Mandatory Disclosure for Commercial Office Buildings Has Arrived

Introduction

On 18 March 2010 Greg Combet, the Minister assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, tabled the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill 2010 (Bill). The tabling of the Bill is the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle which commenced in December 2004 when Mandatory Disclosure of Commercial Building Energy Efficiency was first proposed under the Stage 1 Implementation Plan of the National Framework for Energy Efficiency, a joint initiative of the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments under the Ministerial Council on Energy.

More recently, in November 2009, the Federal Government released a Regulation Document after industry consultation, which outlined the likely key elements of the scheme but which left many aspects of the detail of the scheme still to be articulated. The draft legislation which has now been released addresses many of these aspects, but as we explain below, the ambit of operation of many of the key