Press conference with Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy Jenny McAllister - Queanbeyan

MINISTER FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TERRITORIES KRISTY MCBAIN: Well, thank you so much for joining us at the Queanbeyan Aquatic Centre, a fabulous place in our community in the mighty Eden-Monaro. And I’m joined by my colleagues Minister Chris Bowen, Assistant Minister Jenny McAllister, ALGA President Linda Scott and Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Mayor Kenrick Winchester and CEO Rebecca Ryan.

This week we re-established the Australian Council of Local Government after 10 years hiatus. We know how important the local government sector is to communities right across the country. It’s one of the reasons we invest so heavily in them because they deliver amazing projects just like this right across our community. But we know the cost of living is hitting families. We also know it’s hitting communities and councils, and we want to help with that.

I’m going to hand over to Minister Bowen to make this announcement.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, thanks, Kristy. What a great job Kristy does not only as the local member, of course, but as the Minister for Local Government here in this really important week for local government in Australia. And we’re delighted to use this opportunity to announce that the Albanese government will partner with local governments right across Australia to invest in technologies which reduce emissions and reduce energy bills for local councils.

Now, we’re in a very important transition across the country, reducing our emissions by 43 percent, increasing renewables to 82 percent of our energy system. And local government are key partners. And local government are big energy users. Here at this pool, which needs to be heated. There are around a thousand public pools across Australia, many of them heated. If you think about all the council facilities, whether they be libraries, whether they be council fleets, whether they be street sweeping – I saw an electric street sweeper this morning – there is much to do, but much to do together.

Councils can’t do it on their own. So, we’re announcing today a $100 million community upgrade program where we will partner with local governments across Australia with the technologies and the investments which local government identify. The beauty, of course, of local government is that they understand better than Canberra, better than Sydney or Melbourne or capital cities around Australia, they understand the needs and the opportunities for their own communities. They are best placed to judge what is best for them.

So, this program will see $100 million from the federal government co-invested in partnership 50-50 with local government. Local government can apply for support under this scheme. We’ll have the program guidelines out this year and the process begin by the end of the year for local governments to say we want to put solar panels or batteries or double glazing or energy efficiency, whatever it is they determine for their facilities, they can apply and we will fund up to $100 million on partnership over the next two financial years with local government to get this job done.

This is not a whole-of-government effort; it’s a whole-of-governments effort – the commonwealth, the states and local government working together of course with communities across our country to reduce emissions and, importantly, reduce bills for councils. Councils receive big energy bills. They have no choice sometimes but to pass them on through rate increases. So, this will help them also avoid those rate increases by reducing their energy bills. If you have solar panels on a roof or a battery your energy bill as a big energy user comes down dramatically. So, this is an important initiative today. We’re very pleased to make it. The Prime Minister, Minister McBain, Assistant Minister McAllister and I making this announcement.

I’m going to hand over to Assistant Minister McAllister now to say a few words, and then we’ll get a response from local government.

JENNY MCALLISTER: Well, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Kristy, for welcoming us to your electorate. And thank you, of course, also to the council for hosting us and Linda for joining us. The government wants to make every watt count. That’s true in our homes, it’s true for small and medium-size enterprises and, of course, it is also true for local government. And today’s announcement represents a very significant investment on behalf of the Commonwealth in changes that can take place in local government facilities.

Local governments run pools, they run libraries, they run community facilities, they run sporting fields. And all of these enterprises use energy. If you think about how much energy you use in your own home for hot water heating, just imagine how much energy is required to heat a pool the size of the one behind us in the winter time. There are real opportunities here for cost savings. We know that many local governments over the last decade have already taken steps to understand their own energy requirements and to understand the opportunities that lay before them.

But for the last decade, the previous government did almost nothing on this stuff. That needs to change. This is an important policy area for the government. Every watt should count. Too much energy has been literally leaking out of leaky buildings and wasted on inefficient appliances. This fund, the $1.7 billion in our budget provides the opportunity across the homes for homes, businesses and now local governments to make the investments necessary to save energy, save on bills and reduce emissions.

With that, I’ll hand over to ALGA President, Linda Scott to make a few remarks.

AUSTRALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT LINDA SCOTT: Thanks. My name’s Linda Scott, I’m the President of the Australian Local Government Association representing the nation’s 537 councils. Local governments are delighted to welcome this new fund supporting us to invest in renewable energy solutions for the future. This fund - $100 million – will allow councils to install solar panels on our pools. It will allow us to replace our lighting with LED energy-efficient lighting. It will allow us to educate our communities about the benefits of making changes to their own homes or their own apartment buildings to save them money.

And with that energy-efficient saving, we will be able to re-invest public money to deliver more services and local community infrastructure for the public. Local governments have for decades been taking strong action to reduce emissions, but this fund will turbocharge our local government efforts in every corner of the nation. We thank Minister Bowen, Minister McBain and Minister McAllister for their support for our advocacy and having listened to local governments across the nation, making this incredibly important funding announcement for local governments today.

I’ll now hand to the local Queanbeyan Mayor here to also welcome the announcement.

KENRICK WINCHESTER: Thank you. Councillor Kenrick Winchester, Mayor of Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. It’s an honour to have the ministers and assistant minister here today at the very pool that my three children are having swimming lessons at 4.30 this afternoon.

But on behalf of council, this is a very exciting announcement. This pool here costs us nearly $200,000 a year in electricity to run. So, this fund will play a big part in if we’re able to access it, it will help not only bring down the cost of running this pool but also help on council’s journey towards net zero. So we’re very excited by it, and, yeah, just like to thank the ministers. Thank you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thank you. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

JOURNALIST: So, in terms of the amount of money there’s 500 councils, there’s $100 million, I think if you do the maths on, it’s like $40,000 per council. Is this not going to be widely oversubscribed. Is there enough money?

CHRIS BOWEN: Look, I’ve got no doubt there’ll be lots of interest from councils. I don’t see that as a bad thing. But, of course, we’ll assess the applications for the biggest bang for buck. So councils will need to have good proposals. And the good proposals, the best proposals, will be jointly funded with us. And, of course, once we get to the end of that process we’ll assess how it’s gone and we’ll assess what’s next.

JOURNALIST: Could you not, I suppose, increase the amount of money if it is oversubscribed, though?

CHRIS BOWEN: $100 million, with due respect, is no small start. It’s no small amount of money to begin this process. We’ll assess the amount of demand. You might be right, but let’s assess the amount of demand. Let’s assess how many applications we get. And, of course, by partnering with local government, by going 50-50 it means that really drives even more investment.

JOURNALIST: I want to ask you about rate rises yesterday. So obviously council has been complaining about cost shifting for many years. There’s been a 60 percent rate rise in Queanbeyan, you know, major rate rises elsewhere. What can the federal government to solve this problem? Is there anything you can do?

KRISTY MCBAIN: The federal government works with local councils across the country. In this budget alone we’ve provided over $3 billion in financial assistance grants, $500 million in Roads to Recovery, $85 million in our Bridges Renewal Program. We increased the local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program by $250 million at the last budget. Look, we know that there is more work to do, and we are working with councils, listening to them. There are councils across the country at the moment who have dealt with multiple natural disasters. That has a significant cost impact on them. It’s one of the reasons that we went to the last election with the $200 million Disaster Ready Fund, because we know councils are asking for their communities to be more resilient and mitigate against the future natural disasters that are coming.

There is always more to do in this sector and we will continue to work with them and the state governments to make sure that communities right across this country are catered for.

JOURNALIST: I suppose the, IPART– admittedly this is New South Wales, but IPART said [indistinct] why so many councils, 17 councils, asked for major rate rises. Is that an appropriate step to take while so many councils the only option was a rate rise?

KRISTY MCBAIN: Well, in New South Wales, for example, rate capping has now been a part of the formula for 30-plus years. For eight years it’s been in place in Victoria. We know that there is a fiscally constrained environment across the country at the moment and we know that inflation has had a significant impact not only on households but on organisations across the country. There are a lot of communities out there that are doing it really tough, and councils are no exception.

I guess the discussion comes with what services and what infrastructure we continue to maintain and have or whether we start cutting those back. But at this point in time IPART is the regulator of special rate variations in New South Wales, and those decisions do not rest with the federal government.