Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the collapsed Home Insulation Program. In particular, I refer to his promise in front of parliament on 24 February to Kelly Jackson to assist her and other small business operators by introducing a replacement insulation scheme—a promise he scrapped in just two months via a junior minister. Given this clearly broken promise to Ms Jackson, will he apologise, and why should any small business operator anywhere believe anything he says?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. It goes to the government’s arrangements to work with the industry arising from the Home Insulation Program. I refer the honourable member to the Hawke review, which produced its findings concerning the inadvisability of proceeding with a continuing program. They did so because they believed that the government’s resources should be dedicated in the meantime to ensuring that all safety matters arising from the previous program were properly dealt with. Furthermore, the government has already provided, by way of assistance to firms within the industry, $15 million in insulation industry assistance package support, together with arrangements with the Commissioner for Taxation on GST payment obligations for eligible insulation companies. In addition to that—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question was whether the Prime Minister would apologise to Ms Jackson.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question was very wide by the time it was finished. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the three elements of the government’s response is the $56 million to assist insulation workers and companies affected by the closure of the Home Insulation Program. There are specific programs which affect workers, and they were detailed earlier by ministers in the House. For companies, I referred to the $15 million industry assistance package, and of course there are the additional measures through the Australian Taxation Office.

These are difficult times for various parts of the industry. The government fully recognises that fact. A number of firms are already assisting with the Home Insulation Program inspection arrangements. I am advised by the minister that a number of those firms are obtaining further work as a consequence of that. The minister responsible, the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, will continue to keep the House informed on the progress of implementation of that program.