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

I rise to address the motion in relation to the release of information under the Home Insulation Safety Program and the Foil Insulation Safety Program. These two programs were put in place as a consequence and a recognition of the catastrophic failure of the Home Insulation Program. The Home Insulation Program—or the pink batts program as it has become colloquially known—has been arguably the greatest failure in program delivery in Australia since the Second World War.

The facts speak for themselves. We start with 207 house fires according to the Auditor-General’s most recent report. We move to 1,500 potentially deadly electrified roofs. Further still, we see that there has been a failure rate on the first 13,800 roofs inspected of 29 per cent, which have either substandard or dangerous insulation installations in some way or another. Let us assume that, because they have been targeted the figure is lower than that, we are still talking about well over 200,000 homes with potentially dangerous, deadly or substandard insulation. All of this leads to a roof repair bill of a minimum of $680 million, which could climb as high as a billion dollars.

But none of this compares with the tragic linkages associated with this program. Four young lives were lost through association with this program. The coroner’s cases will follow. There have been prosecutions, but it is absolutely clear that there has never been a full and thorough investigation of the linkages that this program has had to those tragedies. That is why the opposition fully supports a royal commission. The Auditor-General was not empowered to examine the linkages between these tragedies and the program: the quality of the program design at ministerial level, the execution of ministerial conduct, or any of those elements. The Auditor-General was only empowered to deal with the program delivery by the administration, not by the executive. It is a fundamental failing of transparency under this government and there must be, and should be, a full royal commission, and we will prosecute that case going forward.

Today, this motion addresses an urgent, immediate and imminent requirement on the route to that royal commission. It is about the disclosure of public safety information which has been withheld from the public. In particular, the motion notes that the Australian government has not released the figures for the full rate of defects discovered under the Home Insulation Safety Plan and the Foil Insulation Safety Program. It calls on the government to release the full rate of defects discovered under both the Home Insulation Safety Plan and the Foil Insulation Safety Program and, in particular, it calls on the government to release information on the asbestos problems discovered under the Home Insulation Program. The figures which comprise that last element were today the subject of a campaign by unions which identified the Home Insulation Program as the third wave of the great asbestos risks of the last 30 years.

It was not the Liberal Party, it was not the federal coalition, it was not former members; it was the union movement which this very day identified the Home Insulation Program as the third wave in the tragic march of failures relating to asbestos and the exposure of workers, the exposure of inspectors and, potentially, the exposure of homeowners as a consequence of the government’s Home Insulation Program. Against that background, it is negligence, folly and denial to keep these figures about defect rates and public safety from the public.

The government’s task is clear. Its duty is to ensure that, no matter how painful it is to the members of the government, the full facts about public safety are disclosed and the full facts about the risks to homeowners are disclosed. The government’s argument is very simple: ‘Because we have been targeting inspections it may give a falsely high figure.’ One hundred thousand inspections have been carried out. That is an enormous sample and that figure will give a representative view of the failure rate within those houses that have been subject to insulation from the least reputable installers and the most dodgy fly-by-nighters. There is no doubt about that; that cannot be in question. What we see is very clear: that 100,000 homes will give a real and profound indication of the rate of failure. As we know, there has been an extraordinary level of failure under this program.

The argument that it is too much to let the public know about the rate of failure and the rate of risk underestimates the public. The public, if given the right information, can make the right decisions. But it also shows contempt for the public, and that is contrary to the spirit of transparency with which this government was installed and contrary to the agreements around transparency. I would respectfully say to all those Independents who will consider how they vote on this motion that transparency must rule. There can be no doubt about that.

Against that background, take not our word, take the word of the industry associations who themselves warned the government well over a year ago that the Home Insulation Program was a deathtrap waiting to happen. The National Electrical and Communications Association has written to the Independents. James Tinslay, the Chief Executive Officer, said in a letter last week:

… the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) was the first body to warn the then minister, the Hon. Peter Garrett, of the potential dangers faced by the then proposed Home Insulation Program.

He went on to say:

NECA’s members and their employees who work on domestic premises are well aware of the risks related to working in roof spaces …

He also says:

Due to the confidentiality provisions of the government inspection contracts, NECA members are not able to provide details of the numbers of live roof spaces or those that have the potential to become live. This makes it very difficult for an industry to plan on how to address the ongoing dangers.

Electrocution is a potential risk from nondisclosure, according to the chief executive officer of one of the two national bodies. Mr Tinslay in his letter went on to say:

We believe that the release of this information is essential for NECA members, fire fighting and other emergency services, state electrical safety regulators, other tradesmen and especially householders themselves.

The advice could not be clearer. The evidence has been palpable. The government ignored 26 warnings before the program was finally wound down. Throughout the second half of 2009 the opposition called for an Auditor-General’s inquiry, the first day of which was 28 August 2009, almost a year and a half ago. The risks were manifest, the warnings were obvious, the steps were ignored and there were tragic consequences.

But it is not just the one body that has pointed out the risks. The CEO of Master Electricians Australia, Mr Malcolm Richards, has written to me. In his letter dated 19 November—last week—he set out the fact that there are risks to homeowners through electrical faults. He said:

This finding is based, in part, on the initial results of the Federal Government’s Foil Insulation Safety Program … which were reported in the media earlier this year.

He went on to say:

We note that the full results of the safety inspections have not yet been released …

He says that his body would support ‘any effort to have these figures made public in order to add to public understanding of the level of pre-existing electrical faults in Australian homes’.

There is no doubt that the two leading bodies in Australia who represent those who work with electricity want the figures about the Home Insulation Program released. There is no doubt that the government is in denial. This motion should be supported. It is about public safety information. All members, I hope, will be able to back it. (Time expired)

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the motion moved by the member for Flinders, and I shall carefully set out the reasons why. The government is extremely disappointed that the opposition has decided to move this motion in the House. To stand accused by the opposition of not putting the safety of Australian householders first is both unfair and misleading. The government has done two significant things, among others, on this issue. It has provided several opportunities to privately brief the opposition on the current safety inspection results and has consistently explained its reasons for not releasing this data prematurely. Furthermore, the government has also explained many times that the decision not to release the current inspection results is based on advice provided by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. As I will discuss shortly, independent advice from the CSIRO also supports the government’s approach. I can say regretfully that the opposition has responded by refusing to accept the offer of a private briefing. It also continues to publicly distort the facts on this issue, which only serves to undermine the public confidence in the insulation industry and the current inspection programs.

Tonight I wish to reinforce to the House one more time why the government is adopting its current approach. The inspections under the HISP taken to date have not been done on a random basis. They have been targeted according to a risk assessment and focus carefully on safety issues. Safety is paramount. Given the importance of the targeted risk assessment, the government has commissioned the CSIRO to assist by conducting a statistical analysis of the inspection data to inform the HISP. In addition, the government has asked the department to commission a leading independent, internationally recognised consultancy firm to carry out analysis of the safety inspection programs and the results to provide advice on the extent of risk mitigation. Together, the inspections results data, the work conducted by the CSIRO and the report of the consultancy firm will inform the government’s future decisions on the safety inspection programs.

When all of this work has been considered by the government it will be released publicly in the appropriate form. A considered release of this information will build further public confidence in the safety inspection programs. Confidence is vital for the future of the insulation industry. The government has acted upon the advice of the department in taking the decision not to release the data concerning the HISP safety inspection results at this stage of the inspection process. This advice is based on the fact that non-foil inspections undertaken to date are not a random sample and therefore are not representative of potential issues across the HIP. That was a fact noted by the ANAO in its recent report on this. The non-foil inspections are being targeted according to a risk assessment. For example, businesses that have been associated with noncompliance or fire incidents are being targeted, rather than installations of businesses that have no compliance issues.

The release of the results of the targeted, risk assessed inspections would be misleading with respect to the incidence and type of safety concerns and the relationship between the incidents and the type of insulation product used across the 1.2 million households. The results would therefore be open to misrepresentation, potentially causing unnecessary apprehension. For these reasons, the results could also generate further disruption in the insulation industry by deepening the loss of confidence in the insulation market or segments of it when it may not be warranted on safety grounds—for example, where the issue relates to the manner of installation of a particular product rather than the product itself. In particular, I ask the House to consider that the politicisation and misrepresentation of the results would likely drive an increase in general household requests for inspections, taking inspectors away from the targeted safety program, thereby diverting resources, increasing costs and extending the time needed to inspect the houses identified by the risk assessment. This is a very serious consideration that has influenced the advice provided to the government.

The government’s advice is that all these factors indicated it would not be in the public interest to release the non-foil inspection results until the inspection program is far more advanced, at which time a more definitive assessment could be given about the number of any further houses to be inspected, the remediation measures that may be required, the impact on the industry and possible future regulatory measures. The inspection data is also being shared with state and territory regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies for the pursuit of non-compliance remedies, and specific elements of the data are sensitive in this regard. The advice provided to the government by the department concerning this issue has been very carefully considered and supported by the department’s audit committee that is chaired and attended by independent advisers.

I also draw the House’s attention to the recent Auditor-General’s report into the HIP—which the opposition supported given the auditor’s independence—which clearly found that the government’s remediation and safety inspection programs were appropriate and well designed. This was the reason that the Auditor-General did not find it necessary to make any recommendations in his report. All of these points, as well as an offer of a private briefing, were made by my colleague the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Hon. Greg Combet, in a letter to the member for Flinders on 5 November. The honourable member for Flinders still has not responded to this letter, as I am advised. CSIRO has since written to the department on these matters, and I quote directly from this letter:

The CSIRO opinion is that the data set of 58,000 inspections made so far does not provide a representative sample of the approximately 1.16 million population of installed households for the following reasons:

• many of the inspections occurred as a result of calls to the Centrelink hotline by householders concerned about the quality of their installations.
• another significant component of the inspections thus far has arisen from a targeting program developed by PWC.

As a result, among the total population of installed households, these 58,000 inspections would provide a misleading picture of the overall fire safety risk.

In our view, the sampling we have proposed will provide more reliable estimates of (i) the overall fire safety risk and (ii) the impact of various risk factors on that fire safety risk.

This independent advice from CSIRO completely supports the reasons the government has provided for not releasing the safety inspection results. Minister Combet wrote to the member for Flinders on 16 November providing him with the CSIRO letter and once more offering the honourable member the opportunity to receive a private briefing. I am advised that the member for Flinders has failed to reply. The opposition simply does not want to listen to the facts. Instead it wants to wreck the current inspection programs and force the government to pursue other options. In precisely the same way that it has been said it does not matter what happens with the NBN, the opposition leader has said, ‘Wreck at all costs.’

The issue of asbestos is also raised in the opposition motion and it is being addressed by the government. The government has recognised issues surrounding the inspection of the roofs containing asbestos. On 12 November a tender was released for phase 2 of the HISP which will seek to secure the services of a specialist contractor to resolve this complex issue. In view of all of the above that I have just spelt out I encourage the House to respect the government’s approach. I would also encourage the opposition to drop this motion and reconsider the government’s offer of a confidential briefing. Further the Foil Insulation Safety Program involves inspections of all 50,000 homes insulated with foil under the HIP. In closing, I reiterate that the government is extremely disappointed that the opposition has decided to move this motion.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion. In an open and transparent democracy the public deserves to know the rate of failure of all inspections carried out to date and this government must be held to account. I support this motion because it is in the national interest but also because there is a great deal of anxiety amongst homeowners in my electorate of Bonner. Homeowners in Bonner have made numerous representations to me concerned about whether or not they are living in a house with significant safety defects. In addition a number of homeowners in Bonner have asbestos or a risk of asbestos in their roof but had foil insulation installed. These homeowners have a well-founded concern about safety but are feeling left high and dry in relation to these issues. They have been told that they must remove the asbestos from their roof before their house can be further inspected or the insulation removed. This is likely to be at an incredible cost and many of these homeowners are senior citizens.

The government’s Home Insulation Program cost taxpayers $2.5 billion and from its inception it has been an outrageous failure of policy and implementation. As we all know now, and it is confirmed by the Auditor-General, this program was linked to at least 207 fires and the tragic deaths of four insulation installers. As we all know now this government rejected all attempts to warn them of the issues associated with this program and all attempts to shed light on what was really going on with fraudulent claims. This government preferred to put the safety of the public and the accountability of government below their own self-preservation.

While the government now is conducting safety inspections of houses fitted with insulation, in October the Auditor-General’s report found that there had been 29 per cent failure rate—that is, nearly one in three jobs done under the government program were dodgy or dangerous. The Auditor-General found a one in three failure rate but this government has decided that it will only inspect one in five houses at risk. That is not good enough. The most striking issue is that the one in three failure rate discovered by the Auditor-General is based only on a small sample of nearly 14,000 homes. One hundred thousand safety inspections have been carried out now, so it is time to stop hiding the truth.

Anecdotally, I understand that the rate of failure and the number of dodgy jobs is now much higher than one in three. In fact at one inspection that was carried out on Friday of last week an old Queenslander house with non-foil insulation was found to have failed Australian standards in three areas. Firstly, the depth of insulation was too low. Then there was not enough adequate clearance of cellulose around the downlights. Finally, the cellulose was not restrained around the cavity. They were all failures of Australian standards. The inspector said that almost all houses he had inspected did not meet the Australian standards and in 100 per cent of cases he had found the specific issue of cellulose not being restrained around the cavity.

So it is time for the government to come clean. Importantly, this motion also seeks to uncover the number of asbestos related problems. As I mentioned, homeowners with asbestos in their roofs are being left high and dry. It is outrageous for residents to be told that they must remove the asbestos from their roofs before any further inspection can take place or the insulation can be removed. Residents are well aware that the government had no problem in allowing the insulation to be installed in roofs with asbestos in the first place without appropriate oversight, so they must do whatever is necessary to assist these homeowners to rectify the issue that now exists. In the words of Mr Barry Reardon from my electorate of Bonner:

The government has been responsible for getting us into this mess. It has a responsibility to get us out of it.

It is unacceptable for this government to claim that the extent of failures should be withheld because its release could cause unnecessary apprehension. What is causing unnecessary apprehension in the electorate is the lack of information for the public to make informed choices with, particularly in relation to whether or not to remove or remediate the insulation installed under this program. I urge all members of this House to support this motion. It is in the public interest to do so.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Page has outlined the reasons the government should not release information relating to inspection results at this time. I would like to spend the time that I have focusing on the steps that the government has taken to wind down the program and to deal with the issues in an open and transparent manner. On 10 March this year my colleague the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency outlined the main priorities for the government in remediating the Home Insulation Program. They included, firstly, to put in place a household inspection program, to identify and address the extent of safety and fire hazard concerns, to mitigate risk and to thereby reassure householders who have had their homes insulated under the program; secondly, to assist industry and employees adjust to the termination of the program; thirdly, to identify and put in place processes to deal with issues of non-compliance and fraud; and, fourthly, to identify any failures of administrative processes within government associated with the design and implementation of the Home Insulation Program.

Over the last seven months the government has made significant progress against these objectives. This was reinforced in the ANAO audit report, which stated:

Substantial work is also currently being undertaken by DCCEE to rectify safety issues and address concerns raised by the many stakeholders involved in the program. In implementing the remediation programs, DCCEE has incorporated many of the lessons from Phase 2—particularly in regard to governance arrangements and bringing in program management experience to meet identified priorities.

Safety remains the government’s main priority, and a comprehensive safety inspection program has been established, in which a minimum of 200,000 homes that had foil and non-foil products installed under the program will be inspected. The government has already completed over 110,000 inspections. However, a lot more difficult work is needed to be done. From the moment the government closed the Home Insulation Program on 19 February, it has been transparent in determining what went wrong and what it is to do to fix the problem. For example, the government has established and supported a number of inquiries into the program, and I will go through each of those.

Firstly, there is the ANAO report. On 3 March 2010 the minister requested that the Auditor-General conduct an audit of the HIP. The terms of reference to this inquiry were determined by the Auditor-General, and they were able to access all relevant material, including cabinet documents. The ANAO report was tabled on 15 October this year.

Secondly, there is the review of the administration of the Home Insulation Program. The review of the administration of the Home Insulation Program was commissioned by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to examine and report on the effectiveness of the program design, administration and delivery arrangements. It was undertaken by Dr Allan Hawke AO and completed on 6 April this year. The review identified problems in program governance, design and administration, risk management, compliance mechanisms and capacity issues.

Thirdly, there was a Senate inquiry. The Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts also conducted an inquiry into the program and tabled a report on 15 July.

Fourthly, there were coronial inquiries. Coronial inquiries are still ongoing into the tragic loss of four people that were associated with the Home Insulation Program, and the government has agreed to provide funding for legal representation of the families associated with the coronial hearings.

Fifthly, an insulation advisory panel was established. When Minister Combet assumed responsibility for the program, he was determined to seek the views of industry experts in terms of how the government should proceed with elements of the program. Consequently, he established an insulation advisory panel which included Dr Ron Silberberg, Mr Tony Arnel and Mr Peter Tighe.

Sixthly, there are monthly reports. The government is also producing a monthly public report on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency website—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.