At the May 2022 state budget estimates committee hearing, the Tasmanian Greens rightly criticised the Liberal government for stalling on introducing the new climate change legislation and an action plan. There was across-the-board doubt expressed by opposition parties about Marinus becoming a reality. The minister, Roger Jaensch, ignored the criticism, saying that just because the government hadn’t updated its legislation and plan doesn’t mean it is doing nothing. I thought it would be good to look in detail at some of the government’s more high-profile carbon reduction projects, in particular those that were subject to promises at the 2021 state election.
Transitioning government fleet
Prior to the 2021 state election, the government promised to ‘transition the Government vehicle fleet to 100% Electric Vehicles by 2030’. Typical of most election promises there was very little detail – the above statement (single sentence) was it. After the election, after several letters and months of waiting I managed to get a response from Minister Jaensch confirming that the promise did not relate to the vehicle fleets of state government business enterprises i.e. hundreds of cars, utes, trucks and buses in fleets of Sustainable Timbers Tasmania, Hydro, Aurora, TasNetworks, TasWater and Metro.
The minister did not express an opinion on whether the government should instruct the GBEs to transition their fleets. The original promise did not specify annual targets and the minister did not respond to questions about it. However, in the 2021-22 state budget there are annual targets for electric vehicles in the government fleet: 50 in 2021-22 and 75 in 2022-23. The minister confirmed there were 27 electric vehicles in the fleet at 30 March and another 15 on order. It looks likely the target for the first year will not be reached but more importantly, the minister did not divulge how many vehicles are in the government fleet – 50 vehicles is what percentage of the total? Also not divulged is whether the number of petrol and diesel vehicles in the government fleet is increasing faster than the number of electric vehicles is being added.
I estimate that the government’s commitment applies only to 10 to 20 percent of all government vehicles. Carbon-neutral government operations The 2021 Liberal election policy commits: ‘a re-elected Majority Liberal Government will, within 60 days, take advice from the Tasmanian Climate Change Office on setting a target for Government operations to become carbon neutral.’
The average reader would assume this is a commitment for government agencies to be carbon neutral but it would take 60 days after taking office to set a target for when this will be achieved. The government responded by saying that it had received advice on setting a target but didn’t divulge the advice. Twelve months after the election I finally received a sensible response providing some details about what it would take to set a target – it is admittedly complex. But the government has not yet said ‘the government commits to being carbon neutral by 2050 or any other date’. So, the election policy is just a commitment to make a commitment.
Renewal of Tasmanian Energy Efficiency Loan Scheme (TEELS) program
The 2021 election policy included a commitment that the government: ‘will re-launch a $30 million over two years TEELS program to support residential and small businesses including landlords to install energy efficient appliances and solar system’. I was amazed when the minister responded to my inquiries by stating that the first $35 million TEELS program included no monitoring program to determine the effect on energy usage, carbon emissions or household budgets. The program may have increased energy usage. The election promise claimed ‘ TEELS was a highly successful initiative…’ without providing any evidence. If they didn’t monitor the program then this statement is a fabrication. The minister did say that the government intends to monitor the outcomes of the program this time, but there is no stated objective. The government needs to have an objective to reduce energy consumption.
Sustainability strategy for Tasmania
The election policy included a commitment (recommended by Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Committee PESRAC) to ‘Develop a sustainability strategy for Tasmania, with ambitious goals, targets and actions’. The policy is very vague. The average person reading it would have no clear idea what it is intended to achieve. Despite putting exactly this complaint to the minister we have received no meaningful information and none is publicly available. The minister’s only useful reply was that ‘The government intends to launch a discussion paper early next year’, meaning 2022, but this hasn’t happened.
Replacement of fossil-fuel boilers
Not mentioned in the election policy is an initiative funded in the 2022–23 state budget, $10 million over 4 years, to replace fossil-fuel boilers in schools, hospitals and correctional facilities with ‘renewable energy alternatives’. While this seems like a great policy, no information is provided about whether the boilers currently use coal or gas or whether they will be replaced with hydro electricity or the disputable renewable biomass.
One minister told budget estimates the boilers would be biomass (source material unknown) while another minister didn’t identify the energy source. In summary, when scrutinised, many of these policies and programs are unimpressive and the government has been dreadful at delivering them.
But it wouldn’t be hard for the government to strengthen these policies and speed up the delivery to achieve significant carbon reductions. Legislated targets would help: including for each sector (in particular transport) interim as well as long-term targets.