part 2 of 2

Training is just that, training, and it is a bit naughty of antiseptic and others to blame belly and 'the unions' for the training not keeping people alive, or house undamaged...that seems to be a very narrow and partisan perspective to take.

Garret has halted the scheme...at last..thankfully. Now I hope the legitimate insulation installers and green loaners who paid a fortune to buy a job sue the Commonwealth for the damage they caused them. And maybe insurance companies need to keep insuring householders and start suing the Commonwealth for houses that burn down.

Litigating these matters is not the best solution, but it might be needed to prevent future governments from using these scams to buy votes.

Belly might want to ponder the work of the country road council worker, who fills in potholes in poorly serviced roads every time it rains, or the harvest is underway and overloaded farm trucks roll down tearing up the scant spraypave road surface. A job for life, never achieving a new road, always patching up damged sections.

Such is the role of the union delegate and organiser. Being on-demand to resolve issues is a reactive, old style, form of unionism, destined to fail if 'improvement' is the objective.

Of course, if the objective is to maintain the position, the status quo, then it works well.

Our education system fails to teach any form of creative thinking, preferring instead to uphold the coercive imposed top-down form of training. It is here that we need to start training people, workers and so-called 'bosses', to think rather than react, or worse, not even react because they are so scared of losing the job.

The Blue Cross:"Whoever designed the training is not the underlying issue. The scheme might have been well intentioned, but it was not designed to work. And I do not mean that it was designed to fail, but that it was poorly conceived and clearly not policed at all."

tTe Unions have had 100 years of experience with workplace safety; they designed the training and the rules by which the scheme would be delivered. It was all done the way they wanted it done. How then was it "poorly conceived" by accident?

Garrett has made it clear that he relied on the Union-controlled Steering Committee to make the decisions which he rubber-stamped. No amount of sophistry will hide the fact that he was very foolish indeed to do that and that people have died because he did so.

Employers have obligations, which they would have been reasonably entitled to believe would be discharged by ensuring they complied with the rules, which were specifically written for this project. they were not generic "the employer is responsible" rules, but mandated certain actions, including specific training programs. They have now reverted to a more laissez-faire approach via removal of the scheme and reinstatement of a true user/service provider model, which makes employers properly accountable, both for proper completion of their contract with the owner of the property and for properly ensuring worker safety.

Until you or belly or anyone else can show me that the employers of the people who have died were breaking the rules, I'll continue to hold the Unions to account.

The Unions want themselves to be in the position of handing down received wisdom and never, ever questioned. They want Garrett gone, after he's been made use of as a shield to hide behind. most of all, they want a "good union man" who's "paid his dues" in Garrett's nice comfortable seat.

Antiseptic... we may be at cross purposes here, so hold on a moment please.

The insulation and greenloans schemes were poorly designed by the public sector employees who were charged with the task of creating a working system.

They were poorly conceived by the minister and his political advisors,more likely Rudd and his office political-honchos.

I honestly have no idea who 'designed' the safety aspects of it but some underlying assumptions must, or at least should, hold true.

That it would have been based on current industry practice is probable. Which has so far proved to be reasonably safe? I do not have that information.

This in turn would be based on state/territory legislation as well as the overlying requirement for all employers and employees to activate their 'duty of care' to themselves and each other, irrespective of any legislation detail.

The unions do not control those matters but they are actors within the state/territory arenas, as are employer unions-you do include them in your overarching term 'unions' I assume? And also industry bodies that tradies join.

It is pointless to point the bone at one group above others here. The policy was 'well intentioned' but hopelessly flawed in its design and application-sin enough for Garret to go.

I doubt that Garrett 'meant' to design a flawed system though.

I also doubt whether anyone employed by the new rush of employers was a union member, so they would not have been aware of any direct union advice-but here I am guessing only-you may have full details of the thousands of employees who were members of the relevant unions.

The quality of some, maybe many, firms engaged following the Garret scam-launch seems to be highly questionable. I see in my local paper a previously convicted house thief seems to be running an 'insulation' company... one accepts he may be reformed after jail, but he may have just seen a vacuum and filled it too.

You demands for 'proof' from Belly are unreasonable and undeliverable from his side. OLO is not a 'proof' forum, the courts deal with that.

The Blue Cross:"You demands for 'proof' from Belly are unreasonable and undeliverable from his side."

Then he shouldn't have made the claim. I can back up my assertions with facts and the extrapolations as to motive flow from those facts.

The CFMEU was a key member of the Steering Committee which was responsible for signing off on the Scheme. Neither they nor any other union raised any concerns, officially at least, about safety or any other aspect of the scheme. IIRC, the Unions were very gung ho for the scheme, on the basis of job creation.

It was left to Minter Ellison and the employer bodies to raise concerns about safety. Garret has already said he didn't see the ME advice some 10 months ago, so who did? The Steering Committee and the Unions, perhaps? Who made the decision not to advise the Minister about it? Why?

Belly has made it clear that the Unions are not on Garret's side, which was obvious. It's not a big leap from there to letting him become a patsy for a disaster.

The Blue Cross:"I also doubt whether anyone employed by the new rush of employers was a union member"

So it was OK for the Unions to mandate inadequate training that left them vulnerable? The training wasn't a matter of personal Union advice, but a regulatory requirement, so whether they were union members or not, they would have been in the same boat.

No one doubts there were some fly-by-nighters, but I've yet to see any evidence that they failed in their duty of care to their employees. They may have performed inadequate installations, but that's a different issue and may come down to inadequate training and product knowledge as much as anything else, unless you're suggesting criminality, of course?

Given the large number of new start-ups, there should have been much more support offered, or it should have been tendered to a large head contractor, just as was done by both Telstra and Optus during their HFC roll outs and is still done for their home installation work.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/a-modern-moses-with-beliefs-set-in-stone/story-e6frg6zo-1225832747955

From the link,

>>It is humbug to suggest - as Garrett continues to suggest - that his scheme has been laid low by the machination of shonky operators or the negligence of half-trained operatives. Patently, there would have been no fly-by-night insulation firms and no army of semi-trained labourers in the first place but for a decision to throw billions of dollars of public money, holus-bolus, towards the creation of a new and for all practical purposes unregulated industry without any apparent concern for the consequences.

Nor is it credible to blame the existing safety standards of state governments when their creators could hardly have imagined the industry would grow 30-fold within a few months.<<

This pretty much sums up the error the Government made. You can't grow an industry that much without causing major flooding of some kind within it. In this case, the negatives were the multiplication of fly-by-nighters, scammers and rorters and a general decline in industry standards. It was a green light for any mug and his associates to whack a few batts in the back of the ute and peddle their wares to a largely ignorant public. These rorters were given unofficial licence by the speed of the rollout. And, as the originator of the political decision, the Government is responsible for everything - both good and bad - that ensues from it.

Antiseptic please never refer to the CFMEU in those loving terms, once after my union dropped the ball, they controlled all construction.
For a time, yes I truly think it, unions lost the plot, about the time it was not law you had to be in a union.
Some could not make the change from service providers to true mentors and mates in the workplace.
The Blue Cross, you have come to the right bloke.22 years filling potholes, being in charge for the last 8 years and union delegate for every day.
It gives me the greatest personal pride, that I as senior RTA delegate got 40 klm speed limits inti NSW work sites,
I met a SA union official, he told me of that states laws, while sitting as a delegate on that groups peak body I demanded we get it.
My union held seminars fronted ministers, antiseptic if only you could have been there.
PUBLIC SERVANTS FOUGHT IT nearly beat us, still ignore safety, but we fight on.
I sit now in my old chair on that peak body, as an official, I fight brick walls , defense for defense sake, listen to hours of safety clap trap, words thrown at workers not swapped.
Aseptic have you seen my often shown disdain for Simon Crean?
ex ACTU leader ,yet you make claims Garrett has my protection/union protection?
I like his music, have seen all his actions and he in my view is as useless as Crean but not guilty here.
very much doubt your ex employers did not train much better than some criminals who got these jobs.
My long day has seen a union in action eating with one crew listening to all 5 of them, and servicing them often.
your view of modern unions is flawed.
TBC do you know RTA funds workplace police controls radar the lot, but fights union constantly because?
We demand, and will get, portable speed cameras on EVERY ROADWORK SITE.