Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In question time today I raised an issue with the Prime Minister on behalf of Mr Ron May of Insulmaster. I pointed out that this person, taking the Prime Minister at his word in good faith, built up his staff to 28, leased new premises, put in new phone systems, invested $800,000 in stock and is now wearing a $630,000 stockpile because there was promise of work until 2011. But the big, underlying issue here is the fact that Mr May’s company, Insulmaster, is owed $239,817.54. Those invoices go back to July 2009. Today in question time I sought leave to table the government’s own home insulation fact sheet for installers, and on step 3 of that it says:

You’ll be paid directly by the Government for the cost of the ceiling insulation and installation, normally within 14 days.

I put it that from July 2009 to today is a lot longer than 14 days, but our installers no longer have that fact sheet to rely on. The government took it off their website and then refused me the opportunity to table this statement so that people could see what another of the government’s broken promises looks like. What has gone up in its place is more new advice: ‘Installer advice No. 25’. It says they have to have all of their invoices in by midnight tomorrow night and then they will be paid in about six weeks time. Another broken promise.

These are people who took the Prime Minister at his word. They accepted, as indeed did their customers, that in the term of good faith this program would continue. Mr Ron May does not stand in isolation. To give you another example, Barry Hayes from Hayes Insulation at Medowie has written to me. He is a very distressed business operator. At the moment he has orders for approximately 30 homes to be insulated, but that has now stopped. What of the $35,000 worth of stock that he has in place? What does he do with that? The banks are not going to be very understanding. They will want their money and Mr Hayes has to come up with it. He has built his inventory levels and his business up, taking the word of the Prime Minister in good faith.

I refer to another insulation installer, the Battmen in Forster. Their family business has been run since 2001 by Vanessa Perkins and Dean King. They have had to put off workers. They are drawing upon their own family savings, because they are a family business, to provide the interim support as they go forward. What is not taken into account in all this are the redundancy payments that have to be paid immediately once they lay off their staff. This will be a huge economic drain. The Prime Minister talked about the stimulus package creating jobs and opportunity and helping the environment, but this has created a nightmare environment for small business. There is no care and no consideration, and it shows that you cannot take the Prime Minister on his word in these matters.

I say to the Prime Minister: what are you going to do? Today he said Mr May will be paid. A letter will be hand delivered to the Prime Minister on Monday morning. If I can take him at his word I would expect that, as the Prime Minister has said today, the $239,000 will be paid, as a matter of course, not in six months, not in nine months but within the 14 days, because this has already dragged on far too long. These are people who accepted the government at their word. They have fulfilled all of the criteria. Their workers are trained. They are registered. They have completed all of the certificates in training. They have done a good job. This government has let them down.

The other point that I would like to raise in this is that there have been 93 house fires attributed to this program. What of the money and economic loss to those individuals? Will this government now stump up the over $20 million that it will cost to replace those houses? It is either the consumers, their houses and the destruction that they have gone through or the insurance company, but somebody other than the government is footing the bill. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said the buck stops with him. In Mr May’s case I hope the $239,000 does not stop with the Prime Minister and it is passed on to my constituent so he can at least pay his bills.