Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I never intend to ascribe to incompetence what can be perfectly explained by a lack of attention to detail. As I speak about the green loans—which have barely been able to be brought to this chamber by virtue of the culture of incompetence that has been witnessed from the environment department over the last month—I speak on behalf of the now 4,000 to 5,000 Australian sole operators, small business people, working Australians and single Australians who have come back from overseas to participate in the green loans scheme. I appeal to this minister, to the Prime Minister and to this administration to have some compassion for the plight of our green assessors.

It was all so shiny, attractive and seductive in 2007, when a then smiling Prime Minister Rudd promised 200,000 interest-free green loans around the country. Of course, it was rolled out in that first year with very few suspicions of the impending train wreck that was only a year away. The first warning that we would have a glut of assessors was when a DEEWR divisional head decided to completely deregulate training. Somewhere within that department a decision has been made to allow not 1,500 assessors, as was promised in Senate estimates in 2008, but an order of magnitude more, 11,000 assessors now fighting, queuing and hoping for a career under this collapsed scheme.

We know about the Albanian pyramid schemes, but I say to those on the other side: this is a tragedy of monumental proportions orchestrated purely by the Rudd administration. What we have in the rescue job that was Minister Garrett’s action to suspend the green assessments last week is a capping of assessors at 5,000, with 4,000 to 5,000 of them thrown on the scrap heap, praying that, like the insulation equivalent, they will be given some structural readjustment package. I wonder what this Stalinistic, centrist Rudd government, which does not understand how much damage is wrought when you do this to Australian working families, is planning to do next week, when for the first time assessors will be speaking out.

One places faith in a sovereign state that when it promises a three- to four-year program it will not collapse in 12 months. And you hope that when you are promised 200,000 interest-free green loans they will not grind out at 1,500 and then be suspended. And you hope that when you are told you can hope for an income as an assessor based on doing 10 or 20 assessments per week that it will not be changed to three.

Full-time assessors are now looking at being part-time workers—underemployment of massive proportions. At the same time, what we saw in the last week as a minister tried harder to defend his own job than the jobs of assessors—or even harder than his efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which this is all about—was a complete wipe-out of green loans altogether. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of households waiting on those assessment reports that never came from his department; they have no hope of applying for a green loan. We have states in this country that had state funded programs doing just the same thing, and then when this federal scheme was rolled out over the top the only additional benefit of getting a federal home assessment was some behavioural modification and the chance at an interest-free green loan. That has all been ripped away.

I just want to appeal to the minister, because I know he is a person of integrity, to answer some questions for the Australian people. In my electorate there are 60 of these assessors and there are 4½ thousand of them who paid their registration to ABSA with some hope that they would get something back for their $650. They paid insurance totalling over $1,000. This is 10,000 people who were hoping they would have a future at least for a year. And now we have had this dribbled out with a cap of 15,000 assessments per week: it is a naked attempt to run this scheme through to the next election so that there is no criticism of Minister Garrett.

I appeal to the minister—what are these new contracts? How did you decide the 5,000? Who are the other 1,800 flying in limbo in a holding pattern with ABSA who can never hope to get their money back? Will you reimburse them for the costs of training, insurance and accreditation, or is this money just lost in some bizarre pyramid scheme where first in got everything and everyone else was left damaged? Will there be an online booking tool like this minister promised? Will response times for the call centre be improved like this minister promised? Where are those $50 reward cards for every household like this minister promised? When will the audits begin? Where are the refunds for those who have made huge investments and could not even recoup those costs? I appeal to this chamber on behalf of the thousands of sole operators in this country destroyed—help these people, Minister Garrett. (Time expired)

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