The problems are bigger than
Garrett
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There are two issues in the insulation saga and the media — which has no excuse — and the Opposition, which can at least claim it’s playing politics, is conflating the two in the hope Peter Garrett can be finished off. The central problem of the insulation program was that it had two separate and often contradictory goals: improving household energy efficiency and propping up employment among low-skilled workers in the face of a looming and massive economic slowdown. Worse, it involved an industry that lacked the capacity to roll out a program of that size. Garrett’s department was aware of that problem, if not before consultants Minter Ellison mentioned it as one of several possible risks in its quick-and-dirty risk assessment analysis, then after. “Industry’s capacity to produce and deliver sufficient quality materials and installations may be inadequate,” the risk analysis called it. Keep the concept of industry capacity in mind, because this is not a problem that will disappear once the stimulus package programs end, or Garrett resigns, or even if Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister. Even without the extraordinary — and justified — rush to get the program out and keep people employed, this is a problem that will recur every time governments intervene in Australian industry to artificially encourage energy efficiency, renewable technology or carbon sequestration technology. Because of years of doing nothing, we’re suddenly trying to make big cuts in carbon emissions with industries that aren’t much above boutique level. They have to do the heavy lifting that we’ve refused to do for a decade — and quickly. So while huge cash handouts don’t appear to have the problems of the command-and-control approach of direct regulation, and they can’t be portrayed in a scare campaign as a “great big tax” like an emission trading scheme can, they come with their own problems. In particular, the cash lures shonks and spivs by the truckload. And as we’re seeing now, even the ardent deregulationists of the Coalition want the heavy hand of Government controlling the insulation industry. It’s a particularly vivid demonstration of exactly why a market-based mechanism for reducing carbon emissions is more efficient than other mechanisms. That’s a policy problem, one the Department of the Environment has been grappling unsuccessfully with for a year. And even if they had delayed the roll-out of the program by three months — which would have contributed directly to higher unemployment — the intrinsic problem of lack of capacity in industry would have remained, with its attendant consequences. The problem was reinforced by the department’s own lack of expertise in service delivery. The Commonwealth does deliver services on a large scale, but the expertise is in selected areas, and primarily in agencies rather than departments (think Customs, Medicare, Centrelink, federal courts, the AFP). Senior Government figures have been concerned for a time that the Government’s heavy investment in new service delivery programs would be tripped up through lack of expertise and corporate memory at the bureaucratic level. But somehow these problems has been conflated with four deaths of insulation installers, in a cause-effect link that simply doesn’t bear scrutiny. As the head of the Environment department Robyn Kruk (who should have offered her resignation well before now) pointed out yesterday, there have been deaths among insulation installers previous to the Government’s programs. At least there’s now a regulatory framework for the installation industry that wasn’t there before the program. Somehow the workplace deaths of four men have nothing to do with their employers who had a legal obligation to provide a safe workplace, and everything to do with a Labor Government program. Apparently it’s not the shonks’ fault that the Government made money available and they rushed to take advantage, possibly putting at risk their employees along the way. The issues have been conflated by a media that doesn’t understand the mechanics by which ministers are briefed and asked to make decisions — maybe I should offer a primer on it — and can only see the issue through terms of politics — where’s the smoking gun, where’s the cover-up, what did the Minister know and when did he know it. There persists a view among gallery journalists that somehow Garrett is hiding the fact that he was briefed about the Minter Ellison report — which looks a lot like a SWOT analysis rather than a detailed warning of what was to come that we’ve been led to believe — before receiving a full copy of it. Given he received briefings about program risks and what measures had been adopted to address them, he undoubtedly would have received a brief mentioning — perhaps even briefly summarising — the Minter Ellison report, along with discussion of industry advice, outcomes of meetings and maybe issues that have occurred in comparable programs elsewhere. They would have all been factors contributing to the recommendation Garrett would have been asked to approve. That’s how departments brief ministers. Ministers and their advisers don’t read every report, every meeting note, every external study. That’s what bureaucrats get paid to do. The pursuit from the Coalition can be justified on a political basis, of course — as pretty much anything can — but their hypocrisy is extraordinary. Four years ago John Howard, Mark Vaile and Alexander Downer all refused to resign over AWB’s bribes to Saddam Hussein because they insisted they had not been told, however improbable that seemed for a company with such strong connections to the Howard Government and the National Party. Conservative commentators still feign outrage that Kevin Rudd called John Howard a liar over it, despite Howard becoming a by-word among voters for the most extraordinary casuistry. Howard elevated to a high art the use of ministerial advisers as shields between ministers and inconvenient facts. The only really safe program, of course, is a non-existent one. But if we refuse to adopt a price signal for carbon, and shy away at the terrible effects of regulation, we need to spend far more, not less, on these sorts of programs. And the insulation saga has demonstrated that neither the bureaucracy not industry yet have the capacity to deliver them properly. |
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33 Comments
Enough with the straw man, Bernard. No one is saying that. There’s more than enough blame to go around.
Again I ask - if there was no fundamental problem with the program’s implementation, why have the Government just scrapped it, just when adequately trained capacity might be starting to come on line? Why should the Department secretary resign, and not the minister?
Seems to me that this:
“So while huge cash handouts don’t appear to have the problems of the command-and-control approach of direct regulation…they come with their own problems. In particular, the cash lures shonks and spivs by the truckload.”
Isn’t this exactly what the Coalition have proposed as their alternative to an ETS?
I hope they recognise the irony.
Thank you Bernard for your wonderfullly insightful analysis touching on economics, industry policy, emissions trading, program delivery and occupational health and safety issues.
I agree that Robyn Kruk should have resigned by now and the delivery of the future program should be moved under admin orders to a department with the nous to manage it competently.
We should not overlook the deskilling of the public services by the former government as a factor in this debacle as well.
I disagree, Mark — Bernard did not assert that the media and Opposition were saying that “it’s not the shonks’ fault”; he said “apparently ….” meaning that the overwhelming mass of criticism from media and Opposition has been dumped almost exclusively on Peter Garrett’s head so that, to a reasonable observer, the inference must be that Garrett is entirely to blame with the so-called “shonks” exonerated. There was no straw man.
Peter Garrett is probably a decent bloke but in my view he is a very bad minister. He is not over his portfolio whether it is the fault of his department or whomever else is whispering in his ear. He is not the only one, but he is the one the spotlight is on at the moment. He should go.
There’s another big problem here, Bernard. There’s seems to be almost no comprehension in the gallery, or in the wider community, that these ‘direct action’ subsidies have a miniscule impact on Australia’s emissions. These ‘boutique level’ industries you refer to are not being asked to make ‘big cuts in carbon emissions’, and there’s no ‘heavy lifting’ going on. The insulation of 2.7 million homes, and solar hot water on another 400,000 roofs would, by the government’s own reckoning, cut around 5 million tonnes of CO2 a year from Australia’s projected emissions in 2020. That’s like suspending Australian coal exports for 2 and a half days! Put another way, the emissions generated by the Gorgon gas project, even after it captures and stores 3 million tonnes of CO2 annually, more than erase all the emission savings made by installing insulation or solar hot water in three million-plus homes. It’s Australia’s greenhouse response that is ‘boutique level’. Guy Pearse, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland.
Not to be a heartless reductionist, but frankly, teething problems are par for course surely. This is still a good scheme, just needs to be better thought out.
I tend to agree Guy
I’m an accredited ‘home sustainability assessor’ as part of the Green loans scheme. To me its basically a PR exercise with two purposes, 1) gives the impression the government is acting on climate change, and 2) people get the impression they are acting on climate change. The same principal holds true for the home insulation scheme. The GHG emissions saved are trite.
For the same amount of money we could be building solar thermal plants with base load capacity, which are currently operating with more being built in Spain.
@Guy Pearse, aren’t you basically saying that nothing Australia does on the consumer side will make much difference, and that it’s all about what happens in China and India?
Thanks Bernard. Insightful article as usual. And thanks Guy for putting the matter into perspective It is all about perception, isn’t it. I think there yet another dimension in this story. That is the regulatory role of the states in relation to the building industry, consumer protection and OHS. I can’t believe that the Federal Environment Minister is expected to be a Department of Consumer Affairs or Fair Trading, a building works specifier, compliance auditor and WorkCover inspector merely because he administered a rebate scheme to the purchasers of roof insulation worth $1600 a go. these are all state responsibilities. Surely the deaths of the four insulators needs to be examined in the context of the OHS regulation in each state which is notoriously slack in some, especially Queensland. Surely responsibility for the squillions of live ceilings and house fires should be the subject of consumer protection agencies like the Department of Fair Trading in NSW. I’ve heard nothing from or about any of them. The fact is, if existing state-based regulatory regimes were consistent and consistently policed, this debacle wouldn’t have happened. How’s that for a “capacity constraint”?
‘Again I ask - if there was no fundamental problem with the program’s implementation, why have the Government just scrapped it, just when adequately trained capacity might be starting to come on line?’
Mark Duffett
Mark, the program has not been ‘scrapped’, it’s merely been suspended in order to reassess its implementation, roll out, and oversight as it occurs on the ground, so as to hopefully minimise the occurence of any problems like those we have already had, into the future.
Some changes have already been announced, and the Insulation program will no longer be a rapid response mechanism to deal with the GFC, but rather a more measured provision of a $1000 cashback through Medicare after the work has been done by the homeowner, who will engage their own contractor on a best price tender basis.
@ Mark Duffett — no. I’m saying nothing Australia does on the consumer side IS MAKING much difference to its emissions.
Guy Pearse,
I think you are denying the existential benefits of the Insulation and Solar Hot Water programs.
Firstly, that this was a fully-funded installation of insulation, even into homes who could not normally afford it, with the consequent reduction in heat stress for those occupants who are old or infirm especially, with a reduction in electricity bills down the track, makes it a good move for mine. Also, if we all get it, then that will make a difference, theoretically and likely actually, in the output of Greenhouse Gases from the smokestacks of the large emitters, such as coal-fired power stations, as less electricity will need to be generated. Which will make a tangible difference to the country’s emissions.
Even if on a gross basis we will never be able to make a dent in global emissions, it behoves us as a nation, and the world’s largest per capita emitter of Greenhouse Gases, to take action to bring our emissions down, by whatever means are at our disposal. Also, we need to get on the new Green bandwagon in order to take advantage of new markets for new technologies.
Only a curmudgeon could disagree with that.
No C@tmomma - I’m not denying any of the benefits, nor saying we shouldn’t do these things, and I’m in furious agreement about the need to bring our emissions down. I’m merely pointing out the miniscule impact that these programs are having on Australia’s emissions. Only the willfully blind could deny that.
The central problem is implementation. The Government (any level of Government) has a poor record on just about delivering anything. It is the Government’s delivery of services that is the real issue here. They are good at pushing papers around, or talking to stakeholders or having meetings but get into the real world and the public process (and what is expected of it) become real issues to work with and through, unless you are another Government agency. Whether Garrett should go or not is almost a side issue.
I asked for 3 quotes before replacing my roof insulation with new batts and sarking. I required every quote to guarantee, in writing, that the materials and the installation would meet with the relevant Australian Standard. Not one agreed to do so. Eventually, I found a company which did.
Notwithstanding these difficulties and serious trauma which so many have suffered, there must be a bottom line at which consumers might agree to help themselves.
Yesterday, Richard Farmer posited that ministerial staff might well have kept relevant details from the Minister in an endeavour to allow him to claim ignorance. I’d like to hear more of this, please.
no w Bernard we have been building roads for years and years and years do you want me to go on. there are road accidents every day do we keeeeeeeeeeeeeep blaming the
ministers in states and Federal
Do you know what we are sick sick of it
NEW SUBJECT PLESAE WHAT ABOUT INTERNALL SECRUITY.
buts that boring for the msm. Till something happens that is.
Credit where it’s due.
Howard’s $8000 PV rebate was like throwing burley in the water. Sharks everywhere.
First Garret/Rudd means tested it then knocked it on the head then replaced it with Solar Credits. In Qld with it’s nett FiT this is working well. It looks like the Rum Corp in NSW has stuffed it up with their gross FiT, but that’s par for the course.
Now it appears that the feds have slowed up payment of rebates from last year. This will cause untold pain to the sharks who were bottom feeding and really need those payments. For dolphins like me (yes, I am in the PV industry) it’s a real PITA but I’ll get through it.
It appears there are some pretty cluey people in DEWHA who know how to do stimulus. I wouldn’t write the department off yet.
I’d be guessing the burley thrown at the insulation industry was PM&C idea, Rudd pretty well admitted that this afternoon when he took responsibility.
Apart from all that, the only people to blame are the idiots who got into a ceiling full of cables and stapled foil insulation down with metal staples. WTF were they thinking?
I say all of this despite me having nothing but contempt for Garrett as a minister because of his lack of action on whaling - but that’s another issue.
Mayflower, take your Loo-boot-tins, and shove them up your rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssssssss
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Bernard,-you seem to be of the opinion that if you state your point of view again, and again,…and AGAIN, those who hold a different view will come around to your way of thinking.
Have you EVER known that to happen, on ANY forum?
If it has, who knows, I might experience a flush of warm faith. Perhaps.
@ My Say - you just don’t get it…..
this whole debacle should be a big lesson for current and future governments.
Never underestimate the power of communication.
What about the thousands of homes that have had insulation done before the stimulus program. In the last 20 years I have had loose fill insulation done twice ( the last time was 3 years ago) . My wife and I have also helped out putting batts in another house. The last loose fill exercise was a bit of a shambles with the insulators not turning up when they were scheduled, then when they did turn up, the hose was too short so they had to come again.
As far as I know there was no inspection of the wiring (the house is now 30 years old) and we have some downlights. It was a long established co in the insulation game, but the staff of course are not necessarily long term.
To be honest we never even gave the electrocution/fire risk much thought, but were sure the co would be around if we had a problem
Given the problems we had actually getting the job done, we got a reduction in price and a dozen bottles of wine as compensation.
I would like to see some hard figures on what serious incidents there were due to insulation before 2009, to see whether the 4 deaths and the number of fires is actually a significant spike.
Also, now we know there is a risk, will do it yourselfers be banned from buying batts from Bunnings etc?
Can it be true, there were “insulation deaths” before this Garrett initiative?
Why haven’t we been made aware of that “fact”, before this, by the popular media playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” to Abbott’s “Torquemada - The Ambitious Friar”? Where’s his cardinal robes? He’d look good in red.
From the way they’ve been carrying on in this concert, I thought these were the first - and all “that Antichrist Garrett’s” fault?
Is this revelation in any of today’s papers or other media, after Kruk’s “revelation” yesterday?
They wouldn’t be playing favourites withholding such facts, letting us go on thinking this was all Garrett’s, and by extrapolation “Rudd’s”, fault would they? Just to influence an electoral result would they?
The Government has panicked in the face of the pressure and the new scheme beginning in June is a political fix: have something that looks like a scheme and if no-one accesses it then all the better for the government. The cost of installing the insulation batts is about $10 per square metre so the proposed new cap of $1000 will completely cover virtually no-one in a house. Since the householder will now have to pay upfront, those least able to afford it will receive no benefit and the number of people willing to pay $1300-$1700 upfront will be a small fraction of the take-up rate until now. Further, the government will demand a bond before registering any installer. Industry rumours have suggested $10,000. There is no point to a bond, insurance yes, but not a bond. The only purpose is to discourage installers from registering. So installers and householders will walk away from the scheme. The government can shut it down on the due date and claim it came in under budget. Problem solved.
In the meantime, legitimate businesses have invested serious amounts of money buying stock that will not be used for at least 3 months if not far longer. What will follow is bankrupty through idiotic government decisions.
The most depressing thing about the whole saga is that no-one had the courage and nerve and foresight to see where such hysterical decision-making would lead. Any pro-government sentiment held by small business people has been well and truly trashed by this monument to incompetence.
Who the hell is Abbott to be up there in the house of our representatives, telling the country Garrett “has shown no remorse and no concern” over those deaths?
Which is he, bereft of Christian charity, or blind, or just so politically opportune that the end justifies the means?
Watching him last night I could almost see a chorus from “Inquisition - the Musical” ……. “in some Abbotts Abbey” ….. with members of the “castrato peanut gallery” getting to their feet to echo :-
“No remorse and
No concern,
Fetch your faggots,
They’ve got to burn….”
Why do you think Kruk should have resigned by now, Bernard? What were her failings?
Told ya so. If the command and control regulations had been implemented, as intended with the legislation of the Environmental Protection Act in 1972, Australia would not have acquired the ignominious title of the largest polluter of CO2 per capita on the planet and the mortality rates, caused by unethical industries would be far lower.
Successive governments, the dancing boys of industry (any industry!) have hidden the tricks for nearly forty years. Senior bureaucrats spin to their Ministers - that’s the culture in Departments of Environment and “regulated” industries are responsible for most of Australia’s worst, environmental calamities.
Putting a trade-related initiative in the hands of a Department of Environment is insanity particularly when they’re illiterate and do not understand their own preamble in the Environmental Protection Act:
“An Act to provide for an Environmental Protection Authority, for the prevention, control and abatement of pollution and environmental harm, for the conservation, preservation, protection, enhancement and management of the environment and for matters incidental to or connected with the foregoing.”
Lemmings to the ready - quick march, quick march ……………….oops!
You got it in one Klewso. The unfrocked Monk jabbers on about his devotion to the Catholic faith, his Christian values and then acts like a refugee from the SS. He was Howards chief head kicker, the No1 feaces tosser, and now as opposition leader he continues the fine tradition he set when he destroyed Pauleen Hansons reputation, stood at the despatch box day after day and hurled personal abuse at Big Kim Beasley, strutted around the country like a demented peacock, happy to display his jewells at any beach (nothing changes), is foul mouthed and shags virgins out of wedlock on his own admission. This is the God fearing Christian, devotee of his boss, Pell the pretender and would be Prime Minister of this country. The man is a disgrace. I defy any of you Lib stooges to refute any of that.
When I read Bernard’s piece, all I can think of is this morning’s story in the SMH by Miles Peterson about how a complete novice picks up a spin job with the Health Minister’s team. Entitled “Yes Minister meets Alice in Wonderland” , Peterson discusses his experiences working for Nicola Roxon. Without as much as a style guide, he was asked to write his first piece on “macular degeneration and I was instructed to mention Ita Buttrose”. He said he learnt not to ask any questions because nobody would or could answer them. Talk about “deep end” training school. Evidently not long after his first couple of efforts, Peterson was given the job of ensuring photographers were always present “to capture our ministers nodding gravely as they consulted” regardless of cost. Lucky photographers found themselves hired, whatever their quote.
His last days at the department this unlikely speechwriter claims to have been total chaos with constant staff churn, largely the result of the YourHealth spin show; an arse-about project necessitating constant adjustments and money to be thrown “at local production companies to create sincere-looking website testimonials”.
The writer expressed his disgust at the incompetence and the profligacy which abounded and so with that in mind, I guess one could feel a little sorry for Peter Garrett except that he has been quoted as saying that when Labor got in (despite their promises), they would change everything. An orgy of incompetence and waste was not the change I was expecting!
Now, any confusion about who runs the whole show was settled by Peterson when he recited the following: “None of these events prepared me for what happened next. The Prime Minister suddenly took an interest in the nation’s health and sent the department into a tailspin over his plans to launch a major initiative.
”When’s it happening?” the staff asked.
”Monday.” (It was Friday afternoon.)
”When did we first learn about it?”
”Now.”
And evidently that is how the department’s major reform initiative, YourHealth, and its associated round of public consultations began.
So we are forced to ask: “Is this just the tip of an iceberg the good ship Rudd is about to strike?” Dodgy insulation deals, solar panels accreditation issues, health initiatives with nothing behind them, climate strategy a farce, over the top media handouts, airport body scanners to finish of any last semblance of dignity, an attack on the freedom of internet, massive overseas borrowings in just two years, a phony war on terror all have a familiar ring to them. They are ringing out a warning. Chaos out of order might be about to descend upon us.
ahhh c’mon Richard!
you know full well that your piece is going to attract responses such as:
“I bet Miles Peterson is a young Liberal”
“what a suprise, the print media is again showing its bias towards the Coalition”
“I bet Mad Monk wrote it”
“AWB”
“Work Choices”
“Children Overboard”
I am not suprised that any Government fails in delivery, all the better operators move to the private sector. I bet the high turnover of staff in the public service is because they have to work past 5:30 without getting paid!
@napoleon dynamite
You forgot:
“…f..k off back to Bolt’s blog, troll…”
Or my personal favourite:
“…Best to ignore MPM no matter how tempting it is to respond to her provocations. Responding to a troll only feeds her peculiar psychological needs…”
What about the insulators of life. Where were they, when condoms failed to protect us from life?
How many are here as a result of faulty or outdated condoms? The protection that failed us and many now suffering the horrible fate of life as a result of shonky practises. Never mind fingering Garrett.
Of course Abott would be more inclined to approve of the coitus interruptus, another method fraught with failures and not unlike leaving the church before communion.
What about fingering Ansell?
http://oosterman.wordpress.com/
How easy it is to get caught up in a debate about government responsibility and legislation on enviromental issues. The current debates focuses on applying controls and standards in an attempt to modify society’s attitudes and behaviour towards sustainability.
As with all external controls of behaviour, the carrot or the stick approach has to be used. As any organisational change consultant, parent or educator knows behaviour change using these methods must be monitored. Real change occurs when there is an internal psychological change in individuals whereby they fully commit to the vision and values of any initiative.
Unfortunately for that change to be taken onboard there needs to be congruency of values and actions by the parties seeking change. To have someone ask you to modify your behaviour, eg using less power, recycling, implementing energy efficiency, whilst they themselves are not walking the talk, meerly makes people become cynical.
Clare
Psychologist Sydney
nice ad clare, but geez that’s a loose collection of feelgood rubbish.
Gerard, you’re funny