to electricity over here, but nobody has a plan to upgrade the local networks or the homes. Who will pay for these homes? I tell you who will pay: it will be everyday Victorians. It will be another slug in in the guts for everyday Victorians, who are already doing it tough. We think this government is completely off beam on this, and we think it is time to push back and say enough is enough.
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:54): I rise to speak today on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024, which the Greens will be supporting. But before I turn to some of the substance of the bill, if there are young people out there and certainly if future generations want to ever understand why and how we did not act on climate change, I think listening to what has gone on in this chamber so far really says it all. We have got –
Sarah MANSFIELD: I will get to you in a minute over on that side, but on this side of the chamber we have had the opposition basically talk up a future that is filled with ongoing use of fossil fuels. On the other side of the chamber we have had interjections, and while I think Labor have done a reasonable job when comes to rolling out renewables, let us not mistake that for genuine climate action.
Members interjecting.
Sarah MANSFIELD: We have Labor – they were calling out, interjecting about having onshore gas fracking and the plans that the opposition might have, which certainly are something I would be concerned about. They are talking about more gas exploration. But Labor lifted the moratorium on onshore gas exploration on 1 July 2021. They issued permits to allow Beach Energy to extract offshore gas near the Twelve Apostles earlier this year, and just this week they passed a bill written specifically for GB Energy to allow offshore gas storage. Do not lecture us about being strong on climate action when you continue to approve new fossil fuel projects.
Right now we are getting news about catastrophic floods in Spain. We are seeing cars piled up on top of each other from some of the worst flooding we have ever seen. There is a report today to say that Australia has already hit 1.5 degrees of warming. That is absolutely terrifying. Any responsible government should be looking at doing absolutely everything they can to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, and that must include not approving new fossil fuel projects. It is very depressing that we have a Labor government that continues to approve new fossil fuel projects and an opposition that, if they are ever in power, have basically explained to us that they will continue to celebrate opening new fossil fuel projects and go actively looking for them.
However, the legislation that is before us today does take a promising step in the right direction when it comes to transitioning away from those fossil fuels. We need to be doing it faster, but this will help to reduce our demand for those fossil fuels and hopefully reduce the perceived need to go out and extract any further gas and help us to wind up our dependence on gas as quickly as possible.
We are particularly pleased to see that this bill expands powers to regulate the connection of piped gas into homes and to regulate the installation or replacement of gas in certain appliances. Fossil gas contributes to 17 per cent of Victoria’s total greenhouse gas emissions. It is Victoria’s 2 million-plus households, not industry, that contribute the highest proportion of these emissions. It is our household reliance on expensive fossil gas which has seen the Victorian government continue to green-light new gas projects across the state, including just this week, as I have mentioned, along our sensitive coastlines and in our marine environments. Reducing the demand for fossil gas by Victorian households is key to putting a stop to new gas projects in a climate crisis, but up until very recently many Victorians were still installing gas appliances into brand new homes without any support from the government to do otherwise. Governments allowing people to keep installing gas appliances in new homes makes as much sense as encouraging everyone to get VHS players or buy cars that run on leaded petrol, perhaps more like the latter given the increasing medical evidence of the health effects of having fossil gas appliances inside a house.
In the not-too-distant future generations will look back at this generation with incredulity that governments continued to allow people to ignite fossil fuels inside of their homes for heating and cooking, a technique that has barely evolved from the prehistoric period, but we need to do more than just stop hooking up new houses to gas. We need to transition all homes to all electric, 100 per cent renewable hubs, homes that incur minimal ongoing electricity bills while maintaining healthy levels of indoor air quality. More and more Victorians are making this transition already and are paying next to nothing to power their homes during this cost-of-living crisis.
Getting off gas will save a home up to $400 a year in connection fees alone. Getting off gas will ensure households will only have one bill instead of two, and that is before you account for the thousands of dollars in efficiency savings. We also know that gas appliances in the home are known to release harmful gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and formaldehyde. Australian medical research suggests exposure to gas stove emissions could contribute to over 12 per cent of current childhood asthma cases. Cheaper, cleaner, more efficient appliances; only getting one energy bill instead of two; not exposing your lungs to toxic chemicals in your own home every day – no wonder the gas industry is currently lobbying so hard to oppose electrification. They must feel like the owners of Blockbuster video stores did back in 2009, sitting on piles of an obsolete product. That is why they have launched a huge advertising campaign to promote ‘natural’ and falsely claim gas is a clean fuel. You see, things do not sound as bad when you prefix them with terms like ‘natural’: ‘natural coal’, ‘natural oil’, ‘natural real estate’, ‘natural syphilis’. How apt that the gas industry is gaslighting us to try and stay in business.
The Victorian government must not cave in to this campaign by fossil fuel companies. It should do more to support households. It should do more to ensure that the benefits of electrification are available to everyone, not just those households who have the means to make the initial investment or those that own homes instead of renting them. Getting all Victorian homes off gas is one of the best investments the government can make to both ease the cost of living and reduce emissions.
To do more to move households to electrification the Greens have some amendments, which I kindly request the clerks now circulate.
Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.
Sarah MANSFIELD: My amendments insert a clause into the Building Act 1993 allowing the government to create regulations to prohibit the installation of a solid fuel burning appliance such as a fireplace insert or wood heater. This clause enables regulation to be flexible enough to apply to buildings in different geographical areas, different classes of building or different classes of solid fuel burning appliances. As with the gas building regulations, this amendment is about not adding to a problem, in this case the health and climate impacts from household wood fires.
I talked about the link between gas and asthma, but wood heaters are worse for our lungs. According to Victoria’s air quality strategy published in 2022, wood heaters were responsible for 38 per cent of PM 2.5 – that is, very small particulate matter. These are the tiny particles that make their way right down to the smallest pockets of our lungs, to the surface of our lungs, where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged via the blood. Wood smoke causes asthma, emphysema, hospitalisations from cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease and premature deaths. The average wood heater in Melbourne burns 3.75 tonnes of wood per year, releasing harmful compounds into the atmosphere that affect not just those who own the heater but everyone in the area. With approximately 240,000 wood heaters across the state, these high-emission sources are expected to create approximately $8 billion in health impacts over the decade to 2028 if wood heater usage is not reduced. An additional concern is the widespread illegal collection of firewood, which is damaging many of our forests. It is much easier to not build wood heaters in the first place than to remove them a decade after they are installed. The government should regulate now to restrict installation of wood heaters in circumstances where cleaner forms of energy are available.
So, in summary, we will be supporting this bill. We believe we need to get households off fossil fuel dependence as quickly as possible. This legislation certainly goes some way to doing that. We still believe the government need to go further and faster, and we implore them to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and continue to work on reducing demand for fossil gas and helping households transition to all-electric homes. They are better for our climate, they are better for our environment and they are better for people’s health and wellbeing.
Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:04): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. The legislation before us today is doing a range of things, including introducing a suite of reforms to the building system to ensure that Victorians can build, renovate or buy a home with the confidence that they will get what they paid for, which is a properly built home. It is something that everyone should be able to expect, having a properly built and structurally sound home. The bill enables a suite of reforms that will progressively reshape the building system to strengthen consumer protection and improve the oversight of new builds. These are important protections that put in place measures to give the consumer – the homebuyer and home builder – more confidence that the biggest purchase they are ever going to make in their entire lives – that is, for many, a new home – is being built properly and is being built to the appropriate standards.
So many in our community, and we talk to people every day, have an absolute and undeniable aspiration to own their own home. Home ownership is something that Labor fundamentally supports both through this legislation and also through other policy agendas that the government has been rolling out. Giving more Victorians the opportunity to own their own home is exactly what this Labor government wants to do. It is sadly not an aspiration that is shared across the chamber and across the political spectrum. What this legislation seeks to do is ensure that when people are making those purchases, when people are buying a home or building a home, consumer protections are in place to give them confidence in the big decision that they are making, the big investment that they are making, the big mortgage that they are taking on, often in circumstances where for many of us there is a very clear information asymmetry between homebuyers and home builders. Most of us do not have a detailed technical understanding of building materials and structures. We rely on the system of consumer protections to make sure that our interests are protected. This bill will strengthen those protections and give greater confidence to those involved in the biggest purchase of their life.
Strengthening home owners’ rights to a safe and high-standard home is incredibly important as we build more and more homes across this state. We are also ensuring that builders and developers build these homes to the standards expected by residents. Through changes to the Building Act 1993 the bill sets out the limitation periods for commencing building and plumbing action, which will enable courts to extend the limitation periods for legal actions involving building and plumbing work in certain circumstances. The amendments strengthen consumer protections, ensuring consumers do not lose their right to legal action when transferring their matter from VCAT to a court. Without this amendment the delays involved in such a transfer between VCAT and a more appropriate court risks consumers losing their cause of action when the limitation period currently set out in the Building Act is reached.
The changes to the Architects Act 1991 will strengthen conduct in that industry when it comes to building new homes by replacing the existing annual fee for registration of an architect with a new annual renewal process for registering architects, approved companies and approved partnerships. The bill is going to streamline the Architects Registration Board of Victoria to enforce eligibility and continued professional development requirements and remove entities that are noncompliant from the Register of Architects.
This is a series of measures that reshapes the building system and part of a suite of this and future measures that the government has announced recently. We do not stop our policy work in this space. We do not stop our work in ensuring that our building and planning system is giving prospective homebuyers the confidence that they need and deserve. We do not stop that work; we will continue to do that.
That is a very important part of this legislation. It has not been a large feature of the debate today. Obviously in the contributions made, and Mr Davis did at the opening of his remarks go through these measures, I think we all agree these are important amendments to the building system. The bulk of the debate, it is fair to say, in the chamber today has been about the elements of this legislation that seek to support the implementation of the Gas Substitution Roadmap, which is a policy framework that the government has in place to support those Victorians who wish to make the transition from gas to electricity, supporting electrification of homes here in Victoria to deal with one of the elements that is helping the state to navigate the path to net zero emissions while cutting both energy bills and cost to consumers but also helping to ensure reliability of energy.
What the Gas Substitution Roadmap does is set out options that the state has to progressively electrify our residential and commercial buildings. Historically, we know that Victoria has relied on gas because it has historically been abundant, and abundance has meant that it has been cheap. But fundamentally gas is a fossil fuel that is non-renewable, and as our reserves have been diminished by extensive use for both commercial and residential purposes, our available gas fields in this state, which were a boon to us, have diminished. That has occurred with a commensurate increase in cost, so as supply is constrained, costs have increased, which means that for the Victorians that for generations had benefited from having abundance of gas and the lower cost option that gas presented – and I remember this being a feature of the childhood that we all grew up in, and that is what it was; gas was cheaper and gas was more efficient, and that is why we had gas stoves and gas heaters in our homes – that reality has changed. The new reality for Victorian households is that gas prices are going up and up and up and energy bills are going up and up and up.
So government is faced with a choice: we can consign Victorian households to ever increasing energy costs because they are stuck on gas that is getting more and more expensive or we can support them. We can support Victorian households to reduce their household bills, make the switch to cheaper electricity and make the switch to cheaper electric-based cooking and electric-based heating, giving them the options, the opportunity and the support to make the transition to cheaper household energy costs. That is exactly what the government’s policy agenda is designed to do, support Victorian households with cheaper energy costs.
We are not standing here wishing that the past was still present. We are giving Victorian households the tools they need, the support they need and the rebates they need. The Victorian energy upgrades program – we debated it yesterday. The Liberal Party is opposed to it and wants to see it scrapped. They tried to scrap the Victorian energy upgrades program when they were in power. Luckily they failed, because what that program is delivering is support to Victorian households to complete the task of electrification. We know that helping Victorian households on the path to electrification, which will be enabled by this legislation, will mean lower emissions and cheaper energy bills. This is what this legislation is achieving. What we have heard from the opposition is Mr Davis, in a very impassioned contribution, railing against the electrification of Victorian homes. I think it is the only time that I can possibly imagine Mr Davis being at home in the crowd at a folk festival. I thought of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Mr Davis, I am sure, would have been railing against Dylan going electric. When Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, it caused outrage, because no-one could think that possibly electrification was the future. But I reckon that the history of the 20th century shows that it was probably a good idea for those guitars to be plugged in and for something different to come out the other side.
The opposition wants to consign Victorian households to be stuck on gas that is more expensive than electricity and that is only going to get more expensive as the days, weeks and years go on. Mr Davis wants a future where Victorian households are forced to stay on gas. That is what they want. They want Victorians to not have the support of the programs that this Labor government have put in place to assist electrification. They are opposed. They spent a fair amount of time yesterday condemning an energy upgrades program that is helping Victorians make the transition from gas home appliances to electric home appliances.
This legislation, by putting in place provisions to support the Gas Substitution Roadmap, will help that to occur. The investments the government is making to support people to put solar panels on their roofs will make electricity cheaper, because we know obviously that the cheapest form of electricity ever possible is that which we get from the sun. The solar revolution that households right across this state have embarked upon is enabling them to take advantage of lower cost energy in their homes by making the switch to electric. Clearly what the opposition wants to do is to force people to stay on gas. This legislation is all about putting in place measures to support the Gas Substitution Roadmap, to give Victorians the opportunity to take advantage of lower energy costs in their homes and making a broader contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across our community. There are, as I have said, a number of provisions in the bill which are also designed to support better consumer protections in the system and to support Victorians who wish to own or build their own home. The Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024 is incredibly important, and I commend the bill to the house.
Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (11:19): It is no surprise that the part of this bill which concerns me most is part 2, specifically division 6, clause 38 – amendments that will enable the prohibition of:
… a person from connecting reticulated gas, or extending the capacity of an existing reticulated gas connection, to an existing building or a building under construction or to a building in a class of existing building or a class of building under construction …
The amendments to the Building Act 1993 give ministers the regulation-making powers to implement their misguided Gas Substitution Roadmap. It is a map which I am pleased the coalition has promised to withdraw, specifically by reversing the absurd plan to ban new domestic gas connections. We have heard how environmentally short-sighted this government overreach is. Just yesterday I pointed out how Victorian electricity, largely as a result of brown coal use, is far more carbon intensive than pipe gas, as shown by the definitive federal government figures in the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2023. Currently it is more costly. We are told both of these will change one day, but I am not sure so sure. And the confident assertions made by this government are already unravelling. The inadequacy of transmission lines, the emerging problems with offshore wind and slowing investment in solar and onshore wind projects all suggest the 95 per cent renewables future is further away than promised, if it is even possible at all. In the meantime carbon emissions will be higher, costs will be greater and choice for Victorians will be removed. I do not want to repeat all these arguments again; they are on the record, and I am delighted that the coalition will reverse the policy.
What I want to do is highlight an important consequence of a ban like this for non-domestic uses. We heard the Premier backtracking on the total gas ban recently, apparently caving in to pressure, and suggesting cooking with gas will still be possible. This is very odd, not least because the powers to ban gas are still present in this bill.
David Davis: And they’re wide powers.
Bev McARTHUR: Very wide, Mr Davis. It is odd because if we remove all domestic gas heating, gas for cooking alone becomes far less viable.
This issue of reduced viability matters even more to industry. Despite the small fraction of Victoria’s total carbon dioxide emissions which arise from domestic gas heating, the government has seen fit to ban it. What message does this send to businesses in manufacturing and agriculture, say, which absolutely require gas and cannot begin to viably replace it with electrical energy? Gas to process milk powder, kiln-dry timber, manufacture bricks – there are any number of industrial and commercial processes which electricity cannot viably replace. Yes, the ban envisaged in this bill is on domestic connections, but how long until it is extended? There is no doubt it is a slippery slope. I can see it now. First the ban will only be on new connections, with the line pushed that existing operators will be protected. But how long after that will it be until any replacement connections are curtailed and then, ultimately, there is a total moratorium? For good measure they will probably add the total gas ban into the constitution. This might seem fanciful, but it is really not, especially not if you are a business or an individual considering investing considerable capital – real money, your own money, not the taxpayer’s. People need guarantees for investment here.
When I asked this question before, seeking from the minister a guarantee that the government will ‘not at any stage in the future ban the industrial and commercial use of gas’, the response was less than reassuring. Firstly, it reiterated the now seriously questionable figures about massive and immediate renewables uptakes miraculously decarbonising Victorian electricity generation. Then it focused on domestic homes for a few paragraphs – no surprise from a government which is not interested in industry. Finally, the answer to my question was this:
Industry is at the forefront of this transition, from volume builders and property developers to appliance manufacturers, the demand for modern, electric appliances is booming. To further support industry we’ve invested $3 million package to ensure workers have the right skills to take advantage of this transition.
We’re also offering free training for 1,000 plumbers and apprentices, and 400 electricians and fourth-year apprentices to safely design and install rooftop solar and home battery systems.
That was it – no commitment, no promise, no guarantee, not even any reassurance. In fact there was a stark failure to offer even any suggestion that manufacturers who rely on gas have a future. The only mention of industry was appliance builders, probably in China, and property developers. What about Victorian manufacturing? What about regional Victoria? That answer, provided on 29 August last year, made absolutely clear how much Labor care about manufacturing, agriculture and food processing in this state. Even without a ban, phasing out domestic consumption will damage the network and economies of scale. It is serious vandalism. The Victorian gas network is more complete than in any other state, and it provides an incredibly valuable resource for our energy needs.
In a future where transport is electrified demands on our generation and transmission of electricity will grow enormously. Upscaling generation, transmission networks, distribution networks and domestic electrical infrastructure to cope will be incredibly slow and horribly expensive. Why not allow gas to take some of the strain? More than four out of five homes in Victoria are connected to gas, and gas networks provide more energy than electricity networks.
The Gas Substitution Roadmap, put into effect through part of this bill, is a serious mistake, an example of environmentalism and ideology triumphing over pragmatism. That alone is reason enough to oppose this bill. As Mr Davis said, I have constituents in my electorate who, when building a new home and in the effort to make it all-electric, which you demand, have had to upgrade the connection from the power company to the home at a cost of nearly $100,000. It adds to the price of a new home. It is unaffordable for a simple three-bedroom dwelling in a country town, where the cost of the house is about $300,000 – another $100,000 to connect the power to the home. That is not even if you wanted to connect it for an EV vehicle. It would not allow for that.
The government have no idea what they are doing here. They are actually making costs for consumers in Victoria incredibly more expensive. They are of course taking away choice. That is just fundamental to everybody. You cannot have the government continually directing how we do everything – how we think, how we behave, how we build a house, what we cook with. Why do you think that you have the right to tell individuals how they can live? It is absolutely Stalinist activity, as Mr Davis said, and I oppose it absolutely.
Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (11:28): Thank you very much for the opportunity this morning to make a contribution and speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. Despite the fact that there are some amendments that have been put forward by those opposite, this actually is quite an uncontroversial and a routine sort of bill. To be honest, it simply takes what we have learned from consultation with community members and stakeholder groups, and it makes legislative changes that reflect the wishes of the community. I realise that I am overexplaining the process just a little bit here, but perhaps some reminding is necessary for those opposite. There is no great conspiracy; it is just good government to listen to the stakeholders.
I have had a number of people working in my office over the years who have taken the opportunity to remind me of their strong Irish heritage. The fact is that today is Halloween, and it is not lost on me that Halloween is actually an old Irish festival which the Americans have made their own. So in respect to all the Irish that I know, I am going to make some references to Halloween.
David Davis: Which clause has got Halloween in it?
Sheena WATT: Well, it is not the clauses that have Halloween references, it is in fact the zombie arguments, which I am going to talk a little bit about. Let me just tell you, we are going to talk about zombie arguments. I know we have had a late night this week and some of us looked a little like zombies as we wandered out, but it is the arguments that I want to talk about – the zombie arguments that have been kicking around here for far too long. They are trying to resuscitate something that is well and truly finished.
What is well and truly finished in my mind is the fixation on gas. I tell you what, there are a number of other aspects to this bill that are worthy of discussion and contribution, but the opposition’s main gripe with this bill is in fact about gas, and that is what we have heard from the speakers who have already spoken this morning. It is an obsession that means Victorians are really worse off because of the misinformation that is out there about what the future is for gas in our state. We were here late on Tuesday night talking about gas because we wanted to shore up our gas reserves while we transition towards a renewable energy future. Yesterday we were here talking about the Victorian energy upgrades program, which again ended up in a debate on gas. Let me tell you, the VEU is a great program. Of course we heard more about gas, and the truth is that we know that we must reduce our gas usage and we are whipping up fear and anxiety in working families that it is just not necessary.
I have got to tell you, the Victoria we know has the highest rates of household gas connections in the country. A long time ago, back in the day, as they say, it was a good idea, but now we know that gas supplies are dwindling and gas is becoming more expensive as a result. The deep fantasies of mystery wells need to be called out for what they are. It is deep fantasy land, because the truth is that we know that gas supplies are dwindling. We are introducing a bill to do something about the issue. We are not sitting on our hands and hoping that folks will be distracted by some arguments from many, many years ago. There is of course the truth here, right, which is that there is a very real risk that if we were to become a do-nothing government, as I said the other day, like those opposite want us to be when it comes to gas, Victoria would begin to see depleted gas supplies within the next parliamentary term.
Less gas means more expensive gas, and for homes still dependent on gas in some form it does mean higher bills, higher financial stress and higher levels of energy poverty. For Victorian businesses we know that this again means higher bills and lower profits, and for an energy grid which has still got gas in its mix like Victoria, the sudden loss of gas is bad news – it is just bad news. If we do not take strong action on climate change now, it is going to come back and haunt us, and that is exactly why we are taking this action right now. By 2035 we will have transformed our energy grid to move away from gas and instead rely on almost 100 per cent renewable energy production, in the process creating 59,000 renewable energy jobs and keeping the lights on for future generations of Victorians. And we are wasting no time. I know that I have said this before, but I will say it again and I will properly say it again next week: in 2022–23 over 38 per cent of electricity generated in Victoria came from renewables, more than three times what we inherited back in 2014. Since we came to government in 2014, 59 energy production projects providing 4471 megawatts of new capacity have come online. These projects will be complemented by the nine projects currently under construction, which will provide a further 1300 megawatts of capacity. There you go: jobs, jobs, jobs – more of them. In fact 5100 jobs for Victorian workers will be created in the process.
Of course it is only going to be accelerated by the SEC, which I proudly voted to enshrine in the constitution just a few short weeks ago. I know that I have already brought it up twice this week, and I am just going to keep going. Construction is already underway on the SEC’s first project in Melton, one of the biggest batteries in the world. I headed out and saw some of the component parts of it at a warehouse in Mulgrave just last week, and let me tell you, even that small portion of the battery could not fit through the doors of the warehouse. Because of the SEC, this project is happening sooner and will be bigger than it otherwise would have been. Over 100 companies are lining up for the renewable energy future that comes with the SEC, and there are plenty more projects like this. I have got to tell you, this is all about delivering more affordable, more reliable renewable energy. And the SEC will be owned by Victorians, with every cent of profits being reinvested back into the SEC – how exciting is that. There are 100 companies lining up to partner with the SEC. It will put power back in the hands of Victorians, with our ambitious targets of nearly 100 per cent renewable energy by 2035 and net zero – yes, net zero – by 2045 keeping the lights on for future generations. The gas fixation of those opposite is only going to drive us back into some sort of gloomy, dark graveyard of history. It is over and we must press ahead with climate action here in our state.
I have got to tell you, I have got 6 minutes of contribution left to go, and I reckon I want to talk about homes, frankly, and revisit the VEU, because it is an exceptionally good program, and Solar Victoria –
Sheena WATT: Let me tell you about the VEU. More than 506,000 homes last year and 24,000 businesses received upgrades through the program, which allowed them to switch from gas-reliant appliances to more cost-effective electric home appliances. 2.4 million households and businesses have taken advantage, with savings between 1100 –
David Davis: On a point of order, President, the member in question indicated that she had finished with this bill and wanted to talk about what we talked about yesterday. I think she is reading the wrong material now. I think she has switched to another bill and she is heading off on a frolic. She actually said it, President. She actually said, ‘I’m finished and I’d rather talk about homes now,’ and she has now gone off on a reading episode.
The PRESIDENT: I will not uphold the point of order, but I will listen intently. Ms Watt to continue.
Sheena WATT: Excellent. Perhaps I will go to the connection between gas and homes: gas in homes. What we need to do is transition homes through electrification for climate action so that we can meet our very ambitious targets of net zero by 2045 –
Sheena WATT: Because I want to talk not just about large-scale structural gas change in our economy and what that will mean for businesses, homes and industry but also about families and the very real cost-of-living pressures that are on homes right now from extraordinary gas bills. That is why any contribution to supporting families to get off gas should be applauded and celebrated, like this bill before us. I am very happy to continue to celebrate initiatives that support that, such as Solar Victoria and getting more solar on rooftops, or the VEU, which is supporting households to transition their home appliances to much more energy-efficient appliances with the support, proudly, of the Victorian government.
Can I also highlight very much that there have been installations right around the state. Our installers and tradespeople are run off their feet with the interest and enthusiasm that is really unparalleled anywhere else in the state to get more and more homes into very energy-efficient appliance use. I am thinking about split systems, I am thinking about heat pumps and I am thinking about the range of PV solar panels that are out there. We have also seen enormous demand for batteries in the home, and I was able to meet manufacturers and installers out there in Mulgrave only last week that talked about the enormous demand for more, more, more, more batteries. I tell you what, whether it is batteries in the home, batteries in business, batteries in industry or batteries supported proudly by the SEC, there is a growing demand for batteries, and I know that the Victorian community know why it is that we need to install more batteries in our state if we are to meet our ambitious target of net zero by 2045.
Can I just take a moment to applaud all of those from overseas or domestically that know that Victoria is the place for real climate action. Time and time again they have said to me and said to others that if they are looking to make investments in the renewable energy future, they know to come to Victoria, because this is exactly where it is.
I have got more to say on gas, but the truth is it is a finite resource. This magic that the opposition are kicking up about big, big wells that exist is rubbish, because we know that it is a finite resource. The investigations have been done. The researchers, the scientists, the engineers and others have looked, and if there is in fact some secret well out there – some magic, magic collection of gas that we are just not touching yet – can they please provide that evidence to us? The truth is that we will never have the stock of gas that they have talked about like it is the 1970s all over again. Those days are finished.
We must transition to electrification in the home, and that is what so many Victorians are doing, supported by Solar Vic: getting more solar panels on their rooftops, including in apartments – that is absolutely going gangbusters – including in businesses right around the state, including in our regional areas. I have had the good fortune of meeting many regional Victorians who have taken up solar, because solar uptake in regional areas is absolutely booming. Congratulations to all of them that see the clean energy future for what it is. It is a bright, bright future that they want to be a part of. Whether it is the thousands here in metropolitan Melbourne or in regional Victoria, it is a truth known to many, many Victorians that this climate action future is well and truly underway here in Victoria, and the rebates and the support from the Victorian government have helped so many get on the path to electrifying their homes, electrifying their businesses and electrifying industry. That is exactly what this bill helps to do, so I commend it to the chamber and thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution. I know that there will be many others that will want to talk about the good works of our government when it comes to electrifying the home and electrifying businesses and industry for the many generations yet to come.
Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:43): I rise to speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024, and I will go straight to the point. The only really contentious area that we need to discuss is clause 38. When it comes to Labor’s views and thought processes around energy policy, they always the same; they are always confused. The policy generally does the opposite of what it intends, and it always ends badly for Victorians.
I think in particular the contributions from those opposite here have been, in their insensitivity, appalling, because they talked about zombies and they talked about dinosaurs and whale hunters. We are talking about, at a minimum, 900,000 families in Victoria who rely on gas and have it as a key source of energy and the cost of that gas going up directly because of the policies of this government. We are in a cost-of-living crisis, and all we get is jokes about Irish Halloween and that they are zombies – that these people who rely on this gas are somehow zombies, that their needs in a cost-of-living crisis and their interests are the interests of zombies. It is ridiculous, it is callous and it is heartless. It does not consider any of the elements of the cost of this to families.
If you are forcing people off gas, they are going to have to upgrade their central heating, they are going to have to upgrade their hot water and they are probably going to have to upgrade their cooking.
These things cost money. To upgrade a four-bedroom home – the family home that we are all suddenly interested in – you are going to have to have three or four split systems. You are going to have to upgrade your switchboard. It is $27,000 on an average home. Where are you going to get that money from in this day and age when you are trying to feed a family and trying to put kids through schools? But we are the dinosaurs because we are considering all the elements that might be involved in an energy transition. We will get to a carbon-free energy grid, we will, but you have got to consider sensibly the steps you go through to do it so you at least do the least harm in doing so – do the least harm to families and do the least harm to businesses who fund the state through their taxes. We are currently just driving them out of the state.
This government is very, very, very good at tearing things down and it is very good at digging holes in the ground, we know that, but it is very, very poor at delivering anything. Look at the Suburban Rail Loop. The government is very good at signing us up to future debt that is going to bankrupt the state but very, very poor in explaining what it is going to cost. It is very, very good at saying it is going to build a tunnel in the North East Link and then finding that it is not $7 billion, it is $15 billion, but it is not $15 billion, it is $26 billion. Not one Big Build project has actually been delivered. We have been signed up to all of them, and now we are being signed up to something else. You are signing the families of this state up for costs they cannot afford, and you are artificially accelerating this transition to 100 per cent dependency on electricity, but you are not planning the intermediate steps.
As a professional I was a project manager, a program manager, and we had a phrase in projects: if you look through a project plan, what you are looking for as you critique that plan is black boxes. We call them black boxes. It is the step where you go, ‘We’re going to do this, and then we’ll be there,’ but there is no explanation of how you do it. It is a black box. This part of the bill is exactly that – ‘We’re going to transition off gas, we’re going to get everybody off gas, but we’re not going to explain how we’re going to do it, we’re just going to do it. We will be there.’ It is magic-box planning.
What it always comes down to in this debate, the whole element, is not the question of whether we decarbonise or not – it is inevitable we will decarbonise – but infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. How are you going to (a) manage the increasing cost per user of a degraded gas system? If you need the maths explained to you: if you have got 10 people using gas in a street, then the cost of the infrastructure is amortised between the 10 people. If you have three people in the street, the same cost exists but it is now amortised between just three people, so the cost goes up. Exactly as Mr Davis said, the industry have explained this. It is not a mystery; it is infrastructure – infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. If we are talking about replacing the gas energy demand with electricity, guess what? There is an infrastructure demand. You can only have so many houses in a street upgraded to higher power levels in the absence of gas without having to upgrade the transformers in the street.
In Victoria – guess what? I looked at it – we have 200,000 streets. At least, at a minimum, 150,000 of those are on two-phase power. That means we have to replace 150,000 street-level transformers before this policy can take effect. Now, each of these transformers costs somewhere in the vicinity of $50,000 to $70,000. One hundred and fifty thousand times $50,000 plus labour plus CFMEU or any other of the union taxes we have – and that has to be rolled out. If you look at any of the energy suppliers’ annual reports or strategic plans, they talk about how they plan their infrastructure. We are talking massive capital investment, massive capital planning and massive regulation. With these plans that are rolled out they have to go through literally years of consultation before they come to a capital plan that allows an investment and they act on the projects. That planning at a corporate level is generally, at a minimum, for a heavy industry or something of this nature, seven years, right? So we are not even at the start of the process of seven years of planning to actually roll out 150,000 transformers in the state. Infrastructure –
Members interjecting.
Richard WELCH: You can talk about whaling and you can talk about Halloween; I can talk about the families in Victoria who are going to be adversely affected by your inability to execute any plan you ever do. All you ever do is make announcements and draw more power unto yourself. The reason you need more power is because, like any dictator, if you cannot get people to come along with you, you will force them to come along with you. That is what this clause does, and that is why we will be amending it. Even your own Premier acknowledged, ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t replace the cooking after all.’ So I wonder whether you are going to vote for that amendment or not. Are you going to support the amendment? Are you going to cross the floor?
As the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association chief executive Steve Davies says:
Why would any energy company invest in delivering much-needed gas supply for Victoria when the state government is openly trying to destroy the business case? It is completely counterproductive.
This Bill creates an economically unviable situation …
And that is where we will be. We will have a state where we are still utterly dependent on gas for the next six to eight years at least, but you have very carefully and strategically made it economically unviable in the process, and that is simply bad management and bad government. I think the Victorian people are just looking to the heavens and basically quietly praying, ‘How quickly can the next two years go so that we can restore a sensible energy policy that delivers the transition to a carbon-free grid but doesn’t destroy Victoria in the process?’ I will conclude there.
Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (11:52): Yet again the Liberals have shown they have got no plan and no idea when it comes to energy. They are an absolute joke. You lot are an absolute joke. You put a – what do they call them? – memorandum, memoriam, whatever the word is, on energy exploration in 2013.
A member: A moratorium.
Tom McINTOSH: A moratorium – thank you very much – a moratorium in 2013. We lifted it in 2021. You bring no plan, no substance, no energy policy to the table. There is absolutely no plan you bring. Tell us where the supply is. Tell us where the supply is going to come from for decades and decades of supply in this state.
Richard Welch: Where’s the infrastructure?
Tom McINTOSH: Listen to this, mate: 40 per cent of electricity in this state comes from renewables. If it had been up to you lot, there would be none. If it had been up to you lot, there would be absolutely none.
We need 170 to 210 petajoules of gas per annum in this state. Now, we know that there are not the supplies here to meet that into the future, so the logical thing to do is to reduce demand. We talked yesterday about the Victorian energy upgrades and reducing demand on our electricity system and how that reduces the price across the entire network. The work that Minister D’Ambrosio has, I would say, because of the gutter politics of the other side, courageously done – because any action draws this ideologically bizarre reaction – has been to ensure that there is a plan. As to Mr Davis, I do not know how unqualified previous opposition shadow energy ministers have been, but it is fair to say he is sitting over there talking about how there is a house in northern Victoria that is running on hydrogen. Give the Victorian public a concrete plan, you lot. You are talking about biofuels. That is fine. We are also out talking to community and talking to industry about biofuels. But for goodness sake, get real. Get serious about how you are going to supply businesses and home owners – the residents of this state – with energy. Because just face it, you have no plan. You have no idea. Western Australia have set their target for 1 per cent biofuels.
A member interjected.
Tom McINTOSH: Okay, let us talk infrastructure. Biofuels – how are you going to get those to the businesses that need them? There are businesses with 300 degree or above demands and businesses that have identified they need to have gas. Yes, there will be a place for those businesses to use that. But we need to understand how much it is going to cost to create that biofuel. What is the capacity to create? How much can we create? How are we going to transport it to where it needs to be consumed? That is why it makes absolute sense for us to reduce demand where we can reduce demand easily, where it saves people money, where it takes demand off and where we know we have supply constraints. Why would we not do that? It makes absolute sense.
Mr Davis is talking about ripping the infrastructure out. A few of us probably have copper telephone wires running around our houses, don’t we? I do not know. Is anyone being kept awake at night because there is old telephone wire running around their house? Yet this lot are absolutely jumping out of their skin about it. I spoke yesterday to the fact that I think Mr Davis would like to go back to harpooning blue whales so he could drain them for oil. Technology changes, demand changes and supply changes. You understand the problem, you get out and engage on it, and then you deal with it. Of course you lot will not even mention the words ‘climate change’. You will not even acknowledge the need to deal with that. So for starters, if you are going to front up to the Victorian people, be –
A member interjected.
Tom McINTOSH: Gaslighting? The Victorian people know where you are at anyway. You want to see Victorians stuck on gas supply in decades to come when what we are doing is getting out in front and making sure that supply is there. It is technologies that are proven. Technologies that are emerging, we should always explore. I am very glad that Mr Davis has come back in, since he was the lead speaker. We explore technologies that are emerging. That is why, as I have said, Minister D’Ambrosio is talking with industry and talking with community about biogas and the role that they can play. Mr Davis was making utter falsehoods in here earlier about the rates that Victorians are paying for electricity and gas. They are the lowest in the nation.
David Davis: On a point of order, President, the member has just accused me of using falsehoods. I sourced the material that I used from the St Vincent’s tracker and Gavin Dufty’s work. Now, these prices on gas and electricity, they were not falsehoods – they are accurate.
The PRESIDENT: You are debating the point of order.
David Davis: I ask the member to withdraw the claim that they were falsehoods.
Members interjecting.
The PRESIDENT: The member cannot call you a liar or say you are deliberately misleading the house. I do not think he has got to that point.
Members interjecting.
Georgie Crozier: On the point of order, President, Mr McIntosh did accuse Mr Davis of a falsehood. He did not say what you said, but Mr Davis asked him to withdraw, and I think that is fair enough.
The PRESIDENT: The thing about a member asking for a withdrawal is that it has got to be something that is easily deemed offensive. Because it is question time now, and Mr McIntosh’s contribution will be maybe after lunch, let us have a look at the Hansard at lunchtime.
Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.