On 26 November 2009 during question time, Senator Troeth asked me a number of questions as Minister representing the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts concerning the Green Loans Program:

1. Can the Minister now confirm that there will be no training of home sustainability assessors after Christmas this year and that, secondly, no further registrations for home sustainability assessors will be accepted beyond 21 January 2010?

2. Can the Minister tell the Senate how slashing this scheme helps Australia reduce its carbon emissions?

3. As the start-up for this has been so slow, what confidence can the Australian public have that Green Start will be managed any better, given that we still do not have the details we need about the Green Loans scheme?

4. This program has an expected finish date of 2013. Can the minister confirm that the government intends to abandon this Green Loans scheme either earlier or at that stage?

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has provided the following:

1. Assessors conducting home sustainability assessments under the Green Loans Program are accredited by the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA), and then contracted to the Australian Government.

In early November, ABSA announced to the industry that new applications would only be accepted from those candidates who had finished their training by 24 December 2009 and submitted a complete application by 21 January 2010.

2. The changes to the Green Loans Program the Senator refers to have had no impact on the number of Home Sustainability Assessments that will be provided and are therefore not related to ABSA’s moratorium on the accreditation of new assessors. The Government’s commitment remains to deliver up to 360,000 Homes Sustainability Assessments under the Green Loans Program, and over 120,000 assessments have already been delivered.

3. A tender process for the provision of services for the Green Start Program is currently underway.