Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of this motion as amended and to speak about what has indeed been gross and systematic failure by this government in the management of a range of its programs, in particular the Home Insulation Program. In so doing, because I will not go missing in action, I take head-on comments by government members in this place about a shadow minister not being present in the debate on this motion. I take head-on suggestions by members opposite that somehow this motion of censure is not serious. In respect of the Home Insulation Program, I believe that the Australian people are looking to the very government that has got them into this mess to now get them out of it.

Their comments about shadow ministers are the height of hypocrisy. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Where has Minister Garrett been at every step along the tortuous way of the Home Insulation Program? Missing, missing, missing—the minister has been missing in action. As recently as two weeks ago, when a meeting was held to consider restarting the rolling out of foil insulation, where was the minister? Missing in action. The headlines were ‘Garrett goes bush as batts keep burning’. He was inspecting creepy-crawlies, instead of being back at his home base attending to his program, which was unravelling as fast as it was insulating. If you are going to bother to insulate, Minister, insulate right, not wrong.

The minister has been missing in action at every step of the way—and there have been quite some steps, but it has taken us a while to learn about these steps because the government has not been particularly forthcoming about them until now. The minister has received more than 20 warnings about the failings of the Home Insulation Program, and where has he been? Missing every step of the way. He was missing every step of the way when warned by his department’s own experts, Minter Ellison, of some 19—let’s call it 20; let’s round it up; what’s an extra one?—risks that needed to be addressed in the rollout of the Home Insulation Program. Some 20 risks were identified by Minter Ellison as many as 10 months ago, of which the minister, we are led to believe, did not become aware until perhaps some 10 or so days ago. Where was the minister every step along the way when it came to identification of risk, risk assessment and risk management? He was missing in action on every one of those 20 risk management steps.

Is the opposition serious in supporting this motion to censure the government for gross and systemic mismanagement in the Home Insulation Program? Please! This is from a government that supposedly established the Home Insulation Program for three reasons: to stimulate the economy, to create jobs and to help the environment. Opposition not serious? Please tell that to taxpayers and watchers of the economy, who see this program not stimulating the economy but backing money right out of it. Not serious? Please say that to the workers who were told they would have jobs created for them and protected and instead find they lost their jobs at the stroke of the minister’s pen last Friday, whilst he manages to hang on to his. Not serious? Tell that to those who support good environmental outcomes and find instead this program doing just the opposite.

How is it that the wrong sort of insulation gets installed in the wrong places? In hot places we get insulation that keeps the heat in, instead of stopping it coming in in the first place. In cold places, it stops the heat coming in instead of the reverse. It is incubating houses in hot places, effectively, instead of cooling them. Guess what happens then? Householders utilise electricity or whatever they have got that supposedly ain’t good for the environment to neutralise the effects of the insulation that was supposedly put in there to help the environment. Not serious about censuring the government? Please! Tell that to those who really want to believe that the Home Insulation Program was going to stimulate the economy, create and protect jobs, and help the environment.

Not serious? Not serious about censuring the government? Please, please, please! Tell that to the taxpayer who finds out as a result of the recent Senate committee inquiry that they have paid Minter Ellison some $28,000 for a risk assessment and a risk register. Hey, what’s $28,000 in a $2.7 billion or so program? It is a fair bit of money to mums and dads. It is a fair bit of money, particularly when the minister seems to think he can go missing in action when it comes to hand. It is a fair bit of money, when, had the minister cared to have a look at the results of that fair bit of money, there is every argument that we would not be where we are today: we would not have homes of mums and dads with accidents waiting to happen; we would not have an industry with, at best, its reputation tarnished, particularly in the minds of the community; and we would not have workers who had a job and now they haven’t.

Tell that to the taxpayer who learns more once we see the Minter Ellison risk assessment and risk register—that is the sneaky, tricky bit we got out a couple of days ago from the government through the Senate inquiry process. The risk register identifies more fully those almost 20 risks faced by the government in rolling out the Home Insulation Program and then quantifies the cost of failing to adequately address those risks or failing to address them at all. It quantifies it. Guess what? Minister, hello! Minister, are you there? Minister, if you fail to address these risks, it could cost, says the Minter Ellison risk assessment, anything between some $250 million to $800 million to $900 million. Three times $900 million and you are pretty much hitting the supposed outlay of this program in the first place—$2.7 billion. Minister, hello! Are you still missing, Minister? I am not sure we are going to be missing you, Minister. Minister, remember that, had these risks been assessed and had you listened to the taxpayer funded risk assessment, the results might have been different.

Try telling the mums and dads who are now looking to the very government that got them into this mess to help them get out of it that the censure motion is not serious. Try telling that to mums and dads who want to know: ‘Had a guy my roof—in fact, had several guys in my roof. Is my home safe? How do I know? When do I know? Will you help me find out? Who will come to look? How long will it take? Will I have to pay for it? If they say it is not safe, what then? Who gets to fix it? The same rogue who stuffed it up in the first place?’

Not serious? Tell that to mums and dads who want to know what is going to happen to businesses that they have in the industry. What is going to happen to the reputations of those who have been in the industry for a long time and had livelihoods before the so-called Home Insulation Program and still hope they have sustainable livelihoods after the Home Insulation Program? Tell that to the long-term players in the industry. Tell that to the short-term players in the industry, who supposedly are all now fly-by-nighters and shonks because they obeyed the beckon of the government to, ‘Come in, come in and help us, please.’ Supposedly, if you have not been in the industry for long, supposedly if you are a business that set up in this industry after the start of the Home Insulation Program, you are shonk, you are a bad person. Tell all those people that the government has not failed to manage this program.

Not serious? Tell that to the workers in this industry who lost their jobs last Friday at the stroke of the minister’s pen. Not serious? Tell that, for example, to Mr Franz Mueller, who runs an insulation business in South Australia and has for many years. Tell that to Mr Franz Mueller of, I think, Insulation Matters, who until Friday had 30 workers. Now he has 12, because he had to act. Tell that to Mr Franz Mueller who has insulation materials on hand and laying idle—for three months, he reckons—until the government restarts the program. If you are someone thinking about insulating, why the hell would you bother to move in the next three months when there will probably be another government handout, if you can take Minister Garrett at his word. Oh, the minister is back in the action! Or is he, or will he be?

Not serious? Please! ‘Not serious,’ says the government—this from a government who got us into this mess in the first place and now expects us to trust them to get us out of it. Not serious? Who was not serious? It was the minister who was missing in action. We are expected to take him seriously when he says that the first bit of the Minter Ellison documentation, some 20 pages, which came to his department some 10 months ago, he saw about 10 days ago. We are supposed to take the minister seriously when now he apparently says that the risk register, which also went to his department some 10 months ago, he actually only read after it was tabled by his department as a result of the Senate inquiry a couple of days ago. We are supposed to take the minister seriously. Come on, Minister!

Extracting the risk register of the Minter Ellison report, the second bit of it, was like extracting blood from a stone. Why do you reckon that might be? Because the government machinery took that risk register pretty seriously. They know that the risk register is a bit different from the risk assessment document, the first document, which we have had for two or three days longer. They know that the risk register—this pretty thing here that identifies 19, call it 20, because what is an additional risk between friends—which identifies the 20 risks, also quantifies the cost of not addressing and not mitigating the risks. It talks about the bucks which are going to be backed out of the economy, clearly, if the government fails to mitigate and deal with risks identified.

More than that, it then has recommendations about what the government should do to mitigate the risks. Even more than that, it then assesses the strength of the mitigation tactic. Just take one risk out of the 19 risks as an example. Take the risk about procurement and licensing, the need for the program to be determined and fulfilled by 1 July 2009. The scale of the task is new to the department, yet this government imposed upon its departments—plural—the delivery of this program within government time frames. Why then does the Minter Ellison risk register effectively go on to suggest: ‘Minister, why don’t you delay the commencement of this program for three months?’ This was just one recommendation that the minister missed. Was that because the minister was missing in action or because he missed seeing this recommendation? We plan to find that out, but at least at this stage it is very clear that the government did not take heed of that risk and implement the risk mitigation strategy identified by its very own experts at taxpayers’ expense of some $29,000.

More than that, what else does the risk register say? In a convenient column—hang on, let’s go with the three columns. We have paid for it, so we might as well go for it all. No. 1, it says the risks of fallout from procurement and licensing are rated 5 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is ‘most likely to happen’. In a further column it talks about the letter ‘E’. Look at the key to the risk register and you will find that ‘E’ means the highest rating: ‘extreme risk’. Worst of all, most indictable of all, most serious of all, is the rating in respect of the particular risk of ‘weak’. But ‘weak’ is not so much the risk itself as the likelihood of the mitigating factor recommended by Minter’s succeeding at all. So translate that to English, which the minister might have been able to have done for him had he asked his department, from Minter to minister: ‘Mate, delay the implementation of this program by three months. It’s going to blow up and out if you don’t. And, by the way, even if you do delay, there is a very weak prospect of it helping this program to achieve the outcomes.’ Through all of that, the minister was missing in action, so the taxpayer funded risk assessment and risk register might as well have been likewise.

Opposition not serious? Please say that to the Australian community. Say that this is not a serious censure motion of this government for gross and systematic failure in delivery of a range of its programs, in particular the Home Insulation Program. Say that to the mums and dads who want to know if they have home insulation accidents waiting to happen and want to know, if so, what is going to be done to help them stop them. Say that to the industries and the businesses who now have their reputations tarnished. And, please, say that to the workers who supposedly were going to have their jobs protected and, instead, have lost them overnight at the stroke of a ministerial pen. Please say that, and please say that to an Australian community that knows that it is this government that got them into this mess and somehow they are supposed to be relying on this government to get them out of it.