Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. It is the most calamitous government since the Whitlam government. By the way the Australian people are reacting to the failures of this government, it is evident that they—and, in particular, Minister Garrett—are in more strife than the early settlers when it comes to these portfolios.

Firstly, the story on the Home Insulation Program is an absolutely tragic one. Senator Evans acknowledged that. It is tragic because it has involved the loss of the lives of four young Australians working on installing insulation. I do not blame Minister Garrett directly for that loss of life; nor does the opposition. We blame Minister Garrett for failing to recognise, in implementing a government promise, the consequences of how the industry and the market would respond to workplace safety. That is the tragedy of this program. Associated with the House Insulation Program are around 93 house fires. We know from estimates of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts today that there are around 1,000 homes at risk of electrification as a result of dodgy installation and that there are more than 200,000 Australian homes estimated to have received inadequate or dodgy insulation. A number of them are at risk of fire.

These are serious issues and serious statistics, and these are things that could have been avoided had the minister acted appropriately when implementing the Home Insulation Program. Did Minister Garrett act on the advice that he received? We now know not only that there were multiple warnings—more than 20—coming from industry and state government sources and elsewhere about the risks inherent to this program but also that the government commissioned its own independent external advice. It commissioned not one but two reports from that esteemed law firm Minter Ellison, where my colleague Senator Brandis used to practise.