Shadow Minister,

Fair enough...I agree that the government had a responsibility to set more stringent guidelines...however, it is also a sad indictment on the abilities of those who set out to make a quick buck in the private sector, to proceed with vigilance and care on behalf of their employees.

Perhaps organisations lobbying on behalf of small business - and those who extol their virtues - might explain why so many small businesses rorted the system and failed to do their job properly? I don't entirely blame the federal government - after all, most who criticise the scheme are believers in an open market economy, that the federal government had no right to spend money to keep the economy going and keep people in work, and that small business is the backbone of the economy.

If small business is the backbone of the economy, then it's a very sick backbone. And the rorting of the home insulation scheme is an excellent example of how greed appears to be the basis of small business.

Poirot,

What many posters don't realise is that these small contractors are often Mom and Pop enterprises. My wife having been for a while an IR consultant for some small businesses was staggered by how little awareness there was amongst these industries of IR laws, safety legislation, local regulations etc, and how many of them were falling foul of legislation that they did not know existed or even that they might exist.

For a small entrepreneur that hocks himself to the hit to buy insulation, and follows what he thinks is the required training to be accused of just "trying to make a quick buck" is extremely ill informed.

Especially considering that most of them face financial ruin with the abrupt cancellation of the scheme, and are faced with large quantities of useless stock and redundancy payments.

Where the federal government was wrong was that it either didn't perform am adequate risk analysis or it chose to disregard identified critical risks for which there was no apparent treatment.

The highest risk of all and one that must have been glaringly obvious, was that there never have been any compulsory minimum Standards for building work. Even if the apparent standards were written into agreements, they could not be enforced. There are apparent 'standards', such as the Building Code, the relevant Australian Standards and the installation guides (necessary for product warranty) of manufacturers BUT none of those have any force whatsoever in law and can be disregarded at will by builders and trades.

On top of that, the so-called building standards authorities, the intended police of the non-effective building 'standards' (which we have already found are not Standards in operation), are themselves compromised and usually rendered ineffective both by the lack of compulsory minimum building standards to enforce and by their reactive, rather than proactive role.

As I have said in earlier posts, short-cutting and other poor building practices are long-standing in Australia and it wouldn't appear that either side of government is willing to so anything about it for fear of the builders' unions. That is a very great pity because the home is shelter and is probably the greatest single purchase most people will make in their lifetimes.

Sure the government is presently embarrassed but what about the many thousands of home owners who are led to believe in the Clayton's 'standards' like the Building Code that many are in the habit of builders thumbing their noses at and they can easily get away with that scot-free?

Shadow Minister,

I take your point, and I have sympathy for those enterprises that were left in the lurch. I believe your criticism of the government is valid to a point.

However, I believe it is incumbent upon small business operators to make themselves aware of any potential hazards applicable to their workplaces. Many of these businesses were set up in haste to take advantage of the scheme.
It"s all right to criticize the government for its lax training initiatives and regulation but, as you pointed out in your last post, many business operators do not make themselves cognizant of regulations set up by various bodies even when appropriate guidelines are in place.

Poirot,

It is incumbent on the small businesses to find and follow the laws, and where they don't they should be punished.

However, it was also incumbent on the government to evaluate the risks and put procedures in place to mitigate these. The risk assessment was done and then the risks and recommended measures ignored.

If on my construction site I hire a contractor, I assume that he employs competent persons, but if someone has an accident I am held responsible. The result is that no one works without proof of training. Site induction, and a safety auditor lurking, to ensure that the contractors comply not only with the AS standards, but the site requirements over and above that.

In industry you cannot completely delegate your responsibility, neither can Garrett.