Thursday, 17 October 2024

Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Sonya Kilkenny:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (16:10): I am pleased to rise today on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. I will probably keep my comments to clause 38, as have most people today. I was at the bill briefing on this, and I actually said at the bill briefing that it was not a bad bill but for clause 38. Why can’t we take clause 38 out and debate that separately so this can go through today? I believe that. I actually think most of the bill is pretty good. I had a few questions; they got answered. I was very happy with the process. But clause 38 is of great concern, and it is a concern to me.

What I would like to do – and I am not going to rant and rave and carry on too much – is use this time for education on the complications and possibly the unintended consequences of this bill. I will just go through what is stated at the moment. The first part of it is:

prohibiting a person from connecting reticulated gas, or extending the capacity of an existing reticulated gas connection, to an existing building or a building under construction or to a building in a class of existing building or a class of building under construction …

The second part to this is:

prohibiting a person from carrying out plumbing work in connection with installing or replacing a reticulated gas appliance or a reticulated gas appliance in a class of reticulated gas appliance in an existing building or a building under construction or in a building in a class of existing building or a class of building under construction …

For all those ‘classes’ and ‘buildings under construction’ and ‘yap, yap, yap’ in that, let us break it down to what it actually is. I am going to put this in really, really practical terms. If you are renovating a house, within that house you will have gas central heating; you will probably have one or two Rinnai Infinity systems, depending on the size of the house – they are a gas instantaneous hot-water system; and you will probably also have a gas hotplate. Your average punter might go, ‘We don’t have a lot of land now’ and might want to do a second-storey extension on that house. Most gas lines that are run into nearly, I would say, 90 per cent of the homes in Victoria are 25 mil gas lines. This is important to note, because if I want to do that extension on that second storey and I need another hot-water service on that second storey – or I might need another central heating unit because of the design of the house – I would have to upgrade that gas line from 25 mil to 32 mil. Under this legislation you would not be able to do that. You cannot do that.

What also concerns me is this. I do not necessarily have a problem with homes being all electric – and congratulations to the member for Melton on building his brand new house. When you are building a new house, it is easy to go electric at the start. It is probably not as expensive as a retrofit. But unfortunately this is going to affect a lot of people. When the member for Melton builds his new house, he will run his power in. It will all be electric, that is fine. I will just mention this point, though: that that is providing there is enough supply in the street. This is another point a lot of people do not realise. So member for Melton, you will be fine. You will build your house; it will be cheap for you. But the average punter in Victoria – especially people who are elderly – might have an old gas furnace system in their home. They are not great, but there are a lot of them out there. I am not an advocate of these gas furnace systems. If that heating breaks down and that is the only heating they have got, they will probably have to go to split systems under this. You cannot replace that appliance under this bill, so they would have to go to split systems.

I would say in an average four-bedroom home, if you have to go to split systems, you will need six. But let us talk about the elderly person in that 1970s home with the wall furnace. It is probably a three-bedroom home. It has got a kitchen, lounge room, three bedrooms and probably one bathroom. Even in that you are going to need four split systems – one for each bedroom, one for the main area. Four split systems will be $10,000, a fairly conservative estimate, but I think I am about right. What happens then is that for those four split systems that you have to put into that house, you have to upgrade your power capacity. The problem with that is: is there enough supply in the street? The problem with this bill is I do not think the government realises how many streets in Victoria only have two-phase supply. I can tell you, I had a friend in Kew who got an EV charger in his house. He bought one of those stupid electric cars and put an EV charger in his house. But the guy installing the EV charger and the people doing the power said only another four houses in the street could have EV chargers until the capacity of the street was done, because there was only a two-phase connection into that street.

Here is the problem: when you start talking retrofitting – and we did get clarification that you can replace a gas hotplate with a gas hotplate. That is fine; that is the cheapest item in the house and uses the least amount of gas. But if you are going to start replacing central heating units, if you are going to start replacing hot-water systems and if you go to an electric solar panel hot-water system, that is going to cost you about $6000. The standard house – not the old person’s house but a standard house ‍– will be up around $15,000 for split systems. The problem we have got is we are not ready for this yet because we do not have the supply in the street to service the homes. It is actually that simple. It is not so much the fact that I disagree with clause 38; the fact is that practically this will not work. Practically we do not have enough supply, and the more things you bring off gas, the more load you put onto power and the more supply you need.

Until we can guarantee that there is three-phase supply in every street in Victoria, this will not work. We are not ready to transition away from gas. It will happen – we can see that – but it is not going to happen today and it is not going to happen in 10 years time, because this state is not ready for it. The government has the idea that you can get rid of gas and go to power, but you cannot. It will fail. It is going to be an absolutely dismal failure. This contribution I am giving to the government is an education on what needs to happen before you can complete the process.

A member interjected.

Wayne FARNHAM: I know you have an electric car, and I am ashamed to admit I know you for that. I would love to drive a V8 diesel ute. But let us be really clear about what I am saying here: the average punter in Victoria cannot afford the conversion of their home. That is number one, because if the average person has to all of a sudden go to all split systems, replacing their central heating unit with split systems, and has to replace their hot-water services with electric storage solar-panelled hot-water services – forget the gas hotplates; if you get rid of gas hotplates and go to induction, you have got to buy new pots and pans and there is another three grand – you are up for about $27,000. People stand up here and go, ‘We’ll save a thousand dollars a year converting your home to electricity.’ It is going to take you 27 years to get your money back, and most people cannot afford it. This is the problem. The average person in this state cannot afford these conversions. They just cannot. The cost of living is out of control now. Housing affordability is at an all-time low, and if by chance some young person saves up enough money to buy a house that was built in the 1980s or 90s and then the appliances start to fail and they get hit with another $27,000 to convert their home, that would nearly break them. This is why I do not like clause 38, because this state is not ready for it. We are decades off clause 38, and that is why it should be pulled out of this bill. That is what the reasoned amendment that was put forward by the member for Brighton says: ‘Get rid of clause 38, and we will agree with the bill.’

I take on board what the member for Bulleen said earlier about planning. If we want to make houses more affordable, increase supply. It is not rocket science. As far as this goes, with clause 38 out of this bill, it is an easy bill to pass. With clause 38 in this bill, you are going to send Victorians broke.

Tim READ (Brunswick) (16:20): The Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024 makes a number of sensible changes to the Building Act 1993 which strengthen laws governing builders, plumbers and building surveyors. These amendments will better protect consumers, and the Greens support this bill. The bill expands powers to regulate the connection of piped gas to homes and to regulate the installation or replacement of gas appliances.

I will start my discussion of this with a question: what should we do when the fuel most of us are burning to heat our homes is a major cause of climate pollution and Victoria’s supply is running out? We could just keep burning it and look for more, which is happening in Victoria, with production permits granted for undersea fossil gas south of the Great Ocean Road, or we could wean ourselves off it as quickly as possible. The fuel I am talking about is fossil gas, marketed as natural gas. It is mostly methane and when burned it becomes CO₂, but when it leaks into the atmosphere unburnt it is 80 times more potent than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas. Last year’s State of Sustainability Report found the proportion of Victorian homes with fossil gas connections rose from about 82 per cent in 2010 to 88 per cent last year – over 2 million homes. Over the same period CO₂ levels in the atmosphere rose about 8 per cent and are now at 426 parts per million. The government finally banned gas connections to new properties from the start of this year, but people can still buy new gas heaters, there are no deadlines to get homes off fossil gas and government subsidies for households to replace gas appliances with electric are not getting to anywhere near the number of people who need them to get off gas. We need to move faster:

Extreme temperatures, raging fires, droughts, and epic floods are not natural disasters. They are human disasters – increasingly fuelled by fossil fuels.

No country is spared.

These are not my words but those of António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, speaking last month. Since he spoke about that last month, Florida has had back-to-back hurricanes and Canada has completed its second-worst bushfire season ever; 2023 was the worst. So it is time to stare down the dinosaurs who do not understand the urgency of the fight against fossil fuels and get Victorians off gas as quickly as possible, and the first step is to stop installing new gas appliances. That is cheaper and easier than persuading people to part with appliances they already have. A new heater or hot-water service that burns gas will last for decades and could still be working in the 2040s, long after we need to stop burning fossil fuels. This bill will allow Victoria to prohibit the installation of new gas appliances, and this needs to happen soon.

Climate change is not the only reason that Victorians need to get off fossil gas. Gas is expensive and, because it is linked to the oil price, vulnerable to sudden price increases, as happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. And burning fossil gas in the home causes asthma, particularly in children. Phasing out gas in Victoria requires a program to get 2 million homes off gas and wherever possible to replace gas in industry and civic and business premises. This bill is needed to get homes off gas, and it is a very good first step. Home heating consumes most household gas, and hot-water heating takes up most of the rest. Cooking uses very little. So a vital step in reducing gas consumption will be to insulate existing homes. It is great that the government have proposed ceiling insulation in their new draft rental standards, but we need to move faster, as the ACT has done. They have a deadline for insulation and dedicated rebates for landlords. Fossil gas is expensive and inefficient for heating.

Burning gas for heat will always lose some of the energy in the gas. By contrast, using electricity for reverse-cycle air conditioning puts three to five times as much energy into a home as was contained in the electricity. This is not a miracle; it is because the heat pumps in air conditioners, fridges and hot-water services move heat around rather than generating it. So preventing the installation of a gas appliance will save energy, cut bills, prevent asthma and reduce greenhouse emissions. According to the Liberals and Nationals in the room, this is a terrible thing. The government has announced that these powers will not be applied to cooktops, which is a pity. It is understandable, because cooktops use only about 2 per cent of household gas consumption and because the fossil gas lobby is campaigning hard for their right to keep ripping people off and trashing our atmosphere. But it is ultimately the wrong call because cooktops burn gas right where kids spend a lot of time – in the kitchen – and that means more asthma. And if it is the only gas appliance you have – just a cooktop – you are paying a lot in daily connection fees to stay connected to a network which ultimately needs to be closed down. It is likely that many Victorians getting a new kitchen will figure this out and avoid installing a gas cooktop. But why disadvantage those who fail to get the message and then change their mind when they see the daily connection fee?

One risk in the move away from fossil gas is that people may shift to wood heaters, and this exposes a gap in this bill. We know burning gas causes asthma, but wood heaters are worse for our lungs. According to Victoria’s air quality strategy published in 2022, wood heaters were responsible for 38 per cent of PM 2.5 – that is, very small particulate matter emissions. The average wood heater in Melbourne burns 3.75 tonnes of wood per year, releasing harmful compounds into the atmosphere that can cost more than $4000 in annual health costs per heater, and that is not just to the owner of the heater, but to the neighbours and people down the street who are breathing it in. Wood fire smoke causes asthma, emphysema, hospitalisations from cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease and premature deaths. With approximately 240,000 wood heaters across the state, these high-emission sources are expected to create approximately $8 billion in health impacts over the decade between 2018 and 2028 if wood heater usage is not reduced. An additional concern is the widespread illegal collection of firewood, which is damaging many of our forests. So the new powers in this bill should be extended to wood heaters. Again, the ACT Labor–Greens government is beating us on this and plans to phase them out entirely by 2045.

We are working on an amendment for the Legislative Council that would enable the minister to apply this new power to wood-burning products as well as gas appliances. Doing it in this way should enable the minister to exempt isolated off-grid farmhouses, for example, where particle pollution is unlikely to worry the neighbours, but prevent installation in Brunswick, where it is easier to find electricity than to find firewood. Just as with gas, the easiest heater to remove is the one that has not yet been installed. If we know we face a long and difficult task of removing millions of gas heaters and hundreds of thousands of wood heaters, the most urgent task is to stop installing the new ones.

Another one of the many useful contributions in this bill is that it amends the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017 to specify that proceedings for a summary offence may be commenced within the period of three years after the alleged offence, an increase from the current 12-month time period. This is a recommendation from IBAC’s Operation Clara, which investigated former Labor minister Theo Theophanous and found that while he was on the board of the Victorian Planning Authority he had improperly lobbied on behalf of a property developer in return for donations to his daughter’s 2018 campaign for the state electorate of Northcote. The government deserves credit for enacting this recommendation from IBAC. One other piece of unfinished business would be for the member for Northcote to refund those donations.

I will conclude by reiterating the Greens’ support for the bill and urging Labor to ignore the dinosaurs and to speed up the process of getting Victorian homes off fossil gas.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (16:29): I rise to make some comments on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. Can I say this is quite an important bill because it deals with two key issues that Victorians are facing right now, and they are, broadly speaking, a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. We have heard over many, many months and years the fact that Victorians are really struggling to pay their bills and that they are also finding it really hard in terms of finding a home to live in – whether that be renting a home or ultimately someone wanting to purchase their first home being able to do so.

Whenever we have a building bill such as this, it gives a really good opportunity for the government to bring in policy that is going to make it easier for Victorians. It would be fair to say that some of this bill actually does that, but ultimately it does not fix the supply issue, which I want to touch on shortly. There is red tape, and it is always important to be able to make things easier – things like being able to communicate with your neighbours if you are building a new home, and things in terms of permits and working with surveyors and planners and being able to fix that as well. But the bill does not go to the core of the supply issue, particularly when we are talking about being able to get more homes on the market. If you build more homes, that reduces the cost because there is more supply and ultimately you will then be able to make them more affordable for people to buy and live in them.

When you have a look at our taxation, Victoria has the highest property taxes in the nation. That is going to affect supply each and every day, no matter what you look at. There is land tax, and especially within land tax we have now got a COVID levy that has been applied to that land tax. This means that people that own homes are having to pay yet more land tax just to be able to keep their homes. Of course when you are paying more of these taxes you are passing them on to renters. Renters are already struggling in Victoria without having to deal with that. But the complexity of this is if you are a self-funded retiree and you have a home that you have saved up for, that home that you are renting out is actually helping you to pay your bills. Then all of a sudden you have a land tax bill that has gone up 30, 40 or 50 per cent over the years. There comes a time when many of these self-funded retirees, or people that own these homes, cannot continue to keep them. People say, ‘That’s okay because they’ll just sell them and then someone will buy them and that will put someone into a home.’ Well, it does not quite work like that, because there are many, many situations of people that own a home where they have got a number of renters in that home, and that gets sold and a new couple end up in that home, and all of a sudden you have got a situation where you had six people living in a larger home but now there are only two.

The other factor of this supply issue is those who are holding homes to develop them. They want to develop them – maybe knock down a home and put up a couple of units, two or three units or two or three storeys. It gets to a point where, because of the cost of the taxation and the building costs and the labour costs, the project does not stack up. So those people that are owning those homes turn around and say, ‘You know what, I can’t afford to keep it anymore. I’ll sell it.’ That block of land and that house, which could have been a situation that had three or four units on it, ends up just being an old home that gets sold to somebody else and you do not actually provide more housing for anybody. That is a supply issue, and that is something that the government has not come to terms with.

The government here in Victoria, which has been under Labor for the last 10 years, have used only one lever to fix the massive debt that they have incurred and that they have delivered for Victorians. The one lever is more tax. They say, ‘You know what, if the debt keeps rolling through, we’ll just tax people that have something, and then ultimately we’ll redistribute the wealth and everyone’s a winner.’ Well, it does not work like that, because you can only squeeze a lemon so much. When you have run out of juice, you throw the lemon away. That is what has happened here in Victoria with taxation – people have left the state, people have sold their businesses and people have moved on. We see the situation where ultimately businesses are closing, investment is closing and –

Mathew Hilakari interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Member for Point Cook, there are less cranes in the sky than there were under the four years of the coalition because we are just not building them. We are not getting those projects over the line.

I will turn to the second half of the bill, which is probably the most important part of this bill. This is quite sneaky by this government, and it deals directly with cost of living – it is the gas ban. That is why I support the amendment from the member for Brighton to amend this bill and take away the gas ban that is going to rack up prices for every single Victorian that is already struggling in a cost-of-living crisis. What this bill does, under clause 38, is turn around and say, ‘Existing homes, new homes, contractors that come in, plumbers that come in that want to fit up a gas pipe in a home – that’s no more.’ Clause 38 says, ‘We’re going to ban gas in your home.’ What does that do? Let us say the member for Nepean has that home and he is renting that particular home out. If he has copped a $27,000 bill to turn the gas appliances into electrical appliances he does not just go to the bank and say ‘Give me $27,000’ without some way of trying to pay it back. So what happens is the person renting in that home will be paying $65 a week to pay off the $27,000 to upgrade that home.

That is a cost-of-living pressure that every Victorian will face because of the ideology behind the Allan Labor government. They do not understand the mathematics, they do not understand the economics and quite frankly they do not care that people cannot afford to put food on the table. They do not care about the cost-of-living crisis that Victorians are feeling every single day and they do not care about any particular way to fix it.

The most bizarre thing in all of this is the government do not have to do anything and people would be better off. What they are doing under clause 38 of this bill is they are actually doing something to make people’s lives worse. That is the crazy thing. We should be in this Parliament talking about how to make people’s lives easier and better, not make them harder and worse in a cost-of-living crisis. How on earth in a cost-of-living crisis do you turn around to people and say, ‘You know what, convert all your appliances, pay $27,000 and pass it on to a renter’? It does not make any sense whatsoever. Particularly around heating a home in winter in many areas around Victoria, the idea about gas is it instantly warms a home. It gives you choice. It gives you the ability, again, to ensure that people have those options. We know that according to the St Vincent de Paul reports we have experienced the biggest increase in electricity and gas prices in Australia over the past year: a 28 per cent surge in electricity costs and 22 per cent in gas. Families burdened with the $27,000 cannot afford this. That is why this is bad. That is why we will not support this part of the bill that has clause 38 that turns off gas in Victorians’ homes in a cost-of-living crisis. That is why we cannot do that. That is why that is unfair for families, that is why it is unfair for Victorians and that is why it is unfair for renters.

We quite often hear the Greens and the Labor Party stand up and talk about young people and how they are going to support young people. This bill does not support young people. Those renters cannot afford another $65 on top of the rent that they are already paying when we are seeing rents soar because we do not have enough housing stock in the market. The Allan Labor government’s housing statement is a joke. It does not deliver any more housing, and this bill with a gas ban increases the cost of living for every single Victorian. It is the wrong time to do this. It is a bad bill for that reason. It is failing Victorians, and that is why we will not be supporting the bill unless this part of the bill is amended. Therefore I plead with the government to support the member for Brighton’s amendment to ensure we do not ban gas, we give people choice and we ensure we do something rather than push up prices for every single Victorian – Victorians that are experiencing a cost-of-living crisis here in this state.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (16:39): It is my pleasure to rise after the contribution from the member for Caulfield to speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024 and support the member for Brighton in his reasoned amendment. I was part of the bill briefing, and I do appreciate those bill briefings because I would much prefer to talk things out rather than read all about it. However, something became very apparent during that bill briefing, courtesy largely of the member for Narracan, who pointed out the practical implications of particularly clause 38, which is removing gas by stealth. Not only that, but it also could inadvertently make upgrading gas lines and gas appliances in homes that already have gas appliances a crime, which to anyone that has an inkling of common sense makes absolutely no sense. But he pointed it out, and this is the other thing that I enjoyed hearing about from the member for Narracan, who is, like me, a very practical, pragmatic person: if a 28-mil gas line into the house were upgraded to a 35-mil gas line, under this legislation, that is illegal. Then the person liable is the owner of the home as well as the plumber and gas fitter doing those upgrades.

If you have an ageing home – and to be fair it does not take long for appliances to become outdated or discontinued – given some announcements that were made a month ago or so now, if you are able to upgrade those gas appliances after breakdown, that particular model has been discontinued or you are unable to replace like for like, you do need to go through those upgrades from the street to the connection. To be fair, in the north-west of the state we do not know much about those on-street connections, because we do not have a gas pipeline; we have to use big tanks. Having said that, there is an incredible amount of gas cooktops, particularly given our Malaysian population and our Vietnamese population. I enjoy their food, so I would like to be able to keep cooking with my Vietnamese and Malaysian friends. But upgrading those gas appliances becomes not only very difficult but illegal, inadvertently.

This is what we are talking about when we talk about the gas ban via stealth. You can put out a media release and you can say that, while you have done not a backflip, just a little cartwheel – a round-off, if you will – you are changing your minds. No, you cannot say that and then make it a crime with legislation like this to actually upgrade what was already there, like for like. If we are going to talk about that, let us talk about changing over to electricity. If you are going to upgrade the appliances in your home that run on gas right now, the practical implications of that mean your electricity supply from the street may have to be upgraded as well. That is also incredibly difficult, under legislation that has not been properly consulted on with stakeholders and people that understand these sorts of practical implications for those that are already under enormous pressure: our tradies, who are few and far between, particularly in the regions, and our builders, our plumbers and our gasfitters. Good luck getting one of those in the next three years. It just will not happen. If you put any more pressure on these small businesses and/or subcontractors, they are just jumping off and they are going to big projects literally over the river. There is a mineral sands mine and there are wind farms in New South Wales, and a lot of these tradies will just go, ‘This is too hard.’

I hear it day after day from not only tradies but real estate agents, and we heard the member for Caulfield talk about the pressure this will put on renters. In a cost-of-living crisis, it does not matter how small that rent increase is, when you are struggling to make ends meet already an extra $5 in rent really hurts. Then when the costs of everything else – Melbourne rental market prices and fruit and vegetables – goes up, that means people cannot access fresh fruit and vegetables for proper nutrition. Diets fall, putting pressure on every health service – our primary health services, our community health services and our emergency rooms – because community health goes down. I just cannot believe the amount of nonchalance that is given to the flow-on effects of legislation that has not been properly consulted on. Then when the member for Brighton moves his reasoned amendment to withdraw and redraft this legislation, removing clause 38 particularly so it is not banning gas by stealth, the government laughs in the face of it.

This is not funny, particularly for people that are struggling during a cost-of-living crisis. If the government cared enough to do something about it, they would have a look at all of these flow-on effects that moves like this make, because they are very, very real. I had someone talk to me yesterday who lives in Fitzroy. We were discussing another issue related to food and fibre production. I was talking about how if you were to change a certain rule, that would decimate the lamb industry and the wool industry. That would put a lot of farmers and growers out of business. The same thing with the Melbourne Market – that will put wholesalers and growers out of business. They will walk away. That takes away food security, and we are feeding the world. But you will have a lot of people out of business and reliant on welfare.

Food producers largely, particularly a lot of our baby boomer food producers, do not have superannuation. Superannuation has not been around that long, and they cannot afford to contribute a lot of the time unless they are having a really good season. We are going into a season now where our broadacre farmers – and you would know this, Acting Speaker Lambert, with your knowledge of the Mallee – particularly in Sea Lake, Birchip and Ouyen, have started harvesting today. When I say ‘harvesting’, I mean some of them are cutting for hay. Some of the crops – and most of them have failed – are not even high enough to cut for hay. If we are putting pressure at every angle on our food producers, on our fibre producers, on people that are in small business or in bigger business even, that then has a flow-on effect for renters, for those that are on a fixed income, for those that are paying gas and electricity bills, for those that might want a building surveyor.

I did have to laugh when I read about building surveyors in this piece of legislation. Again, try and get a building surveyor to come and do any job out in the regions. It takes months, sometimes years, because of the shortage in that skilled workforce out there. It is a real problem not only in the public service sector – I mean, councils struggle to get building surveyors – but in the private sector as well.

What we are looking down the barrel at here is that times are going to get tougher. I hear this time after time, day after day, particularly with the season that we are looking down the barrel at now for our broadacre farmers and the pressure that will be put on our irrigated agriculture sector, with not only the increased costs at market – because that gets passed on. You know who pays that, don’t you? The tenants, effectively – those that are supplying the fruit to those agents. The agents are not going to pay it themselves, do not be so silly. That will get passed on to the grower. That puts them under pressure. They are already under immense pressure with about $60,000 worth of audits. That is just administration every year to be able to go into these markets and export – $60,000 worth of audits that are largely all the same, just under a different brand. Those costs ultimately get passed on to the consumer at the end of the day, who – as my friend yesterday told me, who lives in the inner city – do not really care. It does not affect him. Guess what, yes, it does. When you are having to pay $65 per kilo for potatoes, for lamb or for whatever it might be and you can no longer afford to eat at the Vegie Bar or wherever it might be – I love the Vegie Bar – it affects everyone. You can bury your head in the middle of Bourke Street and pretend that it does not, but I assure you these things will affect everyone at the end of the day.

As far as the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Brighton to withdraw and redraft this piece of legislation goes, following extensive stakeholder consultation on the impact of the gas ban and going through other clauses that cause issues as well, this bill needs to be taken off the table and redrafted as a matter of urgency.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (16:49): I rise to speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. We know this legislation, as we have heard from all the speakers, proposes a series of amendments. It will fundamentally reshape the building and construction sector in Victoria. I know there are parts of this bill that we do not have any concerns with on this side, but we do fundamentally have concerns with the way that this will allow Labor’s gas ban to be implemented right across Victoria.

A few of my colleagues have touched on this, but I am going to try and give a slightly different perspective. On the Mornington Peninsula we are coming up to summer, when our population increases dramatically. Already United Energy are out installing diesel generators in paddocks in those major centres because our grid on the Mornington Peninsula cannot cope with the extra power that is needed by all of those people coming down to the peninsula. We are thinking about removing from our current mix a source of energy that provides heating to people during winter and provides the ability for people to cook. We are going to take that away. We are going to charge people who need to go and replace those systems up to $27,000 without any understanding of whether we actually have a grid that can cope with that extra load being put onto it. I know that for me locally and for all those people on the peninsula we absolutely cannot. We cannot cope with it.

We saw earlier this year when transmission lines came down that this government has absolutely zero ability to keep up their maintenance and the infrastructure to go with those transmission lines. So if it wants to go and pull gas out of the system and put more pressure back onto the grid, has this government got a commitment, when it is putting this in place, to actually add those extra transmission lines and add the extra major infrastructure required to the grid to allow the electricity load to be beefed up? It would currently put more pressure on those coal-fired power stations.

If you want to talk about the emissions and the effect on the environment of this policy, I think we can all agree gas generates a lot less emissions when it is being used as an energy source than do those coal-fired power stations, which are certainly coming to the end of life, and far, far less than diesel generators that are currently being dropped in my electorate. I know that people on the Mornington Peninsula are extremely concerned about those diesel generators being put in. I have gas in my house, and I am proud to say I love my gas heating and I love my gas cooktop. If you are going to make people on the Mornington Peninsula and right across Victoria take that out, you need to make sure you at least have a commitment to upgrading the infrastructure that is going to go with it.

Acting Speaker Lambert, I believe you have an EV. You drive it in here, very similar to me. This place cannot survive if we start to move too quickly away from the way we currently live; we cannot cope. We do not have the ability to charge enough vehicles here, and it is the same at Treasury Place, where a lot of the drivers who operate within this place have to park. We are moving quickly away without a real solution to fix these problems.

I would encourage the government to separate this legislation out. I support the member for Brighton and his reasoned amendment that the gas part of this bill be taken out and that proper consultation be done with stakeholders. But we should also have a broader look at the effect of this policy – what it is actually going to mean when you take gas out of the energy mix and how that is going to affect our current grid without the proper infrastructure investment and without the proper maintenance being put into it. I would love to see the government invest in an extra line to the Mornington Peninsula so we do not have to come over the summer period and drop eight to 10 diesel generators out on farms and in the Sorrento town centre. You can smell them and you can hear them burn. They are a blight on the peninsula over the summer period, but at the moment they are a necessary evil for people to be able to get through that summer period and operate their cooling so they can enjoy it. And this is not just residents, this is all the people, many in this chamber, who make their way down to my area during that time so they can enjoy that summer period.

I encourage the government to go and do its due diligence on this policy before it rams it through this Parliament. Do proper stakeholder consultation and actually understand the effect when you pass legislation that is broader than just some notes on a piece of paper. I support the member for Brighton and his reasoned amendment, and I fully support that we continue using gas here in Victoria.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (16:53): I rise to speak on the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. This bill effectively seeks to implement a gas ban by stealth. Part 2, division 6, clause 38 is the mechanism which will allow the government to prohibit new gas connections or extensions to the capacity of existing gas connections and future installation or replacement of gas appliances. Really this bill represents the beginning of the end for gas, so we oppose the bill for this reason. Like the member for Nepean, I support the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Brighton.

More than half of Victorians oppose the Allan Labor government’s efforts to phase out gas. Just a quarter of people support state government moves to phase out gas use. Figures compiled by RedBridge show that 55 per cent of respondents are opposed to the idea –

James Newbury interjected.

Chris CREWTHER: That is right, member for Brighton. Even RedBridge has come up with those statistics, which show that the majority of the Victorian public are against this gas ban by stealth.

This and other measures by the state Labor government are what has led to the latest Redbridge poll again showing that support for Labor has fallen, from 35 down to 30 since June, seven points lower than its 2022 election result. Labor knows this. They know that they have failed Victorians with 55 new and increased taxes on employment, schools, rents and holidays. They have failed Victorians with their eye-watering soon-to-be $188 billion debt, which equates to $26 million of taxpayer-funded interest every single day. They know that they have failed Victorians by not maintaining roads. They have failed Victorians and they have failed to support Victorians during this cost-of-living crisis. They have also failed Victorians when it comes to the housing and homelessness crisis we now face.

Importantly, they know that their gas ban is wildly unpopular, and it is unpopular for many reasons. If we look at the statistics and other information that has come out, conversions for home owners will cost up to $27,000. It is also projected that rent may go up by $65 a week. Who wants a higher rent of $65 a week? I know I would not have liked that when I was renting, and I know that many people in my electorate and beyond do not want higher rents.

We have this bill today which does attempt to trick Victorians by instituting a gas ban by stealth. Victoria also faces severe gas shortages in the coming winters, as early as next year. Gas remains a critical supply source for both industry and households. Since 2010 production from offshore gas wells in Victoria has fallen by 70 per cent. No onshore conventional gas exploration permits have been granted in Victoria since Labor came to power in 2014. We also know that these shortages, which are inevitable now, will have enormous economic, social, political and other consequences.

As the member for Nepean noted before, people will struggle. They will struggle to heat their homes, to cook their food. They will struggle with increased bills and cost-of-living pressures. Sadly, this bill will also chill any new investment in gas production. Why would any energy company invest in new production in Victoria when the government is going to ban it and it is doing all it can to destroy its very business case to start with? Even more sadly, the less gas there is, the higher the power bills are going to be, as I mentioned, for every single Victorian, both for homes and for businesses. I note that small businesses as well are often struggling. They are struggling with increased taxes and they will be struggling with increased bills, whether they come through electricity, gas or elsewhere. Victorian small and medium enterprise has suffered enough with a 31 per cent increase in gas prices already – yet another punch for small businesses who employ locals, in particular young people.

I note as well this bill also relates to and supposedly precedes future reforms that will reshape – or supposedly reshape – the building system to protect consumers. Sadly, the building landscape at the moment in Victoria is akin to the Wild West, failing to protect consumers from dodgy builders and developers, like at Culcairn Drive in Frankston South, which the member for Brighton and I visited a number of weeks and which I have been advocating for in Parliament and beyond since 2018. They have been in national media, they have been on current affairs shows, they have been in newspapers, but still this state Labor government have done nothing to help these people – people like Kon, who are now living in their van because they can no longer live in their own home at Culcairn Drive. The member for Frankston in particular as well: I do call on you to take action. This is in your electorate. You need to do something to help these people. These people are struggling. They need support, and it is a matter of time. This government does need to take action. We have situations of windows that can barely open, mouldy ceilings, no soundproofing, leaky ceilings and balconies – in fact balconies that have collapsed. The list of faults we see in new buildings in Victoria and across Australia is seemingly endless. I know the member for Narracan, who is a building expert here, is very well aware of what is happening here in Victoria. This Labor government need to listen to people like the member for Narracan who know what they are talking about, who have that expertise in this industry, and they need to take action.

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of the remaining items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business. The house is considering the Building Legislation Amendment and Other Matters Bill 2024. The minister has moved that the bill be now read a second time. The member for Brighton has moved a reasoned amendment to this motion. He has proposed to omit all of the words after ‘That’ and replace them with the words which have been circulated. The question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Those supporting the reasoned amendment by the member for Brighton should vote no.

Assembly divided on question:

Ayes (51): Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Gabrielle de Vietri, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Sam Hibbins, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Tim Pallas, Danny Pearson, Tim Read, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Ellen Sandell, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (22): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner

Question agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The question is:

That this bill be now read a second time and a third time.

Assembly divided on question:

Ayes (51): Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Gabrielle de Vietri, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Sam Hibbins, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Tim Pallas, Danny Pearson, Tim Read, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Ellen Sandell, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Noes (22): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner

Question agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.