I attended an in-law gathering of over 200 people on Saturday night.

These are primarily made up of 'Howard's battlers' who love a yack and I was interested to hear how much damage the Government might have sustained over the insulation saga.

The response was not quite what I had expected.

Most of those I spoke to seemed to be aware of the facts coming to light regarding house fires during the roll out being proportionally many times safer than before the scheme was implemented.

There was a (admittedly grudging) sense of feeling sorry for Garrett and of Rudd being a chicken for not supporting him.

A number work in the building industry and know as I do how cowboyish a fair proportion of the insulation crowd were before the scheme and how little chance a building inspector would ever check the ceiling. At least here they had to be registered and each job inspected.

It was also recognised that there are a million households who will now save two to three hundred dollars a year on energy costs.

Their biggest gripe on the insulation scheme was cold calling by “those Indians”.

The comment was made that under this government's responses to the GFC have been ones of placing dollars to trickle up from us and schools to business while in other countries money was heaped on the banks and other financial institutions where fat bonuses were taken from taxpayers funds. 'Wouldn't have happened like this under the Lib's' was the sentiment.

On the whole they were surprisingly more generous toward Garrett and far more scathing of Rudd than I initially was.

There seemed very little vitriol being directed toward Abbot and the Libs instead it was Mr Murdock himself who copped the biggest serve for what was considered a beatup. This is from a crowd that will admit that the Sun Herald is their primary source of written news. Certainly a stronger response than my 'leftish' friends would ever exhibit.

For this group their estimation of Rudd had obviously diminished but not for the reasons I had imagined.

csteele
I have heard similar. Some sympathy for Garrett with Rudd copping most of the flak for wanting to rush the insulation program through. Garrett made a good decision in continuing with his participation on Q&A despite wide media criticism.

There was a letter in the CT from an ex-insulation worker who said it was laughable to blame the government when this industry has been rife with crooks and rorters for years. I don't agree with this view, as it is government's job to ensure any program is delivered well particularly if a particular industry is prone to rorting.

The roofing industry seems to be the same. We had a number of quotes a few years ago from roofing businesses and with only one exception, they all came around and were very heavy on the sell, bagging all the other roofers in town as crooks, even going so far as wanting to see the written quotes of competitors. One fellow received an SMS message warning him about safety standards and he would be reported. I don't know if it was because he hadn't included it in the cost or if the other company was out to get rid of the competition. They even told us about the guys previous criminal record. We didn't care as he seemed like a nice guy. In the end he pulled out anyway.

We went for the one that behaved professionally and who isolated themselves from this sort of carry on.

Must be something about roofing.

I reckon if a government wants to encourage spending tax cuts would be easier and cost less money to 'implement'. Subsidies are too industry-specific. With tax cuts, people can spend the money widely benefitting a number of industries rather than just one sector.

csteel; >>It was also recognised that there are a million households who will now save two to three hundred dollars a year on energy costs.

This should be seen as a 'potential to save', rather than a saving as many have to break their habbits, like; don't use the aircon. Time will tell.

>>The comment was made that under this government's responses to the GFC have been ones of placing dollars to trickle up from us and schools to business

This was because the dollars were there to spend and our banks didn't need the help that other's did. Without banks lending money, everything collapses, so it would make sense to prop up your banks if they needed it.

Now as for big bonusses to bankers, well this is yet more evidence of 'incompitent governments', not dotting the 'I's' and crossing the 'T's', we are not alone there!

>>On the whole they were surprisingly more generous toward Garrett

Garrett is just a 'pawn' in the scheme of things, sought of a 'fall guy'.

Now to judge Rudd's crew fairly, one must look at the whole picture, insulation, education, fuel watch, grocery watch, solar and now possibbly health.

There is simply little doubt that if these 'monumental stuff-ups' had been in the private sector, heads would be on the chopping block, stock prices would have tumbled and CEO's may well be defending criminal negligence cases.

The Australian has a report of an email from a public servant who
signed the email, that there was a problem in reporting to Garret or
Nabib, Rudd directing one way and their minister the other way.

Anyway the directive was it is a stimulus package not an energy package
so get it out there.
Makes interesting reading.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/rudds-thirst-for-a-headline-produces-hasty-and-deadly-policy/story-e6frg6zo-1225837966534

That will need patching.

Bazz your link and the email reflects the feelings of many public servants in Canberra. Many feel like they are living in a fool's paradise of late and some whom I used to work with are changing their vote to Liberal next election despite having some reservations. Many are traditional Labor voters or swinging voters.

I doubt this can be held up as a litmus test for the election but there is a lot of anger in the public service over increased bullying (naturally to rise under pressure and the tendency to scapegoat), lack of planning, cuts to staff without a corresponding cut to services expected by minister's/MPs and resources required to deliver programs.

Howard was certainly a better housekeeper.

Dear pelican,

I can fully sympathise with you about roofers. I was on a job last year when it started raining hard. The two guys working above us just kept going on a very slippery surface without scaffolding yelping every five minutes when they received an electrical shock from the drills they were using. Just stupid. But they were subcontractors in , at least until recently, a very unregulated part of the building industry. I don’t let anyone doing a job for me keep working in the rain even though I have them use cordless drills and have good safety protocols in place.

It has only been in the last few years in Victoria that yellow cards along with Job Safety sheets have become ‘almost’ mandatory when working on new homes.

As for insulators there are some good and some very average. In the past we have all seen the old Commodore pull up with a trailer load of insulation and a couple of guys jump out don the most basic of paper face masks, throw the stuff in in record time and then screech off down the street. Notoriously hard to get on time, it was often left to the plasterer to put the stuff in instead. I will admit to help do a couple myself.

It is the same with building inspectors who have been privatised down here. Some are good but for many it is just a cursory inspection. We still get asked to do jobs in our field outside of regulations in order for the builder to save some money. When you explain that the inspector is unlikely to pass it the reply is it has all ‘been sorted‘. We don’t touch them but others do because we see them finished with owners installed.

This is why this scheme had a better handle on things. To have trained insulator inspectors checking every job was something that was far and above anything that had occurred in the past and I would have loved them to have continued doing those inspections.