Property Council pushes for national energy guarantee

“On behalf of Australia’s biggest industry which employs 1.4 million Australians and contributes 13 per cent of GDP, we strongly support the objectives of the NEG to depoliticise energy policy and to integrate energy and climate policy,” Mr Morrison said.

“The reality is that the NEG is the only realistic framework for addressing these issues which is on the table. The alternative to moving forward with the NEG framework is to have no framework and no certainty, and that approach has failed the country for too long.

“It’s time to quit the partisan and ideological point-scoring and work together in the national interest to support a policy framework which can deliver certainty on the supply and cost of energy for Australian households.”

With Australia’s standing as the leader on property sustainability for seven years in a row according to the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, Mr Morrison said that Australia’s efforts to reduce emissions in property can be enhanced further through the NEG.

Mr Morrison has expressed the need for environmentally sound policies in the past, such as suggesting updates to the National Construction Code to reduce energy network costs by up to $7 billion and save at least 78 million tonnes of cumulative emissions.

“These are substantial reductions and should be pursued, but they also demonstrate that a range of other policies need to be considered, including the decarbonisation of the electricity grid through greater use of distributed energy, as part of a comprehensive strategy for a zero-carbon built environment by 2050,” he said previously.