Thanks Judy. Your article has reinforced what I knew already, people have short memories.The media know this all too well and have been using this to push certain agendas
I find it laughable that the insulation project was done in a way that the LNP champion, by giving the work to privately owned business with minimum regulation and then in concert with certain sections of the media ridiculed the program as a waste and held certain politicians personally responsible for fires and the unfortunate deaths of some workers and allowed the contractors off the hook with no scrutiny of the Duty of Care obligations of the employers. It is pleasing that the Judiciary aren't swayed by propaganda and media bias
What I find strange is that the ALP hasn't been able to counter the criticism even when the issue was raised in parliament.
What is even stranger is that the LNP castigated the government for not having enough regulation/oversight in place when one of the 3 word slogans the LNP uses is "Cut Red Tape"

thanks, Phil R. Yes, a combination of systematic stifling* by the msm and a distressing tendency on the left to reach for the forelock means that so often the argument is simply not made.

* ask any Labor pollie how many press releases are published by the msm. Waves of bitter laughter.

I was not surprised find Judy teaches creative writing. This piece is pretty creative. So, from reading this is her understanding of math.

since when does the financier of any economic activity become responsible for damages as a consequence of the recipient of finance not acting within the law of the land. no one has ever tried to answer this question. Chris Lewis who rewrites newspaper articles and thinks referencing them in accordance with style guides creates serious research cannot answer that simple question, nor can anyone else who has jumped on this bandwagon. Was Robert Menzies responsible for deaths on the Snowy Mountain Scheme?

Fantastic article. But, as always, well-argued, well-informed debunking of the endless litany of 'government mismanagement' lies just don't have the reach of the Murdoch-Coalition propaganda machine.

'What I find strange is that the ALP hasn't been able to counter the criticism even when the issue was raised in parliament.'

Sigh! Tell me about it ...

Whether it's pink batts, government debt, the NBN, Rudd's neuroses, financial mismanagement (which produced the strongest economy in the world) - whatever - the ALP has always remained eerily quiet in its own defence. I give up.

This article puts me in mind of the frequent mealy-mouthed excuse often trotted out for allowing liars to monopolise the news media: "You don't have to read it".

When the pink batts hullabaloo first hit the headlines my thought was that though the Government was right to hit the panic button when the Global Financial Heist threatened they stuffed up the delivery. On cue, my memory leapt to the endlessly repeated mantras: "Labor can't handle money" and "government can't handle business".

Ms Crozier, based on a painstaking analysis in Crikey.com, shows that the Libs were lying and are still lying. I didn't have to read Murdoch's lies but I did so, and so did millions of other Australians. OK I needn't have read it, but as millions of Australians did, then whether we read the lies or not we are likely at the weekend to be profoundly affected by them and by other Murdoch lies. So "you don't have to read it" does not protect you from the megaphoned lies of exceedingly wealthy foreign liars who own news media. Ms Crozier's efforts and those of the Crikey journo make this crystal clear.

The real joke is that more houses and insulation drowned the length of the East Coast during the massive floods.

Come on Julian, we all know that there are no journalists at Crikey, only spin doctors.

Hay Marilyn, we all know it was Rudd going off half cocked that caused the insulation fires & deaths, but I had not realised he was responsible for those floods too.

Got to admit he's versatile with his catastrophes.

Hi Hasbeen, you may have noticed reference to the CSIRO studies of HIP and its effects. Certainly, that's where the information originated both for the Crikey article and The Age opinion piece of around the same time.

I know, it is very uncomfortable to think that we have simply been told the opposite of the truth by the press overall - apart from those few exceptions who bothered to look at real studies rather than hysterical assumption.

The real catastrophe was the Global Financial Heist. Zillions of dollars of hard-earned national assets scooped into the coffers of the bankers who caused it. Time for drastic rescue measures. All stoppers pulled out to rescue ... ... who? In Europe and Britain and America - the bankers. Hit the populations to bail out the delinquent bankers. We were the really lucky country - we'd just elected a government that rushed in to rescue the people. That's what happened. We were spared catastrophic poverty. Fact. And at the end of it all we have emerged with triple-A ratings from the world's agencies for top class economic management. Fact. Imagine nominating these twin cities to illustrate: Melbourne-Athens. Sydney-Madrid. Geelong-Detroit.

So why don't more people FEEL lucky? The most tightly controlled news media in the civilised world going at it day in day out for suix years. This will likely lead to an Abbott Government. But those who purchased it may be disappointed. Tony Abbott is no John Howard. He's not an honorary Yank. His "bad versus bad" comment on Syria, seized on by embedded Yankophile Rudd who had rivalled Howard in the big crawl over the US's Iraqi WMD lies, may be a straw in the wind. His background is DLP, extreme Roman Church ideologues, but they have an empathy with working men and women, with those whom the patrician element would regard as the Great Unwashed. For one, I think he's dinkum about no return to Work Choices or increased GST gouging or a Campbell Newman economy. Watch this space.

Emperor Julian: 'For one, I think he's dinkum about no return to Work Choices or increased GST gouging or a Campbell Newman economy.'

HE might be, but not the pipers he will have to pay. Make no mistake. His side of politics (worldwide) is now committed to endgame neoliberalism - complete destruction of the welfare state, worker rights, the public service and public ownership of anything at all. They know that global capitalism is sinking under its own weight and they are making sure that only the mega-wealthy will be on the lifeboats.

Goody, my futures in Top Hats should make a fortune after the next election. Please remember to take your pink pills, I can feel Lefty Hysteria about to boil over into total irrationality.

Will drowning people on the high-seas be evil again after the election?

I'm afraid Killarney is right. It's the party that the sponsors purchase, and ultimately the leader serves the sponsors or gets rolled. However I think the leader does respond to training to put his or her stamp on a government and will be influenced by this in addition and in part contradiction to the beneficiaries of neoliberalism - e.g. for Abbott it will be Opus Dei and the philosophy of the DLP. For Howard it was a mission to bring the gun freaks to heel. Abbott will if necessary be instructed to defer to others for strategic economic decisions.

Couldn't respond to the facts and reasons presented by McCackie as I couldn't find any, only sneers, which is pretty well all that can be expected of the emoting of the Revolt Against Reason.

Has been, I think you never were.

Actually the floods were Gillard's fault.

I saw a protest sign at an anti-Gillard rally that stated that as a fact.

It explains a lot about the mindset of some people.

Here's something interesting -

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/we-really-must-talk-about-the-pink-batts/

Oh come on rache, you can't expect anyone to pay attention to Alan Austin.

Talk about the spin doctor's spin doctor, & you whinge about bias, please.

Thanks everyone, for a mostly positive set of reviews. HasBeen, actually most serious economists here and overseas did not see anything half-cocked about the Australian response to the worst global financial crisis in 80 years. And interestingly, our government's response seems to have triggered the abandonment overseas of austerity responses to serious economic circumstances. Now, of course, we are way up on the list of successful countries. Indeed, it is arguable (and has been argued) that we are in many ways the most successful of developed countries.
Saul Eslake's very interesting concerns about the various and often contradictory approaches in the LNP camp are illuminating.