Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Feeney refers to 23 pages of bumf put out by the government and then says they contain important comments. The important comments, Senator Feeney, are about action; they are not about words—empty, hollow rhetoric that you and your government pursue down every path you can. Actions speak louder than words. Speaking of actions, we see Senator Feeney leaving the chamber—just like this government have walked out on their responsibility to identify and fix the problems that have come through their cobbled together, poorly planned, ill-considered and badly managed Home Insulation Program.

We have seen $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money spent on a flawed scheme that has resulted in about 1,500 potential death traps. There have been 105 house fires attributed to this poorly managed scheme. And who is to blame? No-one is to blame! Senator Feeney claims that the government has accepted responsibility. I would ask: who has paid the price for this? Minister Garrett is still a minister—and a first-rate minister, according to this Prime Minister. He has less work to do; he still gets the same amount of pay. He has not paid the price. Who has paid the price? The four poor installers, the young fellas who were given a chance and have had their lives cut short due to bad training and bad administration by this government.

When you act in haste, you repent at leisure. Unfortunately, the Australian people do not have the opportunity to repent at leisure, because this is billions of their taxpayer dollars that are being wasted and squandered by this government in an effort to try and ingratiate themselves with people. Well, they have failed. We know they have failed—we have accepted and acknowledged that. Now what we are asking for is simply the timeline and the accountability for fixing the problems that they have created—but we cannot get that. The minister responsible, Mr Combet, and his senior minister, Minister Wong, are refusing to answer simple and sensible questions that the coalition and the Australian people are seeking a response to. We want to know some answers. Out of the houses that have dodgy or faulty or potentially fatal insulation, how many are going to be checked? How soon will that process begin? How soon will it finish? How will it be managed? How will the reinstallation of insulation products be managed? What will be the disposal mechanism? These are all very sensible and very pertinent questions, and the responses are allegedly contained in a statement of 23 pages of ‘comment’, as Senator Feeney refers to it. That is not good enough. The Australian people want firm action. Labor have proven again and again that they are all talk and no action. But on that rare occurrence that the Labor Party do take action, we know that it is mismanaged: they get it wrong and the potential waste of taxpayers’ money and the consequences are sometimes catastrophic.

There is a pattern of failure here, and it is a pattern of failure that is too great too ignore. We cannot just accept the platitudes, no matter how well meaning they sound. I know the ministers over that side of the chamber and the Rudd government fake sincerity very well, but we cannot put up with it anymore. The Australian people are tired of this. We need to protect the lives of Australian workers. We need to protect the houses, and their contents, of Australian families which are at risk through this government’s maladministration.

Is it too much to ask for a government to actually provide us with some answers? Is it too much for a government to provide the Australian people with the accountability measures that would reinforce integrity so that, when they take advantage of a government program, they know they are not going to be placing their very lives, or their livelihoods, in jeopardy? Is that too much to ask from any government? Apparently it is, when you are dealing with the Rudd government. They have a shameful pattern of failure, because they are more interested in using four- or five-syllable words than in getting it right on the ground. They should be appalled. They need to apologise to the Australian people. (Time expired)