Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. What steps is the minister taking to address the legacy of the previous government's approach to encouraging home insulation? How will the government's scheme support businesses that have experienced adverse financial impacts as a result of the early closure of the program in 2010?

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for his question. As is the case right across Australia, I am sure there are businesses in Forde that have been adversely affected by this failed previous government scheme. The Home Insulation Program Industry Payment Scheme has been established in response the royal commission which was conducted last year and the findings handed down from that report.

We have heard today already a number of examples of how extraordinarily incompetent Labor is when it is in government. I have to draw upon another example here today: the bungled home insulation scheme damaged and destroyed homes and businesses right across Australia. Of course, whenever there is a Labor bungle and disaster, there is a book. There is always a book. So I draw on Allan Behm. The preface is written by Greg Combet, no less, who, I understand, was a minister in the previous government. Where he talks on page 143 about the $1½ billion that this government spent on this scheme and the half a billion dollars it then spent trying to fix it, he talks about the ministerial overreach and carelessness. Now, you could not describe the previous government better than to say the sorts of things that it conducted, whether it was in the economy, whether it was in stopping boats, whether it was in the Home Insulation Program, were full of ministerial incompetence. Mr Behm went on to say in The Sydney Morning Herald that this Home Insulation Program was 'appalling public policy, appallingly executed' and drove advisers working on the program 'close to despair'.

As always, it is up to this government to fix the previous government's mess, and that is exactly what we are going to do with the industry payment scheme. We are going to ask that businesses submit their application to Deloitte Australia and have it assessed. We are going to have a transparent, equitable and evidence based process to ensure that payments are made. We have asked Ian Hanger QC to meet with all of the applicants to ensure that this is a fair policy and, as much as we can, we fix the damage that has been done to small business by an incompetent previous Labor government. We will do this as quickly as possible because we know that out there there are small businesses—as the Minister for Small Business knows—who are still suffering the effects of this previous government's incompetence. We should never forget it, and we should realise that even the people who were in that government are prepared to say it publicly in writing.