The home insulation scheme is clearly a shemozzle. Greg Combet, however, has started off on a good note.
I have spoken with a member of each of the families, and on behalf of the Government and myself as Minister, expressed my deepest regret and sympathy.
Well said.
Yes but the government bore no responsibility for poor workplace procedures by employers
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
11 Mar 10 at 2:47 pm
Yes but the government bore no responsibility for poor workplace procedures by employers
This is like saying that the government bears no responsibility for what people do with their weapons even though it has been giving them out for free to anyone that cares to own one.
dover_beach
11 Mar 10 at 2:56 pm
They bear complete responsibility for the whole debacle.
Clearly, Combet has done what his colleagues were expecting Rudd to do. But with not one person sacked for this killer disaster – one of the worst public policy cock-ups in Australian history – Combet’s sorry-dodging expression of “regret and sympathy” is still pretty damn weak.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 2:57 pm
Snoopy one of the problems was that some consumers were as lazy as you at doing any homework in getting companies to do the work.
no it is soley the company’s responsibility of maintaining a safe workplace not the Government.
Whom ever pays the bill is irrelevant. They are being paid to do the work.If they pursue that work in an unsafe way they ought to be held account for it.
your bizarre thinking has a consumer responsible for any thing that happens in any transaction they undertake.
you are a loopy lot
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
11 Mar 10 at 3:02 pm
It’s now being reported that the “scientific” basis of the insulation
bonfireroll-out was in fact fraudulent.C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 3:03 pm
…some consumers were as lazy as you at doing any homework in getting companies to do the work.
This is from the same Homer who insisted consumers needed a government website to make the best decision about where to buy bananas.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 3:04 pm
Snoopy one of the problems was that some consumers were as lazy as you at doing any homework in getting companies to do the work.
I wasn’t lazy, Homer, and I’m quite enjoying my insulation. BTW, the government was the customer since they paid the bill and without ever checking the workmanship.
no it is soley the company’s responsibility of maintaining a safe workplace not the Government.
Utter rubbish. As the Minter Ellison report indicated, it was reasonable foreseeable that this insulation program would involve deaths and injuries as occurred. To have gone ahead with it when the chances of death or injury were reasonably foreseeable is to have engaged in conduct that is negligent. Of course, they are not alone in being responsible, but they certainly one of the irresponsible parties.
Whom ever pays the bill is irrelevant.
Above you partly blame lazy consumers and then you argue that whoever pays the bills is irrelevant. You really are a dishonest clown, Homer.
dover_beach
11 Mar 10 at 3:17 pm
I don’t think it’s well said. The apology shouldn’t be coming from the French version of Clarke Kent needing anger management classes, it ought to be coming from Lurch and his boss.
Fuck Combet. The only reason he’s apologizing is because of the polls.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 3:29 pm
Note well, JC, that in fact he didn’t apologise.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 3:31 pm
Actually that’s strictly true, Cl. Clarke Comet didn’t really apologize at all.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 3:34 pm
Debbie does the ALP
Snoopy one of the problems was that some consumers were as lazy as you at doing any homework in getting companies to do the work.
Is there not one thing you would get on your knees and blow these guys, Debbie? Not one?
You were the last man standing along with Gan in supporting the government telling you where you could buy a cheap tank of fuel and save 15 cents. Even Rudd had stopped supporting that crap.
Get off you knees. It’s truly disgusting.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 3:41 pm
Yes Snoopy the government was the customer.Whose house did it go in. Whose roof is involved.
No if indifferent employers have no regard for employees people get killed.
CL still doesn’t understand about the difference between giving consumers information and getting it but then he confuses the 19th and 20th centuries.
Credit crunch Forrest you are just an idiot fullstop.
you even say the Japanese only kill whales for commercial gain and then say it isn’t illegal.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
11 Mar 10 at 4:16 pm
you even say the Japanese only kill whales for commercial gain and then say it isn’t illegal.
WTF?
Debbie, I think this deserves your very own Reich Roll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Uaml0iEmw
JC
11 Mar 10 at 4:19 pm
Yes Snoopy the government was the customer.Whose house did it go in. Whose roof is involved.
Who paid for it, Homer? The answer will indicate the customer.
No if indifferent employers have no regard for employees people get killed.
Can you manage a coherent sentence? The Minter Ellison report warned the government of a reasonably foreseeable risk to health and safety arising from a quick roll-out; it proceeded nonetheless. It is indirectly responsible for these deaths.
dover_beach
11 Mar 10 at 4:38 pm
September 9, 2004:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4692/is_200409/ai_n17567924/
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 4:42 pm
Dec 17, 2007:
Kevin Rudd on the death of three workers:
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 4:54 pm
Well thats odd, now we are applauding the govt saying “sorry”
Could someone…nah, dont bother, this is an irony free zone.
rog
11 Mar 10 at 5:22 pm
DB is being stupid and he is doing a good job of it.
Workplace laws are a State responsibility over and out.
rog
11 Mar 10 at 5:25 pm
this is an irony free zone
It is when you’re around.
DB is being stupid and he is doing a good job of it.
With all due respect, rog, you have no peer when it comes to stupidity.
Workplace laws are a State responsibility over and out.
Where do I say they weren’t?
dover_beach
11 Mar 10 at 5:30 pm
Snoopy the Minter Ellison report did no such thing you dope as Possum has showed.
so the insulation isn’t in YOUR home.
If it is in your home then WHO is the customer?
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
11 Mar 10 at 5:35 pm
Debbie says:
Snoopy the Minter Ellison report did no such thing you dope as Possum has showed.
However the SMH says:
The Minter Ellison report called for a delay in the introduction of the ambitious scheme by three months.
The government had wanted to roll out the massive scheme on July 1 last year.
The second Minter Ellison “risk register” report, which was made public on Monday evening, warned time was “extremely limited” and it would be better to begin on September 30.
The government ignored the advice.
The damning report found the scheme was not ready to be rolled out. In key areas, the risk of proceeding was rated as not tolerable.
Work on regulation, procurement, licensing was not adequate, according to the report, which was given to the government in April last year.
The report repeatedly warned of the risk of “early termination” of the scheme. The government axed it last week.
It also warned of fraud, “major fall-out”, and ominously for the government, the risk of litigation.
The “risk register” was part of a broader Minter Ellison report which warned the scheme could cause house fires, poor quality installations, and rorting by industry.
You’re such a grubby little liar, Deb.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 5:48 pm
..this is an irony free zone
Says the George Costanza of the Ozwebs.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 5:53 pm
Snoopy the Minter Ellison report did no such thing you dope as Possum has showed.
Is there a moment when this old clown stops lying?
so the insulation isn’t in YOUR home. If it is in your home then WHO is the customer?
The government paid for the insulation, it was as a result the customer. I also have gifts in my home, Homer, but apparently, for you, this still makes me the customer.
dover_beach
11 Mar 10 at 6:01 pm
You think LurchGate is bad wait until people start actually living in all the public housing kevvie demanded be completed this year.
.
For people who thought 60s Brutal Architecture couldn’t be outdone.
Adrien
11 Mar 10 at 6:02 pm
Is there a moment when this old clown stops lying?
He just can’t help himself. It’s chronic.
Lurchgate? LOL… Good adrien. I like that.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 6:05 pm
But those houses will have 17 hot water systems each, Adrien.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 6:28 pm
Picture: members of the Koondrook Barham Football Club with their 17 new hot water systems.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 6:30 pm
You think LurchGate is bad wait until people start actually living in all the public housing kevvie demanded be completed this year.
.
the school building is starting to unravel too. Saint Julia’s halo is about to get a bit tarnished.
daddy dave
11 Mar 10 at 6:42 pm
We might be governed by the biggest knob gobblers in history, but it warms the cockles of my heart to find out there are so many enterprising Aussies out there able to take advantage of this stupidity. We are an enterprising bunch of crooks, God love us!
Infidel Tiger
11 Mar 10 at 6:49 pm
Perhaps all the aggrieved householders could bring a class action against the Minister for tortious vicarious liability?
Peter Patton
11 Mar 10 at 6:49 pm
Consumers should take full responsibility for things that they buy but when it comes free from the Government normal prudence is undermined. That is what happens when Governments throw money around like confetti. Look at the schools infrastructure! And the cost of Aboriginal housing in the outback. Etc.
Rafe
11 Mar 10 at 7:02 pm
Yikes. This isn’t over yet, by a long shot:
Kevin Rudd knew of insulation scheme safety problems in August 2009.
C.L.
11 Mar 10 at 9:30 pm
It shouldn’t be over. Everyone knows that Lurch was the fall guy in Lurchgate™ and the Rudd and Rudd’s office were centrally involved.
JC
11 Mar 10 at 9:48 pm
I will merely out-source this to Possum but our old Snoopy is either proudly ignorant of the Minter Ellison report or simply lying again..either way it doesn’t matter typical Catallaxian research AGAIN.
‘When Minter Ellison talks about risk, they mean a professional definition of risk, not a literal definition of risk that you might find in a dictionary. That is something that’s important to keep in your though orbit as you go through the document.
The first thing to notice is that nowhere in this document does Minter Ellison warn of the dangers of workplace deaths or worker safety. The reason is obvious – existing generic workplace regulations were adequate enough to prevent deaths as long as employers abided by existing law. In the Risk Register, Minter Ellison did not identify any additional systemic risk of workplace deaths and safety becoming an issue.
Next up, you’ll notice that there are 19 specific and separate issues where risk factors are identified, the inherent nature of that risk is described, the risk mitigation strategies in the program as of April 2009 are rated on their strength and a rating is given on whether the risk is tolerable or not for each specific area.
As of April 2009, there were only 3 areas where the risk was not considered to be tolerable – as in, further strategies had to be developed in order to expect a successful outcome for that particular area of the program. These specific areas were:
Area 2. Procurement/Licensing. This specific area was about how licenses were going to be provided and as of April it had yet to be fully determined by the department . Similarly, business model planning was at the time being undertaken by KPMG over procurement issues.
Minter Ellison recommended for this specific area that delaying the program to September or starting a partial rollout with Sydney/Melbourne metro areas first was an option. The consequences of getting this wrong was that there would be delays when it came to getting insulation into ceilings – to the point where it may not occur at all. This option of delaying the program was based on what had occurred up to April 2009. Between April and July, the Department obviously developed procurement/licensing policy appropriately, since – and the pudding is in the eating – insulation was rolled out into ceilings with no major delays.
Area 3. Time. This was specifically about the internal mechanisms of the administration of the policy and how the time lines being so tight, there was a concern that the management and the actual policy administrators would be too green to deliver the policy out the door.
Between April and July of 2009, we know the Department mitigated these risks successfully as, again, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The program pushed insulation out the door on the deadline date of July.
Area 7.Political. This was specifically about the government’s public relations and risks to their political standing and had absolutely nothing to do with the actual program of getting insulation into ceilings. It was all about government communications management with the press and other people that might want to have a whinge about something.
Every other area, including installation quality and compliance, fraud, legal, regulation, industry capacity, outcomes (actual), delivery, take-up, training mechanisms and product quality were all given a tolerable risk rating by Minter Ellison.
They were all given a risk approval by Minter Ellison.
Let me say that again, every one of those areas just mentioned were all given a risk tick.’
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
12 Mar 10 at 9:27 am
Old clown, I’ve seen the report. Possum makes a good attempt at making the defence’s case and at attacking News Limited journalists while ignoring the fact that the Fairfax papers and the wire services were characterising the Minter Ellison report in the same or similar manner:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/garrett-still-under-fire-over-minter-ellison-reports-20100223-p054.html
Possum also skates over the importance of procurement/ licensing and time in achieving the proposed residual risk factors. The failure to extend the rebate scheme to Sept 30 prevented them from properly introducing their risk management plan and thereby realistically achieving the residual risk values set out in the report. The deaths, etc. that have followed give substance to this.
You, however, want to pretend the what has since happened vindicates the government even though the scheme has been suspended, people have died or been injured, and almost 50,000 houses are death traps in need of immediate repair. You are a fool’s fool, Homer.
dover_beach
12 Mar 10 at 10:00 am
you said
‘Utter rubbish. As the Minter Ellison report indicated, it was reasonable foreseeable that this insulation program would involve deaths and injuries as occurred. To have gone ahead with it when the chances of death or injury were reasonably be my
however the report did no such thing . If it did you would be able to quote from It. you cannot so have been caught out again being insulated from the truth.
Oh you do not know either that 50,00 houses are death-traps but the facts and you are always two different things.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
12 Mar 10 at 10:21 am
oh and try to understand the difference between a gift where someone buys something and simply gives it to you.
And where you buy something but someone else pays for it.
whose name was the installation bought under?
A bit like health insurance actually.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
12 Mar 10 at 10:28 am
however the report did no such thing . If it did you would be able to quote from It. you cannot so have been caught out again being insulated from the truth.
I never said that I was quoting the report. I said that the report “indicated” that to have gone ahead with the scheme as the government did held out the risk of death and injury as has since eventuated.
Oh you do not know either that 50,00 houses are death-traps
That is true. I should have said ‘potential’ death traps in need of immediate repair.
oh and try to understand the difference between a gift where someone buys something and simply gives it to you And where you buy something but someone else pays for it.
You really are amazingly stupid. I didn’t say the insulation was a gift; when I referred to gifts I was addressing another point you made viz. being a customer and ownership.
whose name was the installation bought under?
The Australian Government.
dover_beach
12 Mar 10 at 10:41 am
anything can hold out the risk. company boards get risk reports all the time like this one.
On this specific risk it said nothing and to imply it does simply shows you are loose with truth as usual.
Really so if a problem occurs you do not ring up at all the government does!
Oh and you made the stupid comment about gifts if it wasn’t relevant you didn’t have to say it but after-all that is what you do..
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
12 Mar 10 at 10:49 am
“On this specific risk it said nothing and to imply it does simply shows you are loose with truth as usual.”
Are you sure that a director can use a risk report as some kind of shield against negligence, both on behalf of the board or under the corporate veil?
All you would need do is to write risk reports that say nothing can possibly goi wrong and you’ll be off the hook forever.
Semi Regular Libertarian
12 Mar 10 at 12:35 pm
On this specific risk it said nothing and to imply it does simply shows you are loose with truth as usual.
You speak of fly-by-night operators as the cause of the problems; I agree. But the report makes it clear that there will be this sort of problem, fly-by-night operators, with its attendant risks ( possible death and injury to workers and occupiers because of faulty workmanship or practices) because of the urgency with which this scheme was being pushed through and its lack of administrative oversight. The latter of which Combet has recently admitted to. BTW, being called a liar by an known liar suggests I’m telling the truth.
Really so if a problem occurs you do not ring up at all the government does!
The government paid for it. They also have the right to inspect the installation, etc. These are rights usually afforded to, yes, the customer.
Oh and you made the stupid comment about gifts if it wasn’t relevant you didn’t have to say it but after-all that is what you do..
You still can’t fathom the point I made regarding gifts which is clear to everyone but yourself. Yes, you are utterly stupid.
dover_beach
12 Mar 10 at 12:44 pm