Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government is extremely disappointed that the opposition has decided to move this bill in the House. For the second time in six months it has tried to hijack the good work that is being done by closing down the Home Insulation Program and by distracting the government with what can only be called a vexatious bill.

In November last year the opposition tried to derail the government's safety inspection programs by forcing us to prematurely release information on safety inspection results. Although this attempt failed in the House, it was an unnecessary distraction for the government when we needed to be focused completely on providing safety to householders.

Now, once again, the opposition wants to distract and obstruct the government in doing its core business by imposing a commission of inquiry to investigate the program. This is despite the fact that there have already been three major investigations into the program that have been completely supported by government. I will get to those reports soon.

I would like to say right upfront that the government accepts that there were significant design and implementation problems with the Home Insulation Program. We have never walked away from this fact. Since the program was closed in February last year the government has worked extremely hard in dealing with the complex array of issues involved with its closure.

I also want to reinforce how much the government regrets that four young Australians tragically died while installing insulation under the program. These young men were: Matthew Fuller, on 14 October 2009. He was 25 years old and the incident occurred in Meadowbrook, Brisbane; on 18 November 2009, Reuben Barnes, who was 16 years old. The incident occurred in Rockhampton in Queensland; on 21 November 2009, Marcus Wilson, 19 years old. The incident occurred on 20 November in St Clair, New South Wales; on 4 February 2010, Mitchell Sweeney, 22 years old. The incident occurred in Millaa Millaa, North Queensland. I could not possibly imagine how difficult it must continue to be for the friends and families of these four young men in dealing with these tragic losses. The families quite rightly want answers to what happened to their loved ones. To this end, I am aware that these deaths have been the subject of investigations by relevant state bodies. In the case of Reuben Barnes and Matthew Fuller, the companies that employed them have been prosecuted under the relevant state laws. The court hearing into the death of Mitchell Sweeney also remains ongoing. I am also aware that the deaths of these four young men may be the subject of coronial inquiries. To assist in that process the government has agreed to provide funding for legal representation of the families of those men. It is hoped that the completion of all of these investigations and inquiries will bring some peace to the families involved.

As I said previously, the government is focused on getting on with the job of remediating the Home Insulation Program through our safety inspection programs. The member for Flinders' latest attempt to thwart the government's work is simply yet another political stunt from the opposition, which they have tried and failed with before. The government has been totally transparent in reviewing the Home Insulation Program. We have supported a number of inquiries into the program since its closure, including the Auditor-General's report into the Home Insulation Program, an independent Review of the administration of the Home Insulation Program conducted by Dr Allan Hawke and a Senate inquiry.

Through the last 12 months there has been a distinct pattern in how the opposition deals with issues relating to the Home Insulation Program. Our experience is that the opposition calls for a review, and when they do not get the answer they want they call for another. However, it might be worthwhile just to revisit what some of these reports did investigate and what they actually found to demonstrate that a comprehensive review of the Home Insulation Program has been undertaken.

Following the closure of the program in February last year the government appointed the well-respected former public servant Dr Allan Hawke to do a review of the administrative and design aspects of the Home Insulation Program. The Hawke report found that rapid rollout, wide access to the program for both householders and entrants to the installation industry and ease of transactions were key drivers for program design and implementation. Hawke found that this was appropriate given the key objective of economic stimulus but that it was unreasonable to conclude that a program of this size operating within a largely unregulated industry could ever be delivered without risk. Hawke also found that it was unreasonable to conclude that all of the issues that emerged from the program could have been anticipated or that they were easily remediable. A stronger management structure, earlier implementation of the audit and compliance program and better targeting of compliance effort early in the program could have mitigated the risks to more acceptable levels, but never to zero. Hawke then found that safety and quality risks in the program could not be fully abated and recommended that the government should reconsider proceeding with the insulation component of the REBS. Accordingly, the government accepted this advice in April last year and did not proceed with the new program.

The Auditor-General compiled a report in response to a request by the then Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, on 3 March 2010. The National Audit Office identified significant deficiencies in the administration of the program, particularly the risk management practices applied by the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. The main issues identified included ineffective an untimely risk management processes by the department, an overwhelming volume of claims and installations that impacted on effective program delivery, little proactive oversight and response to emerging problems by the department's executive and a lack of appropriately skilled staff to implement the program. Importantly, the report did not make adverse findings against ministers, including the former Minister for Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett. In relation to Mr Garrett, the ANAO found that DEWHA's advice to the minister was overly optimistic and contained factual errors.

Despite what the opposition has claimed publicly, I am advised that the Auditor-General had access to all cabinet-in-confidence material when conducting his investigation. Although the opposition is solely motivated by scoring cheap political points, it simply cannot credibly claim that a totally open and transparent review has not been carried out. Incredibly, though, the opposition's main argument for some time in justifying a judicial inquiry is that the government has impeded the Auditor-General from running a fully independent inquiry.

I would just like to remind the opposition what the Auditor-General actually does. The Auditor-General is the independent watchdog for the Commonwealth government. He sets his own terms of reference. He structures his inquiries as he chooses and has extensive powers of access to government documents, including cabinet documents. Such claims that somehow the government has restricted the Auditor-General in how he pursued his investigation of the Home Insulation Program are quite frankly baseless and scandalous. In addition to the Hawke and ANAO reports, the government also fully supported the Senate inquiry into the Home Insulation Program, making available departmental officers and hundreds of pages of documents for the committee to make its deliberations.

What I have described today clearly demonstrates that the government has been completely transparent in reviewing the Home Insulation Program. The Hawke review and the Auditor-General's report both came out with similar findings. The government has clearly accepted those findings. Most importantly, both were comprehensive reports that were targeted at the right issues. The problem though is that the opposition is not interested in what these reports have found. The opposition feels cheated in that the findings it wanted were not identified by either Allan Hawke or the Auditor-General. So in a fit of pique the opposition is now desperately running around looking for a process that may, just may, come up with findings that will satisfy its desire for cheap political points.

So what would a new commission of inquiry achieve? The answer is simple: nothing. The reports undertaken so far have been thorough and comprehensive. A new inquiry would find nothing new and would be a complete waste of taxpayers' money. Importantly, it would distract the government from what it needs to do—that is, deal successfully with the closure of the program. This involves continuing to ensure the safety of households, pursuing those who committed fraud under the program and providing advice to the insulation industry. Just as it did six months ago, by trying to embed a sense of panic in the general public that the government was hiding the results of its safety inspections, the opposition is now trying to create a false impression that the government still has something to hide. Well, the Hawke review and the Auditor-General's report say otherwise. The actions of the opposition today are just the same as they were six months ago: irresponsible, vexatious and time consuming. I ask the House to totally reject this bill and see it for what it is: a cheap and baseless political stunt.

See this speech in context