Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak in this debate and I grieve for my constituent Mrs Pamela Ranks. She recently contacted me about the lack of attention given to her home by the Home Insulation Safety Program of the current Gillard Labor government—I say current advisedly. This insulation program may have been forgotten by some but not by some of my constituents, particularly Mrs Pamela Ranks of Pinjarra.

For those who need clarification this program runs a check that the insulation installed in people's homes under this failed insulation program is actually safe. On 2 March 2011, and I have the letter here, Mrs Ranks received a letter from the government's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. The letter said she would shortly be contacted by telephone with an offer to have the insulation that was installed in the ceiling of her home under the Home Insulation Program inspected. Remember that marvellous program, that beautiful program that was going to save all these greenhouse gases run by that former magnificent rock star singer, the member for Kingsford Smith, who said he was going to save the world, the one who demonstrated against Pine Gap and all these other things that he did before he became a member of parliament. This is the man who put insulation in a million roofs in Australia and now people are too scared to go into their roof cavities.

The letter said, based on the history of pink batts burning wrecking people's homes and putting lives at risk, that of course Mrs Ranks wants her home inspected. This program, as I have already said, was linked to 200 house fires and four deaths. Four people died as a result of this magnificent program run by the member for Kingsford Smith and it was a disaster. It was a $2.45 billion taxpayer funded program for insulation and it was an absolute disaster. My constituent would like her home inspected and rightly so. She got all the necessary receipts together as was asked of her by this letter from the department on 2 March this year. The work order number was 90128043 and they said they would come and inspect the house.

A month later there was no call from the department or any of the contractors undertaking these inspections. When my constituent called the department's contractor a month after not hearing from them she was told, 'Oh no, we're not anywhere near your home yet.' How's that? So six months after that she sent me a letter because there had been no further action on behalf of the Gillard Labor government or its department to ensure that my constituent's home was safe and protected. Let us hope her house is one of the safe ones—one that was not installed by these incompetent installers such as those who stapled through an electrical cable onto a rafter or cut through wiring in the roof. Let us hope it is not one that is sitting there ticking away waiting to burn or electrocute somebody who gets into the roof cavity.

It is unbelievable to think after what we have seen go so terribly wrong with the Labor government's dodgy pink batts program that people across Australia could still potentially be sitting in these unsafe homes. It is unbelievable that knowing what they know based on the past record of 200 house fires and four lives lost that this Labor government is not doing more to properly complete these inspections in a timely matter. I think they hope that everyone has forgotten about this debacle, this Home Insulation Program, where constituents like mine are sitting there on time bombs. They are hoping that events have transcended and moved on for constituents like Pamela Ranks. I have sent a letter to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Honourable Greg Combet, on 23 August this year. I wrote to him telling him how concerned I was about this program and that my constituent Mrs Pamela Ranks had received a letter in March and in August they were still too far away from inspecting her roof. Today is 19 September and still no reply from the minister. He is not interested in my constituents and their issues. He is more interested in putting a toxic tax on carbon in this country rather than in the real issues surrounding constituents like Mrs Ranks who is very concerned about her live roof, or potential live roof. I expect better from the minister and from this government who told everybody that were going to save the world by this environmental program. Constituents like mine are very serious and they hope that the minister will respond in a timely way. As I said, he has not responded to my letter and he needs to respond promptly to enable Home Insulation Program safety inspections on my constituents' homes.

In the time left, I would just say that this is on top of the most recent debacle in the budget this year, the decision to put set-top boxes in people's homes. Whichever genius in the Labor Party came up with the set-top boxes program, I will never know—over $300 for a set-top box for an analog TV! You can actually go Harvey Norman and get a good LCD TV—high definition with all the tuners—for $300, yet the government want to put a dodgy set-top box on top of an analog TV! They fall in, they fall out, and they pixelate.

Put this in the context of really understanding what the Australian community want and then you say: are they really in contact? We have had the live cattle export industry, we have got the current immigration crisis—we were going to East Timor and we are still trying to go to Malaysia. There is the sabotaging of the Tasmanian forest industry, the waste of billions of dollars on overpriced school halls particularly along the east coast—they have been good value for money in Western Australia. There has been the disastrous Cash for Clunkers scheme. Are you getting the picture, Mr Deputy Speaker? This is a government that really lurches from one disaster to another. There is the failed Green Loans scheme, the hundred billion dollars of debt that has been created—they had a positive $25 billion when they came to government. There are the budget deficits. There is the submarine issue—based in Western Australia, they cannot go to sea. Dare I say, this is a government that is a carcass swinging in the breeze, waiting to be chopped down.

People like my constituent Mrs Pamela Ranks deserve better. She deserves a response from the minister. I have written to him and he has not even got the decency to respond on behalf of somebody who is very concerned about the safety of her home and her family.