Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion relates to the Gillard government's poor response to complaints about fraud in the Home Insulation Program. I moved this motion in response to, first of all, the appallingly dismissive attitude shown by this government to individual Australians whose homes and apartments have been used to perpetrate fraud under the Home Insulation Program; and, secondly, the failure of the government to provide information to the Australian public generally about instances of fraud under the Home Insulation Program and how cases are being investigated and prosecuted. The Rudd-Gillard government's Home Insulation Program has been a catalogue of maladministration and mismanagement from start to finish. The government, I am sad to say, is maintaining this sorry record of inadequate performance in the way it is attempting to clean up the mess.

Let me therefore outline the unhappy experiences of a number of my constituents in this matter and the conspicuous lack of assistance which they have received from the Gillard government in response. Let me start with the case of Mr Peter Napper, who is chairperson of the body corporate of an apartment complex in Hornsby. Mr Napper received notification from the government that a claim for insulation had been made against the property. However, no authorisation of the installation of insulation had been given by the body corporate. On investigation, it became apparent that the complex had been broken into and that cheap foil insulation had been scattered in the ceilings of a number of apartments in the complex. Significant damage was done in the course of the break-in, in the order of $3½ thousand. Accordingly, after Mr Napper raised his concerns with me, I wrote to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, in early October 2010 seeking assistance in getting a proper inspection of the premises and to ensure that the apparent fraud and trespass were investigated. I received a response from the parliamentary secretary to the minister, well known to my colleague the member for Higgins, on 25 November 2010. In his response he said that three inspections had occurred and more were to be arranged. Subsequent inspections occurred and the foil was removed from the ceilings.

As to the investigations for fraud, let me quote from the parliamentary secretary's letter: 'The information provided by Mr Napper in relation to the way in which the insulation came to be installed at the complex has been referred to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency under the program compliance and audit strategy for further investigation. While the government may not advise Mr Napper of the final outcome of this referral, please be assured that the Australian government will not tolerate fraudulent conduct.' No, thank you very much; we will not be assured. We want to see the evidence, and that is why I have moved this motion.

The letter indicates that 'cases of fraud will be referred to the Australian Federal Police or other authorities for potential prosecution,' but let me repeat: outrageously, Mr Napper is told by the government that he may never be advised of the final outcome of his referral. He is told that he and his affected unit holders may never find out what happened—whether an investigation occurred, whether anybody was charged and prosecuted, whether restitution is sought. None of this is occurring as you would ordinarily expect, and that is very unfortunate. Indeed, extraordinarily, Mr Napper has not yet been interviewed. Nobody has sought to interview him or other residents regarding this issue. The owners are left in the dark. All they are left with is an extra $800 strata levy each to pay for the damage.

Let me turn to the second case, concerning Mr Ray Black, who is a member of the executive committee of a strata complex in Turramurra. His name and signature were used by claimants who can only be assumed to be fraudulent claimants. He advises me his signature was forged, and the assumption is that it was obtained from the notice board in the complex. Mr Black reported the matter to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. He was told, in the now familiar refrain, that they may not get back to him. I have written to the minister asking for full details of how this matter is to be investigated. I have yet to receive a response. Once again, this shows a scandalous disregard for the legitimate interests of persons whose homes have been broken into and taxpayers who have been responsible for paying for this whole sorry mess.

Let me turn to a third area of known problems under the Home Insulation Program: phantom insulations, where installers have claimed for a non-existent house or for work not carried out. I have been assisting Dr and Mrs Nelson of Killara—no relations, I hasten to add, to my predecessor as the member for Bradfield—who received a letter from the department indicating that a claim had been made against their property when in fact no installation had occurred. I know this myself because I have personally investigated the cavity space in their attic and, although I may be a lawyer and not a qualified installer, I can tell when pink batts have been there for over 20 years.

Dr and Mrs Nelson wrote to me, and they said: 'We would particularly like to be advised as to what the Australian government intends to do, if anything, about the recovery of all this money obtained fraudulently and if they intend to pursue and prosecute the persons or companies involved.' I am very sorry to have to say to my constituents that—while they may want to know that—sadly, the Rudd-Gillard government does not want to tell them that. I wrote to the minister on their behalf in April 2010. Response: shrieks of silence. I heard absolutely nothing. I was required to write a follow-up letter, which I did six months later. When did I receive a response? March 2011—a dazzling performance from the parliamentary secretary! And what did the response say? You guessed it: 'Even after completion, the details of investigative activities will normally remain confidential.' So, once again, we have the sorry saga that Australian households are to be kept in the dark about whether fraud investigations involving their own homes have occurred at all and, if the investigations have occurred, what the outcomes are and whether restitution is being sought.

The situation experienced by my constituents more than justifies the action proposed in this motion that the parliament should condemn the Rudd-Gillard government for showing disregard for the interests of Australian householders. This motion also requires the government to provide information to homeowners whose properties have been used to perpetrate fraud. I need hardly remind the chamber that fraud has been perpetrated in myriad ways under the Home Insulation Program, as has been detailed in both the Hawke review and the Auditor-General's review, including early claiming; claiming the maximum rebate irrespective of dwelling size; claiming for dwellings that do not meet the program criteria; households double-dipping between Commonwealth and state or territory programs; removing older insulation to make the customer appear eligible; use of non-compliant materials; and batts being cut in half to spread them further or thrown into the roof without being laid properly.

After my constituents and I failed to get satisfactory answers in the cases I have instanced, I followed up this matter by asking the minister a detailed question on notice seeking information about the Home Insulation Program, including how the government was seeking information about fraud; how many claims of fraud had been received; what the outcomes of investigations had been; what prosecutions had taken place; what claims of restitution had been made and what information was being made available to homeowners who made claims of fraud. The minister failed to answer the questions. He merely referred to his public statement that a forensic audit had taken place. This is nothing more than a whitewash. We have no detailed information. The Australian people deserve to have full answers to these questions. They deserve to know the full scale of this fraud which, need I remind the chamber, they are paying for. We hear from the government that it 'will not tolerate fraudulent conduct'. Let us see the proof.

Let us come to the final point: there is very little information provided about the scope of the forensic audit that was conducted. Yet there is evidence that there are more issues which remain uninvestigated. Just last week, a constituent contacted me with concerns about yet another apartment complex in Hornsby where, on first investigation, it appears that there is a significant problem. Therefore, based upon these instances in my own electorate, which I know are replicated in many other electorates, the coalition believes that the government needs to be much more thorough in its investigation of the fraud which has occurred in the housing insulation program. For that reason, this motion also calls on the government to immediately authorise an additional 50,000 random home inspections from within allocated funds. We need to see some action from this government. It is not good enough to assure us that they will not tolerate fraud—we need to see the proof, because my constituents and many other Australians are suffering and we need to have some assurance that this is being investigated.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While I have regard for the member for Bradfield and while I seek to provide detail that would demonstrate that regard through the course of this speech, I do take exception to some of the references that he made in his contribution today—namely, claiming that we have been dismissive in relation to this issue when the detail in this speech will clearly demonstrate otherwise. I have to confess to having a sense of deja vu as I stand here before you today to speak against the opposition's latest motion on the Home Insulation Program, because it seems that not very long ago I was before the House arguing against a similarly inane and vexatious motion. It was only when I checked Hansard this morning that I realised it was on 23 May this year that I delivered that speech—only six weeks ago. Even by their standards, this latest attempt by the coalition to score cheap political points out of the program is both bizarre and outrageous.

The House may wish to reflect that on 23 May we debated a bill proposed by the member for Flinders to initiate a commission of inquiry into the Home Insulation Program. This was despite the fact that the government had supported a number of independent inquiries into the program itself and accepted their findings. The bill was put to the vote on 2 June and was not supported by the House. This should have been the end of the matter. The House had repudiated a petty, cheap and political point-scoring exercise, and the government should have been left alone once and for all to manage the difficult processes involved in the closure of the program. But now, six weeks later, we are here again once more debating issues that House has already considered. But why should we be surprised? The coalition has excellent form in hijacking the good work being done in closing down the program by trying to distract the government with vexatious motions and bills.

As I mentioned in my last speech, 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—again, a petty performance by the opposition, particularly when the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, had offered the member for Flinders a private briefing on the inspection results. That motion, like the bill on 2 June this year, was defeated in the House.

So what is the opposition's latest revelation about the Home Insulation Program? This time they claim they have broken a major story by revealing that fraud was committed under the program. As we have said a number of times, there were significant issues in the design and implementation phases of the Home Insulation Program—we have never denied the fact, particularly when it comes to fraud. The government has long accepted that unscrupulous operators defrauded the program. This particularly involved what has been termed 'phantom installations', in which fraud could have been committed by registered installers claiming payment for installations not actually undertaken. The government has also been concerned that some operators have not fulfilled their obligations under the terms and conditions of the program in completing a proper and compliant installation.

These are issues that have appalled the government, and we take the need to investigate them very seriously, but we do not need a frivolous motion from the opposition to remind us of that. In his speech in March last year, Minister Combet said that one of his five key objectives in winding down the Home Insulation Program was to identify and put in place processes to deal with issues of noncompliance and fraud. He also said he would rigorously pursue those individuals and companies engaged in this behaviour. That is why he moved quickly to request an Auditor-General's investigation into the program in early March last year. Minister Combet also supported the engagement of a forensic auditor to investigate how fraud was perpetrated under the program. KPMG's forensic accounting was crucial in identifying how fraud was committed under the program, and this involved careful and painstaking analysis over a number of months. Concurrently, a fraud categorisation model was developed to ensure that all cases of fraud were investigated and dealt with properly. As a result of all this had and crucial work, a number of activities were undertaken on 2 March this year aimed at targeting those who had already allegedly committed serious fraud under the program. This involved a joint operation between the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency in which 35 search warrants were executed across three states. Also, the department launched a comprehensive debt recovery program aimed at recovering all the debt owed from fraudulent and non-compliant activities.

What I have just described is a focused and intensive process undertaken by a range of organisations to tackle fraud under the program. I am not sure how the opposition thinks that it can contribute in assisting these organisations in such complex work by moving this motion and by the other stunts they have moved. What is to be gained in the pursuit of these unscrupulous operators by the House passing this motion? Is the opposition suggesting for one minute that, despite the processes I have just outlined, we are not taking the issue seriously?

I would like to make some key points about how fraud and noncompliance under the program is dealt with by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. First, I would reassure all members of the House that all complaints received by the department are taken seriously. When allegations of fraud or serious noncompliance are received, an initial review is conducted to consider the specific allegation and the track record of the insulation business concerned, to assess the matter fully and determine the most appropriate course of action. Depending on the result of that review, the most appropriate course of action may include compliance action or referring it to a law enforcement agency for investigating alleged fraud against the Commonwealth. It is not the policy of the department, and I imagine not that of too many people who investigate fraud of this nature, to provide feedback or process midstream to complainants on the status of matters undergoing compliance or investigation, because, frankly, inappropriate release of that information would jeopardise a successful potential prosecution. Similarly, media and public inquiries in regard to investigations have not been responded to in detail because, again, inappropriate release would prejudice future action.

We have maintained a consistent line throughout this process over the last 16 months, not because we are trying to hide something but because we are trying to ensure that nothing compromises the hard work being done to track down those who have committed fraud or noncompliance. But the opposition want us to continually jeopardise the effort by demanding that we release specific information about fraud, which we are simply not in a position to do in some cases because it would be counterproductive.

And what is the motivation for it? Is it contributing effectively to the process? No. All it wants to do is grandstand and breathe some sort of life into the corpse of a political stunt whose spirit has well and truly left the building. They have no regard for the impact that this has on the hard work many people have undertaken over the last year to bring these unscrupulous operators to account.

The motion also calls for the government to immediately authorise an additional 50,000 random home inspections from within allocated funds. The major statement we released on 20 April on safety inspections provided a strategy for closing down the programs, so what is the point of going through additional investigations?

I reiterate some of the points of the strategy that I made in my speech on 23 May. Safety has always been the main priority of the government in remediating the Home Insulation Program. Accordingly, we have established comprehensive safety inspection plans for both foil and non-foil installed under the program. In the Foil Insulation Safety Program all those householders were offered safety inspections, with the option of having the insulation removed, or, on the advice of a licensed electrician, safety switches would be installed. Under the Home Insulation Safety Program the government committed to inspect a minimum of 150,000 households insulated with non-foil insulation. Those were targeted based on risk assessment. On top of that, based on independent analysis from the CSIRO and from Booz and Company, the government will conclude both the HISP and FISP on completion of the committed inspections, which means the government will continue to undertake targeted inspections until a minimum of 150,000 is reached.

The government will also finalise all inspections under FISP, noting that there are still a number of households with foil that have either refused an inspection or have not been contactable, despite repeated efforts. To provide an extra level of reassurance to those households the government will continue to offer inspections to households that want them, until June next year. The government has committed to providing an independent analysis of the program and will release details of the inspection results. We publicly released this information on 20 April. So, clearly, we have gone to great lengths to try to be transparent on the matter and demonstrate steps being taken to remedy the situation. Once again, the opposition is demanding we throw this advice out and that we commit to further inspections simply for cheap political point scoring, wasting the parliament's time and scaring the public. It is about time those opposite dropped the stance and let us get on with our work.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In debates like these, where both arguments appear to be running in parallel, it is important to remember exactly why we come here, and that is to spend taxpayers' money effectively. Where government has made a very significant concession that this money was not expended effectively, I think, as a government, we want to do everything possible to (a) ensure it does not happen again and (b) actually identify where the money was very poorly spent and take action where people abused the program.

At the moment the case has been made by the member for Chifley that it is both inane and vexatious to further question this program simply because a motion has previously been voted down on this matter. With the greatest respect, the motion pertained to the very efforts that this government has made to examine and remediate the damage done by this program. With the greatest respect to those efforts, they still only comprise between five and 10 per cent of the dwellings that have been insulated. As anyone would know in any community around Australia, in many cases this program was manipulated, if not fraudulently abused, by operators around the country where they had an opportunity to do so.

I think the great blockage here is: the further you dig, the worse it gets—and that is why this government wants to skim over this as quickly as possible. Never forget that there are people in Australia who right now have suffered damage, as the previous speaker, the member for Bradfield, has pointed out, to their homes that has not been repaired. There are people who have had foil insulation ripped out and not replaced, so not only have they had the inconvenience of having the foil placed in their homes and then removed but there was nothing in this program to actually insulate the home as we promised we would do as a government. So they are left without insulation completely, which may not bother the government greatly but it does bother both my and the Deputy Speaker's constituents, who live in subtropical environments and would like to have accrued some benefit from this $3.2 billion program.

Of course, let's remember why we embarked on this in the first place: it was to reduce carbon emissions. Ultimately, it was about abatement, wasn't it, even though we have long forgotten that now. This was about abating 12 to 13.1 megatonnes of carbon and it came at a price between $50 and $90 per tonne abated, which in any recent economics makes it an absolutely unsupportable program had we looked at it purely in economic terms. You are really left with the ultimate effort then, which was how to quickly disburse money to act against the global financial crisis. The former Prime Minister will be remembered for more than any other achievement, bar probably his apology to Indigenous Australians, for the insulation program—not only the diabolical mess that it was but the diabolical efforts that have been made to clean it up. It is not enough for the member for Chifley to simply say, 'We've carried out 35 search warrants. Surely, we're getting to the bottom of it now.' The reality is that ordinary Australians, just like the opposition, know the further you dig the more you find; and the more you find the more there is an opportunity to ameliorate and fix the mess but the more embarrassing it is for the government. We do not do this because we have nothing better to do in this place than embarrass the government; we do it because Australians have been ripped off and because money has been sequestered for no good reason other than on the pretext of having signed off on a poorly designed program.

It raises this issue once again: do we expect too much of our federal departments? The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency is a very small department. It is not well-resourced but we ask of it to do a job of Centrelink proportions to be able to run a program like this. It shows a certain overambition around federal government programs and we hope this current administration has learnt from its own predecessor: there are some jobs that are just too complex and require too great an intervention to be done effectively by a small department. Whether you measure it in abatement—in what we got for the dollars—in the tragic house fires or in the efforts to remediate it, we have now expended most of the money in this program trying to fix up the mess it created and we are still only 10 per cent of the way there. To set a bar of 150,000 households is to presume that the other two-point-something million do not have a problem. Surely the result of an investigation should be: where we find fault, let's continue to investigate it. If it had found no problems after auditing 150,000 households we would understand that a government might stop, but this has simply dug up more and more disaster. Whether it is phantom insulation or trespass insulation, whether it is double insulation or whatever, this government has an obligation to fix up its mess. It is quite okay to talk about a million dollars here or there from your predecessors on this side of the House when in government, but the enormous multibillion dollar waste is something that will be remembered—no, inscribed as an epitaph on the tombstone of this government when it finally falls—along with the massive inefficiency and the massive misunderstanding of how to spend taxpayers' money effectively.

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

The motion before the House gives us the opportunity to update the House on where we are at with fraud and compliance activities in relation to this important program. Unfortunately, when we read the motion before the House, we see that it is all about the political interest. It has absolutely nothing to do with the public interest. If those who brought the motion to this House were truly interested in prosecution rather than publicity, if they were interested in an outcome rather than a headline, then they would have chosen a different course of action.

The government is actively pursuing businesses that have not complied with the terms and conditions of the Home Insulation Program. We are currently holding over 20,000 claims, with a value of approximately $24½ million. Of these, around 6,500 claims were submitted by businesses that are under investigation for fraud. Compliance reviews for Home Insulation Program installers draw on a range of information. Some of those sources of information were alluded to by the member for Bradfield earlier today as he spoke to his motion. They include roof inspection reports, desktop audits, complaints from households and information from third parties.

The government has committed to work with the police and other law enforcement agencies across all jurisdictions to deal with cases of serious noncompliance and fraud. In March 2011, following detailed investigations by the department, the Federal Police simultaneously executed 35 search warrants across three states—New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria—and 25 businesses and individuals who were suspected of having acted fraudulently under the Home Insulation Program were targeted.

Also in March 2011, under its debt recovery program, the department issued a number of letters of demand to businesses registered under the Home Insulation Program as well as to those who received assistance under the Insulation Industry Assistance Package and who were later found to have been ineligible for such assistance. Businesses that are sent letters of demand will previously have received a non-compliance notification and were provided with an opportunity to demonstrate compliance with HIP requirements, except where correspondence was issued in relation to 'voluntary repayments' or where businesses were advised of an administrative error on the part of the department. Businesses are generally given 14 days from the date of the non-compliance notification to provide evidence to the department in relation to the installations listed in the letter.

The department has arrangements in place in relation to fraud and investigations as well. The Federal Police has provided an outposted agent to the department to assist with the review of cases. Any matters subsequently referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation are assessed individually according to the AFP's internal guidelines. The government is acting on allegations of fraudulent activity received from external sources such as members of the public, emergency service organisations and others. Major matters are referred to the AFP. To date the department has referred several matters. As the associated investigations are ongoing, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on these cases in this place. As I have already said, we on this side of the House are more interested in prosecution of cases of fraud than in making a hullabaloo in this place for nothing other than a politically motivated headline. We will continue to prosecute the investigation in a fraud investigation process and take these matters through the court. It is our intention to ensure that, where funds have been claimed by those who are ineligible for those funds, or where fraud has occurred, we will pursue those matters vigorously to ensure that no taxpayers' money is expended when those who have received that money are not entitled to it. I recommend that the House reject this motion.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is very revealing that neither the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency nor the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency have decided to front up today to justify and explain the Home Insulation Program and their lack of accountability for this program. I listened very carefully to the speeches delivered by the member for Throsby and, before him, the member for Chifley. There was a common thread in those speeches. The member for Chifley in particular talked about how this motion was a stunt, how it was petty to bring it forward and how it was frivolous. This is an absolutely outrageous thing for the government to say. We know that the government does not like to be held to account, particularly for programs that it has designed and implemented.

What this motion asks for today is a measure of accountability for the program that this government has brought into effect. There can be no better way of looking at it than looking at the examples that exist in our electorates. I will talk specifically of an example in my electorate of Higgins involving Ms Felicity Kiddle. She is an elderly resident who was approached by an insulation installer who knocked on her door and told her about the government's offer. The installer assured her that they were registered with the government and that there would not be any problem with installing insulation. They installed that insulation on 9 December but only installed a fraction of the insulation required by simply laying it over the manhole in her ceiling to make it appear as though the entire installation had been covered. The company received the full payment from the government of $1,200. It was only later that Ms Kiddle discovered this fraud. It was not until a professional plumber entered her roof for an unrelated matter that the insulation job was found to be incomplete.

Ms Kiddle was very concerned about this. She was concerned not only about the potential safety implications of a job that was not properly done but for the Australian taxpayer—that a bill had been paid for a job that was not properly completed. She did what any right-thinking constituent would do and contacted the hotline. The response that she got from this hotline was that she could fill in a form from Consumer Affairs Victoria if she was not satisfied with the work and if she wanted an inspection done she could pay for that herself. This belies a very important fact. We are not simply talking about not being happy with a job that had been done. It is much more serious than that. It is that the job itself had not been done, which is fraud. It was a phantom job, and yet it was paid for by the Australian taxpayer.

I did what any responsible member of parliament would do and I wrote to the minister. I explained this fact to the minister but I have not received one more piece of information about what the government has done to try and rectify this fraud. It is always left in the hands of the constituent to solve a problem of the government's creation. It is simply not good enough. It is not good enough that the government refuses to be held to account for a problem that it has created. It is not just this issue that it refuses to be held to account for but, more broadly, issues to do with the safety inspection scheme itself. I have another constituent who suffered the very traumatic experience of having part of his ceiling collapse. It collapsed one night at one o'clock in the morning. He had a safety inspection performed. That safety inspection said that there was no fault in the structural integrity of the ceiling. But when the evidence came back to us from the parliamentary secretary, he simply referred to the electrical safety aspect of the program. So it is not clear that the safety inspection programs that are being conducted are going to the core issues that have been raised by the residents, whether they be in relation to fraud or to the structural integrity of the job that has been done.

This program has cost the Australian taxpayer over $1.7 billion in addition to destroying homes and, unfortunately, destroying four young lives. The government should be held to account. It is not improper for us to hold the government to account. We will continue to do this.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I read carefully the motion that has been put before the House. I commend the member for Throsby and the member Chifley for their examination of and their detailed response to the government's actions in relation to the home insulation scheme.

One of the things that draw my attention was in fact that this motion calls on the government to give details of alleged fraud, to give details of cases that have been investigated and to give details about prosecutions in train. We have a longstanding convention called the sub judice convention in Australian parliaments. Members can debate on many topics freely in the chamber. But there is an unwritten rule that they do not debate current court cases as that would prejudice such cases. This includes debates on what might happen in court or things that would undermine confidence in the legal system or judges in particular. In the national parliament, members are entitled to talk freely about not just local constituency issues or national issues but international issues. But one of the things that we should not do is talk about cases that are currently on foot or current investigations or prosecutions.

Parliament is the people's place, but if you want to talk about waste—and the coalition talks about waste a lot—what a waste this motion is. It is a waste of time, because, as the member for Throsby and the member for Chifley talked about before, these things have been debated in this chamber on many occasions. But this motion is typical of the coalition. It contains wording that once shows the coalition's scant regard for the legal process, legal protections or legal presumptions. This motion is partisan nonsense. It is not about getting the fraudsters, which the Australian public and this government wants. The opposition do not want that. They want to talk about their own naked political interests. They do not want to talk about the national interest at all.

We do not by actions nor by words prejudice the time and effort put in by prosecutorial authorities. We do not prejudice the rights of the accused. We do not prejudice the taxpayer funds tied up in the effective operation and management of our legal system. It costs a lot of money to be involved in court cases. When I was a lawyer, I was involved in lots of court cases that were delayed, adjourned or abandoned for a variety of reasons. I saw and witnessed the time, effort, energy and money involved and the impact on not just those on one side of the aisle but those on the other—clients of mine as well as those people who were charging them or bringing civil actions against them.

The coalition should have a good look at itself for bringing forward motions like this. This is not about getting to the bottom of getting to the home insulation problems in this country. What they are doing is creating fear. I have a genuine fear that they will prejudice ongoing investigations.

The government, in a major statement on 3 March this year, clearly advised that it was unable to comment on issues relating to fraud investigations that were currently being conducted by the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. That was appropriate. It is a good and sound legal principle. But the coalition has always said one thing and done another when it comes to legal processes, legal protections and human rights. They pose and parade and prance about on these issues, but their record with respect to them is very poor.

This motion calls for inspections to be carried out that are unnecessary, frivolous and vexatious. What a waste of time. This is a political attack, pure and simple. They have dressed it up in fine words, but we all know what it is about. We have debated this before during private member's business in the House. As the member for Chifley correctly pointed out, we have rejected these types of things before. But like Banquo's ghost in Macbeth, back it comes. They cannot let this go. They do not want to let the DPP, the AFP or the department carry out their necessary work. That work follows independent advice from the CSIRO and the international risk analysis firm Booz & Co. We have agreed to initiate programs such that 150,000 homes with non-foil insulation will be inspected and necessary corrections carried out. We agreed to do this because we follow independent advice from the experts. Those people opposite should have a good look at themselves. Do not waste taxpayer money. Do not waste the parliament's time. And do not create the risk by continuing to put forward motions like this of prejudicing the legal process and the fraud investigations. Get with the program. Support us in getting the fraudsters.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:3 6 to 16:00