Senator MARGETTS (4:11 PM) —I seek the indulgence of the Senate in relation to an earlier report. All of the Auditor-General reports were presented in a lump. I was listening, but I was listening for the Energy Efficiency in Commonwealth Operations—Department of Industry, Science and Resources: Australian Greenhouse Office report, and apparently it was all-in-one, so I wondered if we might return to that.

Leave granted.

Senator MARGETTS —I thank the Senate. I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

For a long time, an ongoing interest of mine has been the possibilities of greenhouse gas reductions in the government's own operations and the economic benefits that can be gained.

The report relates to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources' Australian Greenhouse Office. Some issues have been brought up in the performance audit leaflet. There were 12 energy policy requirements. They have been met to varying degrees, and I will talk about some of those in more detail. They did mention that there were significant practical and administrative issues that required resolution before there would be an appropriate level of compliance, and that many systems and procedures of those agencies remain to be developed by both coordinating and other agencies. That is quite serious. Australia unfortunately presented to the world that it could not possibly reduce greenhouse levels any further than we had finally acceded to in Kyoto at the Climate Change Conference and yet, even within the government sector, there seems to be a level of inactivity in relation to its own targets. I will give you some examples of these in relation to the summary of the National Audit Office findings. One is in relation to CEO accountability. The finding says:

There has been a variable standard in the implementation in areas such as adequate policy interpre tation, interagency promulgation, skill and knowledge acquisition and energy policy achievements.

It is at the CEO level where these kinds of policies ought to be implemented. It is not the kind of thing you can just throw off to an environment officer within your department and expect that you are going to get changes within those areas.

Another comes under conduct of energy audits. This is very important. An energy audit is the way in which a body, an organisation and even a business can actually find out where the possible savings exist and what changes they need to make. The finding here was quite concerning. It said:

The current level of energy audit activity is not significant. There is a high risk that the energy auditing requirement of the energy policy will not be complied with unless adequate systems and procedures are developed by both coordinating and other agencies.

If government bodies do not know and are not prepared to look, they are obviously not going to be making the changes.

Let us look at the use of renewable energy technologies. The findings here are also concerning. The summary of the policy statement is that all agencies are to use solar and other renewable energy technologies where relevant and cost effective. At the time of the audit the findings were that DISR had not advised agencies of this component of the energy policy requirements in material distributed to Commonwealth agencies. This is the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and they had not actually advised agencies that they were required to use solar and other renewable energy technologies where relevant and cost effective. Something is wrong here. There is a slip between cup and mouth and it actually goes to the credibility of the government when they say they are unable to do better in relation to these policies. Of course, the Audit Office was not able to examine where there was compliance if there had not actually been a request for these activities to take place.

Once again, let us look at the adherence to Commonwealth building energy use guidelines. We heard of these issues in relation to things like legislation in relation to Common wealth housing and, if I recall, defence housing came up with some great policies. What we need to find out here is whether, in general, these policies are being adhered to. The finding is that, in general, compliance with this requirement is low and there are significant practical problems confronting agencies attempting to comply with this mandatory requirement. So basically, when it comes to purchasing buildings, somehow or other the light is not going on, or perhaps the energy efficient light bulb is not going on, in the minds of those people whose role is to be involved in the purchase of such buildings.

Under section 6 we look at negotiation of particular central services, energy payment arrangements and leases. I am not entirely sure where this fits into it—it seems like it is something entirely different. Basically, they are asking that the building owners are responsible for the energy requirements—that is, the central energy use payments—as part of the lease. That, I assume, would mean that the cost savings would be passed on to the building owners the more energy efficient the building became. I am not quite sure why this is quite like this, but it obviously indicates there is an incentive, or should be an incentive, for the saleability of leases and that building owners should take an active role in reducing the ongoing energy requirements for the central energy services that are required.

Those are brickbats, I suppose. For bouquets, I guess when you turn to page 95 you will see that in Parliament House the total energy consumption reduced quite considerably in 1988-89, and from then on there has been some decrease. I assume that probably meant that there was a considerable energy wastage in relation to 1988-89 and that it might have been involved with the movement to a new building and so on. But in terms of gas use we are looking at around half the gas use between 1988-89 and 1997-98. Electricity use was not quite as impressive but one-third of that electricity use was cut. That is important when you look at the fact that electricity contributes a great deal more than gas to greenhouse gas production. So it is possible that these changes can take place.

On page 97 we see that from the years 1993-94 the Australian Taxation Office made some efforts but were more successful in some states than others. Somehow or other Victoria did not do as well as it might, but states like New South Wales did quite well in relation to reducing energy consumption within the Australian Taxation Office. The ACT was basically using more than it did in 1993-94 but less than it did in 1996-97, so I hope that there are ongoing policies in relation to this. Western Australia seems to be lumped into South Australia and has made some changes in that time.

That is about as central as we can get, I guess. If governments decide there is the potential for taking steps—if you call this the `no regrets policy'—those changes that you can make that actually save you money do not have a net cost because they cut down your energy costs. We are not actually doing as well as we can, even within the government bodies in no regrets policies. We need to do much, much better and the rest of the world, to give us any credibility, has got to see that even at the government level we are taking the issue of global warming, climate change and greenhouse gas production seriously. This does not unfortunately indicate that the government is yet taking it seriously enough, and that the Department of Industry, Science and Resources may have other issues in mind rather than greenhouse gas reductions.

Question resolved in the affirmative.