Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery (Senator Arbib) to questions without notice asked today, relating to the Home Insulation Scheme.

Senator Arbib failed once again in this place today to explain exactly what was going on with this failed and fatal national Home Insulation Program that the government has now abandoned because of its many and serious flaws. The many problems with this scheme were no better illustrated last week than in an article that appeared in the Canberra Times which quoted extensively the secretary of the new Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Dr Parkinson, about the problems with the scheme. The quotes make for illuminating reading. Senator Wong, in question time today, chose to characterise these comments, to give it a charitable interpretation, as being taken out of context. She said Dr Parkinson was reported in part, but if this was only part of what he said I would have loved to have been there for the whole speech. Dr Parkinson was quoted by the Canberra Times as saying that he was concerned about the insulation program ‘debacle’, saying that staff from the environment department had been ‘put through hell’ trying to administer it. He said:

“In the last week I have seen up close and personal what you’ve had to go through over recent months and ... it’s been hellish for you,” he said.

The contrast between what the secretary of the department that is now administering this program has had to say and what little the minister has had to say in this place is a very telling comparison. The government apparently was unaware that the department concerned was going through hell, to quote the secretary of this department, with respect to the administration of the scheme, but somehow the minister is able to say blithely: ‘I didn’t know this was happening. I wasn’t aware of it. It’s all news to me.’ The secretary goes on to say:

It’s not like DCC has any expertise in this area. DCC is not a program manager ... one of the ironies is that DCC is even more of a policy department.

The quote continued:

I’m not going to gild the lily. We are going to have huge challenges ...

That is what Dr Parkinson said with respect to administering the mopping up of the scheme left to him by Minister Garrett, the minister formally responsible for this area. What we have here is a litany of problems with this scheme which reflect how badly the scheme was administered, how badly the scheme was conceived, how badly it was rolled out, how much of it was rushed and how little the government has properly understood what it was doing as it made these changes to this important public policy area. Dr Parkinson should be given credit for actually revealing what everybody in the department that formerly administered this knew about the scheme—that it was a crock. The public were also beginning to become aware of this as this scheme was being rolled out.

Minister Arbib in question time today said, ‘At no stage was I advised the Home Insulation Program should be delayed.’ Yet the secretary of the Department of Climate Change is saying that he is aware and that he had seen how hellish the administration of the scheme had actually been. He said that there was not enough time and resources put into the program, because it was implemented almost in panic, resulting in a range of problems with its operation. Of course, the scheme has been linked to four deaths and 93 house fires. The minister, of course, claims no connection between the way in which the scheme has been rolled out in those things. Dr Parkinson said:

You have not had, for whatever reason, the resources that you needed to do the job and even if you had, there are inherent policy design flaws ...

If the secretary of the department now responsible for rolling out the scheme is aware enough of these issues to be able to make those comments, why wasn’t the minister able to acknowledge those things when the scheme was being rolled out and when warnings were being given? Indeed, why wasn’t the minister in question time today able to answer questions about exactly what was known to him about those problems—problems that many people were aware of? Even in the ACT we have had warnings from ACT public servants concerning the way in which the scheme operated. One public servant warned about the department:

They have no answer for what happens when, due to a poorly undertaken installation, a house fire starts and there is significant loss of property or worse.

That is what ACT public servants knew. Obviously we see from Dr Parkinson what federal public servants knew. Why didn’t the minister know these things as this program was being rolled out? It was poorly conceived, it was rushed out, there was inadequate consultation and the objectives were political. (Time expired)