Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw it on the basis that it was a commentary, not a comment directed at Senator McLucas. But let us make sure the public record is absolutely clear. You came into this place and you have defended a program, and I have said to you that four people have died as a result of it. I have said to you that 98 house fires have been linked to it. I have said to you that 1,000 homes are electrified. I put to you that another 200,000 are at risk. If you are proud of that, I would be very surprised. And that is my point, Senator McLucas. There is nothing to be proud of. That is the point I was making.

The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery, Senator Arbib, and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, are apparently on the job. I want to take the chamber back to the questions today from Senator Birmingham to Minister Arbib. They were two absolutely fundamental key questions, neither of which was responded to, and there is a very good reason for that. The first question was:

Did any departmental officials ever advise ... the minister or his staff that the starting date of the Home Insulation Program should be delayed?

That is a very simple question, to which there was no response. The second question was:

Given the minister’s statements yesterday and on Tuesday that his role at these regular meetings with officials was ‘to ensure the rollout was proceeding smoothly and on time ...

The minister stood up after question time today and conveniently dropped the words ‘on time’. Mr Deputy President, I will tell you why you have not had a response to these questions. It is because this does not stop at Minister Arbib and Minister Garrett. This goes right to the top. I thought the comments of Dean Mighell today on Melbourne radio station 3AW were most instructive. He said: ‘But it was not well thought out. It is part of the problem of style of government.’ And it is the style of this government to rush in and try to address a problem by the expenditure of money. It is about doing things such as the NBN—$43 billion—without an iota of a business plan. This is a government that has been described by my colleagues today as ‘blah, blah, blah’. Yesterday, this blah, blah, blah Prime Minister was at it outside with the installers. He said, ‘We are just having a yak.’ The expression ‘yak’ is described in the dictionary as ‘empty conversation’. This is empty conversation. This is all talk, no action. This is blah, blah, blah—empty, empty, empty conversation. The dictionary says the colloquial expression of yak is, ‘To talk or chatter, especially pointlessly and continuously.’ So we do have blah, blah, blah.

The reason Minister Arbib refused to answer Senator Birmingham’s quite clear and deliberate questions is that he knows the Prime Minister is in this up to his ears. He knows that the Prime Minister told Minister Arbib that he was to roll this out, irrespective of what advice he was given. That is the only thing you can take from the minister’s refusal to answer the very simple question, ‘Did any departmental officials ever advise the minister or his staff that the starting date of the Home Insulation Program should be delayed?’ Why would he not answer that question? It is because the answer is yes. We know what his role is, because he told us. It was to ensure the rollout was proceeding smoothly and on time. This minister knew what the advice was. This minister knew that Minter Ellison had addressed a number of issues and therefore they set a three-month delay. (Time expired)