Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Very popular indeed with many of the shonks that are out there practising in this industry at the moment. It comes down to a situation where we have the good guys and the bad guys in the insulation industry, and I would like to take my hat off to those good guys who have been around for some time, providing good service to people in their communities. But the unprecedented rush has unfortunately led to some bad guys coming into the industry, people with no qualifications or prior experience. We have seen a flood of imported products into Australia, and Australian producers have had no hope of keeping up with the demand for insulation products, so we have seen much of this stimulus package go directly out the door, to South-East Asia. We have seen an influx of unqualified workmen. I have heard of people having as little as one hour of training, backpackers being sent into people’s ceilings. We have had house fires. Installers have covered up down lights without shielding them, leading to house fires. So really it has been a program out of control.

A number of constituents have contacted me with serious issues regarding the quoting arrangements. One person showed me a quote for the removal of the old insulation, which is clearly contrary to the guidelines of the package—in fact, when they asked for the quote back, it had been altered, removing the line stipulating the old insulation be removed. That was the quote sent to the department. This is not an isolated case at all.

One the other side, I spoke about the good guys—the fellows with the white hats—who have been providing service for years and who have entered into this scheme in good faith. Now, because of mismanagement, we are making another precipitous change to the legislation: $400 has been lopped off the top. This has left suppliers with unfulfillable contracts. Because of the shortage of supplies, they have not been able to complete the contracts before the cut-off date. I have in front of me a letter from one of my contractors, who states he has 140 accepted quotes and outstanding installations booked on the basis of the $1,600 rebate. It is not possible to facilitate all of these by 16 November 2009. Material supply has been problematic and scarce, particularly in the remote locations of Eyre Peninsula. Combined with the current extreme hot weather conditions, the 16 November 2009 cut-off is not practical. This particular company has spent more than $20,000 in printed literature, website content, vehicle signage, TV commercials and partnerships with third parties that made representations for the $1,600 rebate in accordance with the government eligibility criteria. In the letter he says:

We have promoted our home insulation services in the $1,600 rebate to a significant number of customers in the belief that, should they meet the government’s eligibility criteria, they will then be entitled to a rebate of up to $1,600 as per the energy efficient homes program.

The Trade Practices Act requires these traders to ensure that reasonable quantities of goods are available for a reasonable period of time and price, if the goods are advertised on sale. It makes no difference whether the business had intended to mislead or deceive the consumer; it is how the conduct of the business affected the consumer—their thoughts and beliefs—that matters. This is not the only contact I have. Another company that has over 200 outstanding contracts are wondering what their legal position is. Are they going to wear losses? Are they going to be compelled to complete these contracts? It is just a sign of the absolute mismanagement of the contract from day one forward.

I turn my attention to the issues of water and the failures of water policy throughout Australia by this government. My electorate does not border the Murray, even though it goes very close, but it is largely supplied by Murray water. Murray water feeds the cities of Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla and certainly most of my electorate to the east of Spencer Gulf, so we have a great interest in the way the Murray is managed. It is with some bemusement that we remember how the premiers and the Prime Minister gathered to make the grand announcement about national control of the Murray. It reminded me a little of Chamberlain’s presentation after he went to prewar Germany and pronounced, ‘Peace in our time.’ It was a great breakthrough, this national management of the Murray! Why then, if it is such a wonderful arrangement that is working so well, is the South Australian government taking the Victorian government to court over the matter of water trading? It would appear that this wonderful national management is in fact highly deficient. We have national management on the never-never.

That brings me to specific issues. In particular, if we are looking at water policy, the city of Port Pirie had proposed—along with the operators of the lead smelter in Port Pirie, Nyrstar—a water-recycling project which would have made an extra 1.3 gigalitres of water available and almost removed Nyrstar, as a major drawer on the Murray, as a consumer. In the lead-up to the last election, the coalition made a commitment to put $5 million into the project. Of course, it became an electoral issue in my electorate. In the period leading up to the election, the now Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Minister Albanese, actually made a commitment on local radio that, if elected, he would give the government’s most urgent attention to the water-recycling program in Port Pirie. He was recently on local radio again, and I rang up and asked the question: when were we expecting this urgent attention? To my great surprise, he chose to evade the question altogether and not give an answer. You would not want to be on the slow list if that is the urgent list. Two years on, it still has not received any attention at all.

Just to give you a little background, I refer to a speech I gave earlier on this issue. Port Pirie has a long history in the lead- and zinc-smelting industry and has had a historical problem with blood lead levels in children. As I said:

The current operator of the Port Pirie smelter, Nyrstar, is fully committed to its ten by 10 clean-up program, which aims to have the blood lead levels of 95 per cent of the children under five in Port Pirie below 10 milligrams per decilitre by 2010. Nyrstar’s commitment to this goal has seen the company invest $56 million towards the project, some $12 million in the local community. However, the company has made it clear that it must have the tools to do the job. The overriding issue to achieve this aim is the availability of an adequate water supply.

Lead is transferred in the environment as dust, and the most important element in any dust abatement scheme is water. The greening of Port Pirie cannot continue without adequate supplies of water. At the moment one would have to assume that without significant action the city is more likely to face tightening water restrictions, not an increased supply. Port Pirie is currently 100 per cent reliant on the River Murray. The Port Pirie Regional Council and the Southern Flinders Ranges Regional Development Board, in conjunction with Nyrstar, have proposed a water-recycling project aimed at capturing the city’s two effluent streams, industrial and household, and returning 70 per cent of this water for reuse. This will produce 1,349 megalitres per annum.

I once again ask Minister Albanese to come back to the commitment that he made in November 2007 and have an urgent look at this project.

Another issue that I would like to bring up in conjunction with government water policy is the highly successful Community Water Grants program run under the previous government, which supported small communities in their efforts to capture and save water. This program was an enormous success. Just off the top of my head, I can name a couple of projects. At Arno Bay, in my electorate, where they have captured all the water off the local silos, they have lined dams with covers on them and now water all the playing surfaces in the town—the bowling green and the football oval—with that water. There is a similar situation in Kadina, where, on a council sponsored scheme, they have lined dams with covers. We have seen bowling clubs replace their turf surfaces with synthetics which leads to great savings in water.

We now have the government’s program. Basically, if you do not have $4 million, do not apply. I cannot really believe the government intended to do this—to knock off a scheme that elicits so much community support, where people are prepared to produce so much more for the money because they will give in-kind support to their communities and their local clubs and where, for $50,000, you may well get a $200,000 project in the community. I ask the water minister to go back and have another look at that program and see if they can design something similar to support these small communities again, because, in the end, if they are drawing water off the Murray, it does not matter where you save the water; it will have the same effect. It will leave more water in the Murray.

This is an appropriations bill, and many of those programs that I have talked about—in particular, the insulation program—lead you to wonder whether the government have the ability to manage the programs that they are currently implementing. I believe we have gone past $100 billion worth of net borrowing. On latest estimates, we are heading for $170 billion of net borrowing, and at this stage we still do not even have the $43 billion committed to the National Broadband Network factored into that, so there is a quite high possibility of passing $200 billion of debt.

That brings me to some of the programs which are falling off the rails in a bad way. There is the Building the Education Revolution funding, which no doubt schools have been welcoming. Who wouldn’t welcome money being thrown in their direction? We have seen an inflation factor of 30 to 50 per cent in the building of those facilities. We have 30 per cent loading for upcountry installation in my electorate. We have local communities accepting buildings that they do not really want and tearing down buildings they did not want to tear down just to make sure they fall in line with the government’s commitment and get the money, which in the end they will have to pay back because they are taxpayers like the rest of us and they will be responsible for the debt. They are accepting these projects with a gun at their head.

See this speech in context