Senator SHERRY (Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) (5:18 PM) —I will come back to that question shortly. Shortly!—sorry I was not intending to make a pun. I am now in a position to respond to some questions that Senator Coonan posed a short while ago. I can provide some detail to the committee. The insulation measure will reduce emissions beyond the 2020 CPRS target. The measure will work in conjunction with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The overall target of emission reduction is set by the CPRS. The Energy Efficient Homes package will reduce household energy usage and therefore lower the cost of abatement. The measure will also lower energy use by householders, leading to lower energy bills and an increase in the comfort of the households.

There was some discussion and questions about insulation in wooden homes—from Senator Williams, I think. Evidence from industry and academia, about experience of insulation in a range of household types, upholds the benefit of installing insulation in ceilings. It will result in improvements in thermal efficiency of houses, and heating and cooling energy savings, and is the most cost-effective, energy-efficient measure.

I have some further information for Senator Macdonald in relation to the dollars available for road access to towns like Karumba. He raised the Karumba community specifically. As a supplement to the previous reference I made to moneys in the package, there is an additional $90 million for black spots, which was based on demonstrated safety and need. There is a requirement to demonstrate a case but Karumba may qualify for that. I am just not in a position to indicate specifically but I have said that I will pass the request and the issue on to the infrastructure minister, Mr Albanese.

Senator Joyce raised, a little while ago—I did respond to a number of the questions—the issue of state responsibilities and he highlighted the issue of boom gates and schools. The states have very significant investment programs, including rail safety infrastructure and schools. The issue with respect to the Nation Building and Jobs Plan is that the states’ investment programs should be accelerated to provide a timely economic stimulus aimed at improving nation building and supporting economic growth and jobs. The Commonwealth will use its financial capacity to provide the states with the funding needed to bring this investment forward—I deliberately emphasise ‘bring it forward’. These have been identified as areas where the description is, I think, ‘shovel ready’—where the detail of the projects is known and they can quickly be brought to bear and brought forward. As I indicated earlier, the Prime Minister is going to be very tough on replacement should any of the states attempt to do that. The accelerated installation of boom gates and other active control mechanisms at high-risk crossings, and the new and upgraded facilities in primary and secondary schools, we believe are very responsible investments in the community. The projects are very easy to identify and very quick to implement; they have been quite deliberately selected to be part of the package on that basis.

To respond to the issue of what is the ‘short term’, I think the difficulty, Senator Joyce, is that no-one can predict the length of this financial and economic crisis. The government has been very upfront about that. As I indicated earlier in response to Senator Fielding—who would have believed some of the impacts of the US subprime crisis, say, a year ago? I would not have believed it. So it is very difficult to predict the length of the crisis. The government has articulated how it will return the budget to surplus. We have touched on that on a couple of occasions in this question and answer session. We do not believe you can put an exact time frame on what is the ‘short term’. But what is important is that this government has decisively and quickly articulated a strategy that we believe is appropriate, given the very serious world financial and economic events that have been so quickly unfolding.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Troeth)—Senator Joyce, I would remind you that Senator Siewert has been waiting for some time.