Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This is a government whose environmental programs are in chaos. Let us start with the midyear economic forecast. Carefully tucked away in a footnote on page 31 of the forecast is a small matter, a slight budgetary adjustment for this year, where the $1 billion allocated for pink batts suddenly becomes $2 billion. This is the minister responsible for a $1 billion blow-out in pink batts in one year alone. That is an impressive achievement in accounting. To spend $1 billion on pink batts is extraordinary, but to spend $2 billion, with a $1 billion blow-out, in one year, is a level of fine-grade management which we see coming from the government in its environmental programs.

But it is not just the issue of the pink batts program and a $1 billion blow-out in one year alone. There are the solar programs, which we will deal with shortly, where we have seen the collapse and the caning of the solar homes, the remote solar and the solar schools programs—all from a government that pronounced that it would be the best friend that solar ever had. Three programs axed on three different occasions.

We have also seen the way in which they have spent $650 million, which was brought forward to buy phantom water. That is what my friend the member for Parkes will deal with, the fact that we have a government that is indulging in an orgy of spending on phantom water—air over dams, water which does not exist. It is an extraordinary waste of funding rather than focusing on direct infrastructure spending in rural Australia on fixing up our farms, on replumbing rural Australia, on the once-in-century vision of replumbing our farms and our interconnectors. Whether it is spent on piping or channelling or lining of dams, these are things which would make a real difference and which could save 600 billion litres of water anywhere from the Darling Downs to the Lower Lakes.

And that brings me to the last point, which the member for Mayo will deal with, the fact that we have seen the Lower Lakes neglected on a grand scale. There has been a grand hoax in relation to that which was offered for the Lower Lakes. The reality is that one of Australia’s great wetlands, great migratory bird areas, one of the world’s Ramsar sites, has been neglected and, as the member for Mayo will point out, has led to a devastating environmental impact. Not all is within the government’s hands—not the causes, but the solutions are. So that is what we see today, beginning with a $1 billion pink batts blow-out in one year alone.

I want to turn first to the home installation program and the issue of rorting, the issue of inappropriate action and the way in which we have seen complete negligence in the management of the pink batts program by the government. Let me start with a small example. It is an example which is, shall we say, inconvenient for the government. It is Patricia Andrews. Patricia Andrews was surprised to discover that she had received insulation in her home. She received a letter from the government asking whether or not she was happy with the service that she had had. The only problem was that her home had been demolished. The home was demolished and she had never applied for insulation. More than that, not only was the insulation not delivered, not only was the home demolished, but Patricia Andrews’s home was within the Prime Minister’s electorate. So within a few short kilometres of the Prime Minister’s electorate office, we have an installation rort for insulation which was never delivered in a house which was demolished in the Prime Minister’s own electorate. So this program goes right to the heart of incompetence and mismanagement, not just at ministerial level but at prime ministerial level. There is a simple failure to oversee a program which was badly designed from the outset, which has been modified in response to opposition demands not once, twice, or even three times, but on four different occasions.

So what are the different forms of rorting that we have seen? Firstly, we see the fact that there have been false claims, claims for action which never occurred. There have been claims which are inflated. We produced at this dispatch box only some weeks ago an example of a $1,600 quote and then a second quote for the same apartment in Brisbane for $300. What we see here is a mark-up of over 500 per cent between two different quotes. That is what is occurring in many situations because of a program which was ill-designed and ill-considered.

What we have also seen from the government, beyond false claims, beyond inflated claims, is Google claims. These Google claims are where, in breach of their duties, certain dodgy installers that have been brought in by the promise of free money are making their installation quotes from the sky without ever making on-site inspections. It took us to expose these; it took us to put it to the government; it took us to argue for some months before they finally responded in exactly the way that we said was necessary.

But more needs to be done because beyond that you also have the example of flaking. Flaking is where you take ceiling insulation and you cut it in half and you double it. There are many examples. I have had that brought to my attention in my own electorate. All of these have been reported to the government. And finally we have dumping. There are many examples of homeowners who will go into their roof to discover that pink batts or ceiling batts—and do not let me leave any doubt that these are excellent Australian products, fine Australian products that are being misused by dodgy installers brought in by the promise of free money—have simply been dumped, in many cases unwrapped, in the roof, the money has been claimed and the homeowner has been left with the problem. That is a systemic, significant pattern of dodgy practice, of corruption, of rorting and it took extraordinary public pressure, whether it was through Ray Hadley on 2GB, whether it was through stations in Brisbane or Melbourne or Adelaide, to help bring to public light the rorts, the mismanagement, the problems occurring under the program.

I want to go to something more serious now, the problem of ceiling fires. These are not examples which we have made up. I want to read from a release by the New South Wales government’s Steve Whan, the Minister for Emergency Services and the Minister for Small Business. I quote from his release dated 18 November 2009—the member for Dickson’s birthday:

The Minister for Emergency Services Steve Whan today urged homeowners to check that ceiling insulation had been installed properly following a spate of 15 fires involving ceiling insulation over the past three weeks.

Mr Whan said that these 15 fires brought the total for the year to 49, compared to 25 in 2008.

So 15 ceiling fires in three weeks linked not by us but by the New South Wales Minister for Emergency Services to insulation and a doubling of ceiling fires in one state, in one year not yet completed, again linked not by us but by a Labor government state minister. We also see that in Western Australia the Department of Commerce issued a release noting:

This increase in demand for roof insulation due to the subsidy may attract inexperienced installers to the industry and there is a danger if the product is not being installed according to our strict safety guidelines.

Similarly the South Australian Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gail Gago:

The main safety issues appear to be with the incorrect installation of loose fill or blow-in insulation, however, any type of insulation installed too close or covering electrical devices, such as down lights and fans, can cause them to overheat and start a fire.

What we have seen is state ministers around the country warning of fires under the government’s insulation program, not us. They are not our views; they are the state ministers’ views. Two out of the three were from state Labor governments.

I now turn to the most serious incidents under the Home Insulation Program and this is why there needs to be an urgent Auditor-General’s inquiry and why there can be no reason, I say respectfully to the minister, for ignoring or avoiding such an inquiry. It is also why the government must make all details of the Home Insulation Program—what the minister was warned of and when he was warned by different authorities—available to an inquiry and why there must be new training standards by the end of this week. What we have seen, very sadly and tragically, are three deaths of young installers involved in ceiling insulation.

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