Ramsey Rowen (the Deputy Speaker):

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Flinders proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s continued failure to address the consequences of the Home Insulation Program

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

Overnight we heard that the number of homes affected by house fires linked to the Home Insulation Program had jumped to 174. Think of a small country town—174 houses are enough to comprise the number of homes in a small country town. Every home in that small country town would in effect have been impacted by the Home Insulation Program. The figures released overnight showed an increase of 18 in the number of home fires and that was only 20 days after the last set of figures.

Let me run through this in this matter of public importance. On 14 May, the figures were raised to 144 house fires. On 26 May, 12 days later, the figures were increased by 12 to 156 house fires. Yesterday on 15 June, only 20 days later, the figures were increased by 18 house fires to 174 house fires. The defence that the government uses is that not all of those fires in fact occurred during that period; some of those fires occurred as long as eight months ago, in October. In other words, what the government is saying—its defence and primary basis for saying that things are not so bad—is that the actual number of house fires is likely to be far greater than those that have been reported at this moment in time. If we are only now receiving confirmations of fires which occurred eight months ago, if we are only now receiving proof of those fires and if fires that occurred as long ago as October are only now being recognised, heaven forbid what is occurring in the homes in Australia which have been the subject of the Home Insulation Program.

Let us be absolutely clear: if you consider the increase in the official figures for home fires linked to the Home Insulation Program over the last 20 days and you place that figure of 18 in the context of any suburban street in Australia, it gives you a sense of the magnitude of the situation. Imagine 18 homes in a single street afflicted by fire in its different forms of gravity—some of them catastrophic, others simply terrifying but all, however, placing home owners at risk of a perilous outcome. This is not confected. This is not something which the opposition has dreamt into being. These are the government’s own figures, forced from it last night after the figures relating to house fires were omitted from a statement which the Prime Minister’s own government put out after question time, after the television news was put to bed and after most of the deadlines had been met for the newspapers. What we know from this statement put out at 4.40 pm last night is that it did not say anything about the number of house fires or the increase in the number of house fires. I cannot believe that the minister was necessarily responsible for that. But I can believe that the Prime Minister was responsible for such a conscious and wilful omission of a fact which is relevant to more than a million homes across Australia. That is the scale, the scope, the magnitude of what we are facing right now.

Only a few weeks ago, we saw 80-year-old Edith Preston from Ormond in Melbourne having to beat back the flames herself. It was only the MFB arriving that pulled her away from the house fire caused by faulty insulation installed under the Home Insulation Program. The reason this situation is so grave is, firstly, the threat to home owners and, secondly, that it is the direct result of a program which is unparalleled in its incompetence. This is a government which has shown serial incompetence, and this program is the exemplar par excellence of incompetence on a systemic, gross and unparalleled scale. We also saw the Alaboudi family of Lalor fight for the life of one of their senior members. They faced a fire which was potentially catastrophic. Fortunately, there was no damage to life or limb but there was terrible damage to the home. So it must be made absolutely clear that every home should be inspected. Every home has to be inspected. For the government to fail to commit to inspecting every home is, I think, to ignore the warnings and to ignore them in a way which sits with everything that has occurred over the course of last year.

The government ignored the warnings of fraud, fires and fatalities that were contained in industry briefings from February last year. The government ignored the warnings of 29 April last year which were raised in a phone hook-up with state and territory officials. The government ignored the warnings of further fatalities which were contained in the advice from the Master Electricians of 16 October last year, and the government ignored repeated warnings of fires and fatalities which were contained within the Minter Ellison Risk Register, first obtained in early April and then updated on an ongoing basis—31 July, 17 September and 1 October last year. On each occasion it warned of risk of fires and fatalities. These warnings were clear and absolute. Right now, the same pattern of warnings is being given. The warnings from the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade are also of fires and fatalities.

Let me now turn to what the fire brigade said—and this is not just one person speaking on one occasion but at least three senior members of the MFB on multiple occasions. The head of the MFB fire units, Commander Ian Hunter, said on 16 March of this year:

My gut feeling is that what we’re seeing is a bit like a war zone - the war might be over but all the mines are still there.

This is strong, clear, powerful and profound language and a warning which must be heeded by the government. Against that warning, which replicates the practice and pattern of warnings which we saw throughout last year, we are now seeing further warnings that every home must be inspected. Mr Hunter then went on to say on 26 April on Four Corners that the Rudd government must:

… definitely inspect every home that has had it—

insulation—

installed under the program.

The words ‘every home’ are clear and precise and cannot be contradicted. But it is more than just the view of Commander Hunter. Fire investigator Rod East on 31 May, only a few short weeks ago, told radio 3AW that he was worried about the risk of even more insulation fires over winter. He said:

This is our gravest concern.  We’ve had two that I would determine as very near misses and the problem is the fire’s in the roof before the occupants actually know it’s through the roof.

When he was asked whether he believed that there could be further deaths from insulation fires and that they were inevitable, he is reported to have said, ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ These are warnings from fire authorities of not just fires, not just catastrophic loss of property, not just injury but fatalities. On 31 May, Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade Commander Frank Stockton said that there had been a ‘marked increase’ in insulation fires and warned that with winter now arriving ‘these fires won’t stop’ because ‘more lights were being left on for longer which would lead to more roof insulation fires’. These are warnings from the most senior officers in a highly respected body—the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade of Victoria—and they are clear, categorical and precise. These officers are not alone. We have also had James Tinslay, the head of the National Electrical and Communications Association, call for every home to be inspected. We have had the Victoria union leader, the head of the Electrical Trades Union, Dean Mighell, also call for every home to be expected.

There cannot be any doubt that those who know, that those who are expert, that those who have seen the risks attached to the continued failure to treat this program with the gravity it deserves are warning. The warnings which were germane and prescient last year are germane and prescient this year. The fires continue. The numbers mount. The risks accrue. There can be no doubt that the government is being grossly negligent. In the words of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report—another secret report revealed on the weekend—‘They have a high appetite for risk.’

What we are seeing very clearly is that this risk is the risk of injury and damage. I warn this House of potential fatalities through houses which have not been inspected but have had insulation installed under the Home Insulation Program. The examples are clear. We see this against a background of a home insulation program with an unparalleled impact, compared with any other government program since Federation in Australia, on the lives and houses of ordinary Australians. We have seen 174 house fires, 1,500 potentially deadly electrified roofs, 70,000 potentially deadly fire traps with dangerous insulation and 240,000 houses with dangerous or dodgy insulation. All of these figures are taken from the government’s own reports. We also see up to a billion dollars to fix this program which were provisioned, allocated, set aside under five different programs in the recent budget. Up to a billion dollars have been set aside to fix this, but none of this compares with the four tragedies which have occurred during the course of this program. Much has been said. I simply note that those tragedies are extraordinary and unacceptable. Everybody in this House offers their sympathy and apologies to the families, on both sides. If we were not able to stop this program in its tracks, then we are sorry and I am sure that they will say sorry on the other side at some stage.

Let us be clear. Against that background there is only one answer: every home must be inspected, every home must be subject to the protections that have been recommended and the warnings given by the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the national Electrical and Communications Association and the Electrical Trades Union. These warnings are from the people who know and they should not be dismissed. Last year we saw the then responsible minister, Mr Garrett, ignore 26 warnings but he in turn provided 12 different warnings across three known letters to the Prime Minister dated 27 August 2009, 28 and 30 October 2009, but there is a fourth letter which has been sealed from the public for 30 years. This fourth letter, dated 14 August 2009, must be released. There can be no justification for keeping this letter sealed in a locked cabinet for 30 years because right now Australia needs the knowledge that every step is being taken to ensure that the safety of Australian homeowners is paramount.

At the moment, sadly, as has occurred throughout the course of this program, the safety of the Prime Minister’s reputation has been the number one concern. At this moment—and I make this statement after careful consideration—the lives of Australians are being put on the line by the Prime Minister’s failure to take all due and necessarily steps to protect Australian homeowners and to ensure that every home is inspected, as the leading fire and electrical authorities have recommended. I also note that we see many small business owners, such as Duncan Herbert from southern Sydney, whose futures are in the balance. They manage their inventory properly. They are not helped by the inventory program which the government put in place. They have issues relating to staff costs. They have issues relating to buildings. They have been in business for 10, 15 or 20 years and their industry has ceased to exist. They need support. They need a package. What we have seen from the government is the provisioning of money but the failure to execute the inspections and a failure to ensure that the longstanding, legitimate small businesses who have had their sector destroyed are protected. Against that background these things are evident: first, every home must be inspected and the failure to do so is gross and systemic negligence; second, small businesses must be helped; and, third, there must be a royal commission. (Time expired)

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the debate on the matter of public importance before the House because it affords me an opportunity, as the responsible minister, to update the House on progress in the wind-up of the Home Insulation Program and the safety plan and inspections that the government has instituted. I will come to them in some detail. Secondly, it affords the opportunity to address some of the myths that have been propagated by the member for Flinders, some of which we have just heard repeated.

There are four key elements to the program the government has instituted to deal with the wind-up of the Home Insulation Program. These four elements include the home insulation safety program, upon which I will elaborate, the foil insulation safety program, the industry assistance measures that have been instituted, including the manner in which the government has been addressing the issue of payments to insulation installers and others, and the measures the government has instituted to deal with potential cases of fraud under the Home Insulation Program and various other forms of noncompliance with program guidelines.

I turn firstly to the home insulation safety program. This is the program of safety inspections that the government has instituted in relation to homes that had non-foil forms of insulation installed in them under the now terminated Home Insulation Program. These inspections are targeted at those homes that are most likely to have safety issues. Those homes are being targeted for inspection on the basis of an ongoing risk assessment that was recommended by, and has been developed on a continuing basis by, PricewaterhouseCoopers who are contracted to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency partly for this purpose and partly also for the administration of the home insulation safety program.

The government has committed—and I make this very clear—to inspecting a minimum of 150,00 homes in this category. That is at least the number that the government will inspect in this part of its activity in the wind-up of the Home Insulation Program. If the risk assessment, the development of which will continue to be informed by the results of the inspections, indicates that more houses need to be inspected, they will be. That is the commitment of the government. We have committed to inspect at least 150,000 homes and we will inspect as many as are necessary according to the risk assessment that will continue to evolve and be informed by the results of inspections as they come in. In addition to that commitment, any household that has safety concerns with installations of insulation made unde the Home Insulation Program can request an inspection through the safety hotline which is 131792. Those inspections are being performed and they are being carried out in addition to the minimum of 150,00 homes that I have indicated.

I go to some of the myth making in relation to this issue. The commitments by the government that I have outlined are extremely important. The member for Flinders, the shadow minister, has consistently said—and has done so in the matter of public importance submissions that he has made—that there should be a commitment that all houses be inspected. I emphasise the government’s commitment to inspect as many as are necessary and appropriate as informed by an ongoing risk assessment.

One needs to consider the nature of the installations that were made in developing such a risk assessment. A number of companies that are longstanding, reputable firms in the insulation industry carried out a very significant number of installations during the term of the Home Insulation Program. Two major manufacturers and installation firms, CSR Bradford and Fletcher Insulation, for example, along with their network of small- and medium-size enterprises active in the installation business did a lot of work under the Home Insulation Program. Those firms offer a warranty, in some cases a lifetime warranty, for the product that has been installed and also a warranty for the work done during the installation of the insulation. In these circumstances, for example, where those companies have made this commitment to their customers—a warranty for product and installation—it is perfectly appropriate for the government to be saying to those companies that we expect that they stand behind their work. Those are the commercial warranties that they have provided and this matter must inform the risk assessment that the government, through PricewaterhouseCoopers, continues to rely upon in targeting and prioritising homes for inspection. CSR Bradford placed an ad in the paper quite recently on Sunday 22 May stating the following:

If you have had Braford batts installed in your ceiling by a Bradford Comfortchoice specialist under the federal government home insulation program, you made the right choice. We will be writing to Comfortchoice customers over the next few weeks to provide reassurance that by choosing to have Bradford Gold or SoundScreen batts installed by one of our approved Comfortchoice installers you can be sure that the insulation was correctly installed by a longstanding and reputable business and it is safe and effective. Comfortchoice installers work to the highest industry standards.

Many tens of thousands of homes were installed under those arrangements under the brand of CSR Bradford. The company has publicly indicated its preparedness to stand behind all of that work, including the installations that have been carried out. They run a hotline. They have advertised it nationally. They have written to all of the homes that were installed by them under the program, indicating they stand behind their work. Why should their work be trashed by the coalition and the shadow minister and brought into question in the way that it is with the myth making and scaremongering that has been conducted? The responsible way of approaching this issue in identifying the number of homes to be inspected and prioritising those homes for inspection is to conduct a proper risk assessment and not to be engaged in scaremongering about the issue.

On this front, I can advise the House that so far approximately 37,000 houses have already been inspected under the home insulation safety program and that includes about 5,000 requests for urgent inspections from households with the rest being conducted as part of the targeted inspection program that I have indicated. In order to scale up the rate of inspections, which are currently occurring at the rate of around 2,000 homes per week, the government through PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency is pursuing the engagement of additional contractors with appropriately trained inspectors to carry out further inspections of homes that had insulation installed in accordance with the priorities established by the risk assessment.

Recently, heads of agreement were signed with CSR Bradford and UGL Services for inspections and safety remediation work to be carried out. That will enable another significant scaling up in the rate of inspections being carried out per week. UGL Services in particular will undertake the engagement of small- and medium-size enterprises, including insulation installation firms, and engage them in the home inspection work provided they have an appropriate compliance record. These are very important commitments.

The member for Flinders has raised a number of issues about fires. Periodically—about every fortnight—on the department’s website, the figures for the number of fire incidents that have occurred are updated. Far from it being secret, the last update happened yesterday on the department’s website. Hardly a secretive matter, it was identified that 174 fires have been linked to addresses where insulation has been installed under the discontinued program. It is very important to indicate that firstly that update to 174 fires includes a number of fire incidents that occurred as far back as October last year. The department waits upon advice from the respective authorities for the information to come in. Where an incident has been investigated and has been associated with the home insulation program, sometimes the passage of that information takes some considerable time. That is one reason why there was a jump in the number of fires posted on the website yesterday. I hope that that helps alleviate some of the fearmongering about this particular issue.

The other thing that is very important to understand about this is that a fire incident is not necessarily a fire that structurally damages a dwelling. The number of homes that have unfortunately been the subject of a fire incident that has caused structural damage—according to the reports that have been provided to us by the fire authorities in the various states and territories—is about six. That is out of the 174 fire incidents that have been reported and recorded on the department’s website. The overwhelming majority of cases, fortunately, are incidents in which there has been some smouldering detected in the ceiling, oftentimes around down lights or other electrical appliances in the ceiling and the mechanisms in place have been able to capture the fire incident at a fairly early stage.

It is very important to recognise these things in context. It is also very important in our public commentary—and I offer this gratuitous observation to my colleague opposite—that we do not go around fearmongering about this issue. It is one thing to be saying that we are going to be offering support to people. But it is also very important to deal with the facts in an appropriate way and not create unnecessary fear and concern. In making that statement, I do not make it from the standpoint that we should necessarily underplay any of the issues to which I am averting. But it is very important that people are able to operate on the basis of the facts.

I indicated also that the government has instituted a foil insulation safety program. This is in respect of homes, numbering slightly in excess of 50,000, which had foil insulation installed in them. In relation to that, the government has, through various arrangements, now overseen about 24,000 inspections of homes that had foil insulation installed. We have committed that every home will be subject of a safety inspection, with the result being either the removal of the foil insulation on the advice of a local electrician or alternatively—also on the advice of the electrician to the householder—the installation of circuit breakers or safety switches in the circuits of the particular home. That is a program that has been designed in consultation with the key authorities expert in this matter, including the Queensland Electrical Safety Office.

There has also been some commentary in relation to the circumstances of firms within the insulation industry. The government has made available assistance packages totalling approximately $56 million. One of them is an insulation workers adjustment package, which contains a $10 million component to assist businesses in particular in the retention of employees or, alternatively, the redesign of some of their business activity. In addition, there is a $15 million package to support firms that at the termination of the program held insulation stock. Quite a number of applications have come in for that assistance and they are being processed expeditiously by AusIndustry in partnership with the Department of Climate Change. In fact, so far 98 applications have been approved under that specific program, totalling grants in the region of $6.1 million. Applications and payments continue to be processed.

A lot of progress has been made, too, in relation to the clearance of claims for payments by installers following the conclusion of the program. In short, more than 100,000 payments were outstanding at the conclusion of the program. We have now got to a position where about 30,000 claims for payment remain. About 6,000 of them require very detailed follow up. They are incomplete claims for payment and require phone calls to every claimant. But about 25,000 claims are the subject of investigation for fraud or various forms of non-compliance. It is important that that process be allowed to be pursued.

Finally and on that front, the government, through the department, appointed a set of forensic auditors to follow up on allegations of fraud. That work is now well advanced. KPMG were appointed for that particular task and are well advanced in it. I look forward to receiving a report from the department on that issue. (Time expired)

Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the matter of public importance moved by the member for Flinders, the shadow minister for climate action, environment and heritage. It simply beggars belief that, in a nation like Australia, people could have their lives put at risk by a program organised and run by the Australian government. What makes it even more surprising is that no-one seems capable, willing or able to take ultimate and full responsibility for this failure of policy and administration which has lead to the deaths of four people, countless house fires and hundreds of thousands of potentially deadly roofs in every community across this nation. And the fear within the community that at any time their home might burn to the ground.

My community of the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains is a community of climate extremes, blisteringly hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter. It is also one of the oldest communities in this nation, housing buildings which go back to the days of Lachlan Macquarie at the beginning of the 19th century. Many buildings and homes do not have insulation or have insulation which does not meet modern standards. Today I would like to speak about three situations in my own community. I will talk about people who took the Labor government at their word on insulation but today are disappointed.

Bligh Park is a suburb in my electorate. It is where my husband and I bought our first home. It is a typically Australian suburb. But in Chifley Place, Bligh Park, the Labor government was involved in the phantom installation of supposedly ‘nation-building’ insulation. A local realtor received a letter from the Labor government addressed to a Mr Chris Hoy in Chifley Place, Bligh Park. The letter reassured him that there had been a payment made under the Energy Efficient Homes Package of the economic stimulus plan to his installer, for insulation installed at an address he managed. The realtor was surprised, for two reasons: firstly, there is no Chris Hoy living in Chifley Place, Bligh Park, and there never has been; and, secondly, an independent inspection conducted by the confused property manager showed that no new insulation had been installed in the property in Chifley Place, Bligh Park. How incredible. Clearly, a canny insulation installer saw the ‘light on the hill’ in Chifley Place, Bligh Park, and diligently took it upon himself to rort government and deceive local residents.

The industry is also hurting from the Rudd Labor government’s failure in this area. On 19 February this year, the Rudd Labor government announced the cancellation of the Home Insulation Program pending a review, with an expected restart later this year. But, as we know, in April the Rudd Labor government ditched plans to restart the scheme and left hundreds of small business installation companies in limbo. In fact, it is estimated that 3,500 individuals with families, and mortgages and bills to be paid, lost their jobs.

Back in February, I spoke to John Halta of Pinnacle Insulation. John told me he had been forced to lay off six contractors and was unable to take on other work because, with $150,000 of stock taking up space in his warehouse, he has no room to undertake other work. This is a man with contractors relying on his industry and on his business, with a wife and four children, with a mortgage, with bills, with an investment for his family’s future. He was dismayed that reputable operators were being held accountable for the shonky activities of others, seeking only to cash in on the Prime Minister’s economic largesse. In fact, John Halta told me that the Rudd Labor government had ‘ruined the insulation industry and our insulation business’. The Rudd Labor government has destroyed a perfectly well functioning industry through its own policy failure.

Vulnerable people in my community were taken advantage of through this failed policy of the Rudd Labor government. As a local member I receive many dozens of calls to my electorate office on a daily basis. There is no doubt that the increased level of community concern over the insulation program fed into increased contact with my office—not just with my office but with many members’ offices. Community concern over this failed program runs very high. Talkback radio across Australia continues to discuss the failures of this policy and, now, the $1 billion being spent to clean up the appalling mess.

In my local community, two constituents who contacted my office had very specific concerns. One, Mrs Robin Muir-Miller of Windsor, contacted my office very distressed about the potential for a fire caused by the installation of insulation in her roof. Mrs Muir-Miller is extremely disabled and lives alone. She was deeply concerned that, in the case of a fire, she would not be able to flee her home in time. On Mrs Muir-Miller’s behalf, I made contact with Minister Combet, and an urgent inspection found evidence of shoddy work but, thankfully, little risk of fire. But, under the current rate of inspections, it could be up to seven years before every home is inspected. Mrs Muir-Miller was told that she should arrange for the original installer to redo the work, but she is reluctant to do that. She is fearful that, having botched the work the first time, they will botch it again. The question has to be asked: why should Mrs Muir-Miller be forced to pay to fix something that was not carried out properly in the first place?

Another constituent of mine, Mrs Howes, who lives in Bligh Park, also contacted me about the potential for a fire to start in her roof as a result of the insulation installation. She was concerned not only about the insulation but also about fraud. In Mrs Howes’s case, surplus batts were left in her ceiling, uninstalled. Mrs Howes advised that the company claimed to have installed 90 square metres of insulation in her roof. Further, Mrs Howes tells me that the company which installed the insulation advised her that if the existing insulation had been installed more than five years ago it needed to be replaced. Earlier today, Mrs Howes told me that she has now had all of the recently installed insulation taken from her ceiling. An inspection showed that the installation of the batts under the scheme was not done properly; some were cut up, others stacked incorrectly, and some were installed over fans—clearly a safety hazard. The previous, adequate insulation remains. This just proves what a shocking waste of money this scheme has been.

I have heard many examples from other parts of Australia, where people were told they could not sell their home unless it contained insulation installed under the scheme. The management of this program and the destruction of this industry and others in the environmental area—the solar industry comes to mind—have led to grave community concern and a growing lack of trust and confidence in this government.

In my local community, workers already struggling to meet rising costs of living—electricity, water and petrol—are now being taxed to pay for Labor’s inability to manage and implement policy initiatives. I know what my community could have better spent the $1 billion on. We could have improved our own local environment, meeting commitments made previously about the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean river system. We could have invested in road safety upgrades and in urgently needed equipment for our hospitals and equipment for our volunteer emergency services.

This is a matter of great public importance, not just to my community of the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains but to all Australians. The Rudd Labor government should be ashamed of its complete failure in this area and the loss of confidence felt by all Australians in the delivery of government services. Individuals like Mrs Muir-Miller and Mrs Howes, as well as business owners and those that they employ—people who are relying on the industry to provide a future for themselves and their family—depend on governments to make sound decisions and manage programs effectively. Sadly, these individuals and these businesses and the people who rely on them have been let down.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has in place a comprehensive safety plan to deal with the wind-up of the Home Insulation Program. The elements of that plan are a Home Insulation Safety Program, a Foil Insulation Safety Program, industry assistance and payments, and strong fraud and compliance measures. It is useful to hear from the member for Greenway that the urgent inspection that her constituent called for was in fact arranged and that the inspection disclosed that there was no risk of fire. That of course demonstrates that the Home Insulation Safety Program, under which safety inspections of at least 150,000 homes with non-foil insulation are to be carried out, is underway. The inspections are being targeted at homes that are most likely to have safety issues. It is based on an ongoing risk assessment. As you would appreciate, Deputy Speaker Moylan, risk assessment is something that is informed by the results of inspections as they are carried out. That risk assessment is being developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. If the ongoing risk assessment indicates that more houses should be inspected, they will be. As well, any household that has safety concerns with installations under the Home Insulation Program can request an inspection through the safety hotline on 131792. Those inspections are being performed in addition to the minimum of 150,000 homes. The Home Insulation Safety Program is being managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and PricewaterhouseCoopers is engaging subcontractors to assist with the inspection program.

Some other details have already been provided by the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, but I draw the attention of the House to the approach that has been taken by the opposition throughout this insulation program. The truth is that the government is approaching this issue in a reasoned, safe and sensible manner. By contrast, the opposition’s approach is characterised by hypocrisy, exaggeration, misinformation and scaremongering. What we are hearing from the opposition—in particular from the shadow minister but also from the Leader of the Opposition and a little bit more from the member for Greenway just now—is the spreading of alarm and fear and the misuse of statistics. There is no real concern here for the safety of households; rather there is concern with scoring political points.

We had a very recent example, I regret to say, of the misleading use of statistics. It occurred just today when the shadow minister used the statistics that the government has made available and has regularly made available. We heard the admission of the shadow minister during the course of his speech—he likes to pepper his remarks with the adjective ‘secret’ to describe statistics as if some concealment had occurred in relation to statistics on fires and inspections. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The government has regularly made available information about the course of the inspection program and has regularly made available statistics about the occurrence of fire incidents. That was what occurred yesterday when the minister made available the most recently published statistics about fire incidents, which the shadow minister chose to convert into—in his words—‘almost one fire a day. We have had 18 in the last 20 days and 30 in the last 32 days.’ That is a misuse of the statistics. As the minister has made clear, these fire incident statistics are regularly made available by the fire authorities and do not simply report on the fire incidents which have occurred since the last time statistics were made available. In many cases—and it was the case with this particular lot of fire incidents—they include fire incidents going back to as long ago as last October. But the member for Flinders would not wish to let the facts get in the way of a good scare campaign. He is wishing to ramp up the level of alarm, ramp up the statistics in a way to suggest that there has been a sudden occurrence of fires. The truth is that it is simply a matter of reporting times. At least several of these fires occurred some considerable time ago.

So too the member for Flinders is always keen to amplify rather than diminish and reassure in relation to the type of fire incidents which are occurring. He has available to him the same statistics that the minister has just provided to the House, which disclose that of the 174 fire incidents to 15 June which have been linked to the home insulation program, 111 of them were attended by fire authorities. The fire authorities have provided information which tells us that only six resulted in structural damage to the dwelling, 15 resulted in structural damage to the roof and 90 did not result in structural damage. That is not a factor that the member for Flinders or any of those opposite would wish to make the subject of analysis. Those are categorisations that are provided by the fire authorities.

So too in relation to fraudulent behaviour—the shadow minister calls for strong action on fraudulent behaviour but then he writes to the government, advocating on behalf of selected installation companies, some of which are subject still to investigation for compliance issues or fraud, asking that their outstanding payments be made immediately. The shadow Treasurer has gone so far as to make public comments to the effect that there should be interest paid to some of these companies for withholding payments. The government is rightly not prepared to do this. The government should not be rushed—and it is wrong for the opposition to suggest otherwise—into making payments to companies who are legitimately under investigation.

There is a professed concern for households, but I suggest that the opposition is not truly concerned with the risk to households or the safety of households. If the opposition were truly concerned in that way, then we would hear from the shadow minister, we would hear from those opposite, a publicising of the government’s safety programs, a publicising of the inspections that are available to everyone who has had insulation installed under this program and a publicising of the hotline numbers under which it is possible to ring to arrange an inspection. The shadow minister would be assisting householders to participate in the safety program that the government has organised.

The shadow minister has repeatedly called for all homes insulated under the program to be inspected. That call is to ignore the fact that very many of the homes that have had insulation installed under this program had their insulation installed by good reputable companies. Two of the bigger firms involved are Fletcher Insulation, which is the company that manufactures pink batts in a number of locations around Australia, including a very large plant in my electorate in south Dandenong. Fletcher Insulation has a very long established installer network. CSR Bradford is another of the large manufacturers in Australia of insulation. CSR Bradford has been in the business for many years. It makes the product known as gold batts. The member for Flinders and those opposite want to talk down the businesses and want to talk down the industry as a whole. Both Fletchers and CSR Bradford for very many years have offered a guarantee of the quality of their product and a guarantee of their insulation. As the minister said in his speech, CSR Bradford has backed this up publicly with advertisements about the extent of assurance that CSR Bradford is prepared to put behind its work.

In these circumstances, there is no fundamental reason why the government should be inspecting homes. We have commercial warranties in place by reputable firms. The simple fact is that the shadow minister and the opposition are not really concerned with the sensible and careful wind-up of the government’s Home Insulation Program. The shadow minister is concerned only about politics. He will not stop the hypocrisy to make his point. He will not be concerned about unduly raising concern and he is not concerned about the damage he is doing to the industry. He is seemingly not concerned about misrepresenting the truth. We say that it is high time the opposition stopped this scare campaign and offered the government support in the comprehensive, orderly and careful efforts the government is making to safely wind up this program. (Time expired)

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Public Security and Policing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start my contribution to this matter of public importance by saying we definitely need to inspect every house in this country which has been installed with insulation. It is easy for the government members to say: ‘Hey, don’t worry about it; there is no need to do it. We have already had 174 house fires.’ What greatly concerns me is those people who have had their houses insulated who do not take the initiative to ring the hotline and just think, ‘She’ll be right; there’s no need to act.’ You normally find those who are not the keenest to make the phone calls to follow this up are the more vulnerable in our community.

The big disgrace of this program is how the vulnerable were basically picked off one by one in suburbs like Boronia and Berwick in my electorate where we had cold calls and doorknocking. For example, one of my residents, Mr Noel Abson from Belgrave, heard that some elderly friends of his in Croydon had had some insulation installed, so he went over to see how it was all looking. He was concerned about the danger of a house fire. Before he went up in the ceiling he asked the elderly resident there, who wishes not to be named, ‘How long were the installers here for?’ She said, ‘They were here for an hour. Actually it may have been a bit more because they did not have a torch.’ The installers did not even have a torch. That is the sort of training and process the government put in place where basically anyone could be an installer and these companies started up overnight. Mr Abson has some experience in this field and actually went up in the roof. The installation company claimed the rebate for installing 80 square metres of pink batts, which equates to 145 batts. Sadly, he found there were 130 batts missing. The company had ripped the insulation in half. These are obviously very dodgy installers. This has been happening right across the country. It is an absolute disgrace. We need to find out from the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency how many dodgy installers are currently being investigated by the AFP and how many investigators there are for each of these investigations.

In my electorate of La Trobe over 4,000 houses have had insulation installed under this program. Government members say, ‘Hey, there is nothing to worry about; there will be no fires.’ To me, that is absolute rubbish. We have to look at what the experts say. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer of Melbourne’s MFB has advised that the 800,000 homes insulated must be inspected. That is not coming from the Liberal Party and that is not coming from the Nationals. That is coming from an expert. The reason there is great concern, coming up to winter, about the potential for fires is simply that people leave lights on longer at night. That is a great concern for elderly residents, who live in fear. The government members again say, ‘Hey, people do not live in fear.’ On 3 March I was contacted by Jacqui and Alex Qureitem of Berwick. Mr Combet knows this name very well. They were greatly concerned with the insulation that they had had installed and they thought there could be a fire hazard at their place. They were not using their lights and were taking precautions not to use their ceiling fans. We lobbied the minister’s office to get an inspection. Eventually, there was an inspection on 27 March and the problem was supposed to be resolved.

The people who attended were actually the same people who installed it. How bizarre is that: the people who create the mess are the ones there to fix it! We arranged for a second inspection and they said that it was a fire danger and a dodgy job. Finally, on 24 May after the company had supposedly re-attended, we got another inspection carried out. There were two inspections on the one place and both came back reporting that it was a fire danger. That is a disgrace and that is why I am so concerned that households right across this country potentially in this upcoming winter are going to have ceiling fires and eventually it is going to cost the life of some elderly person who will not use the hotline and who will be at home, turn the lights on and suffer the consequences of this disgraceful scheme. (Time expired)

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance and to refute the central allegations within this matter. The simple facts are that the Home Insulation Safety Plan has been something that this government has been working on for some time now. The opposition continue to play politics with this issue, and of course that does great damage to the retrofitting industry for home insulation. The government is making sure that no stone remains unturned in making sure that this scheme is completed as soon as possible.

The Home Insulation Safety Plan is about making sure that houses are safe after having received insulation under the government’s program. The plan is about making sure that inspectors who complete the inspections of the installations are fully trained and conduct the inspections in a safe and responsible manner. The government is making sure that affected businesses have access to numerous forms of assistance so that confidence in the home insulation retrofitting segment of the industry is maintained.

In contrast, the shadow minister would have us rush this program out, denying the opportunity for people to be properly and adequately trained as inspectors. This government is conducting inspections in a reasonable manner that will provide for the greatest risk minimisation to households and to inspectors. We have responsibly engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to oversee the Home Insulation Safety Program. Under this program a minimum of 150,000 homes that were installed with nonfoil insulation will be inspected. This will be aimed at homes that will be deemed most likely to be unsafe. More houses will be inspected if ongoing risk assessments indicate such a need. Currently 37,000 houses have already been inspected under the Home Insulation Safety Program, with approximately 5,000 of these being done by urgent request.

For houses installed with foil insulation, we have again engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to manage the Foil Insulation Safety Program. This program provides a licensed electrical contractor to inspect homes installed with foil insulation and to rectify any safety issues arising from the installations. Rectification of issues includes the removal of the foil insulation or the installation of safety switches on the advice of that electrical contractor. Currently, more than 24,000 homes installed with foil insulation have been inspected. These include households that were inspected before the Foil Insulation Safety Program was implemented, by electricians who were engaged by homeowners, and the cost of this work will be reimbursed by the government. Safety is paramount to the home insulation plan that this government is delivering, and safety will continue to be paramount.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.