Real action to clean up labor’s home insulation mess
18-August-2010
The Coalition will provide an additional $30 million to help businesses hit hard by Labor’s bungling of the ‘roof batts’ programme.
Long-standing and reputable businesses around Australia have had their livelihoods destroyed by the incompetence and inept economic management of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
Labor has committed just $15 million to assist businesses damaged by the ‘roof batts’ disaster. The Coalition’s $30 million commitment to the Insulation Industry Assistance Package will be in addition to this funding.
This additional help for victims of Labor’s fiasco, will also broaden eligibility criteria for the Insulation Industry Assistance Package.
This will mean more businesses will be able to access help.
Labor’s bungling of the ‘roof batts’ programme has become a powerful symbol of all that is wrong with the way the ALP governs.
The programme has so far been linked to four deaths, resulted in nearly 200 house fires, left potentially hundreds of thousands of homes at risk, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and left a trail of ruined businesses right across the country.
Under existing arrangements, assistance payments are calculated at 15 per cent of the dollar value of insulation stock held to a maximum of $500,000 per applicant. These restrictive arrangements have made it difficult for many affected businesses to get help – particularly those that had limited stock in storage when Labor closed the ‘roof batts’ programme down.
Within two weeks of coming to office the Coalition will begin talks with industry representatives and affected businesses to finalise arrangements for the delivery of more adequate assistance measures. This may include the provision of assistance based upon independent verification of revenue impacts on affected businesses.
These measures are in addition to the Coalition’s commitment to ensure that every home with insulation installed through the ‘roof batts’ programme receives a proper safety inspection.
This will be achieved through an expansion of existing inspection arrangements and the reimbursement of householders who can organise their own inspections by qualified tradesmen.
The Coalition will also reimburse householders whose insulation has to be removed for safety reasons related to the ‘roof batts’ programme.
In their haste to roll out this programme, Labor Ministers repeatedly ignored the safety warnings and predictions of rorting and waste repeatedly given to them by industry, fire safety and state government officials.
As Deputy Prime Minister during the entire tragic saga, Julia Gillard must bear much of the responsibility for this failure. Importantly, Julia Gillard was also the Minister responsible for the training standards for the insulation programme. Thousands of home owners left with dangerous insulation in their roofs will attest to how well that training went.
The cost of this commitment will be met from existing Home Insulation Safety Programme allocations.
Labor has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on this programme, but has failed to implement appropriate measures to clean up the mess that they created.
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