Dear rehctub,

That is just it, while I might have at first I’m not sure I still see the insulation scheme as a ‘monumental stuffup’.

Don’t get me started on the school funding debacle which I think was an atrociously missed opportunity to lift the more disadvantage schools instead of funding $3 million dollar equestrian centres for top end private schools.

But I am coming around to the notion that Murdoch, with his loyal servants like Glenn Milne, is doing his Machiavellian best to give the Government a kicking to bring them to heel.

And it is something I’m starting to get quite resentful about since my local rag is Murdoch owned and my view of the insulation roll out had been coloured by its coverage and strident opinion pieces. But I think people, certainly the ones I have been talking to, are starting to wake up and see things for what they really are not for what he would have us believe.

I think this former Australian has a degree of power that we should all be aware of and it could be time someone told him to just ‘piss off!’. It won’t be Rudd because he has just rolled over.

This Guardian piece makes for interesting reading,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/02/rupert-murdoch-tory-media-policy

Watch out the ABC.

Unless I see new evidence to the contrary I think we have all been led by the nose on this one.

Dear rehctub,

Just to follow on a little I was being a little conservative on the $2-300 dollar energy saving per household. The figures I had related to Canberra where the amount was claimed to be $344/yr.

I quote;

“Insulation continues to deliver ongoing savings for home owners for the life of the building and it provides other benefits that are hard to quantify such as reduced health costs and enhanced comfort. The average yearly benefit in the ACT is estimated at $344 per house from energy savings alone. This estimate has been tested by a number of advanced modelling tests.”

Further;

“The study found that building insulation was the cheapest form of energy efficiency, delivering greenhouse gas reduction for the greatest possible return on investment”

And:

“It is primarily an environmental initiative aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Additional benefits include reduction in the energy consumption and reduction in the cost of running individual households.”

Plus;

“It will be a major source of new, green jobs in the ACT. We estimate that when fully operational, the scheme would provide a number of new jobs, ranging from lower skilled installer positions to higher skilled assessor positions.”

Finally on health;

“The evidence from the insulation experiment in New Zealand shows that home insulation resulted in adults taking fewer days off work and children having fewer days off school. After the insulation rollout, there was a significant decrease in residents reporting dampness and mould. There was also a reduction in energy use during this study, with 3899 kWh equivalent consumed by insulated households compared to 4941 kWh of energy consumption in the control group.”

All this sounded pretty good to me.

csteele
You are missing my point.

Just becasue someone has insulation fitted to their home, does not mean they won't use the air con.

Likewise, many complain about rising power bills, yet they still leave lights on.

My point is that insulation alone will not save this much unless the homeowner/occupier takes advantage of its potential to save money.

csteele,
Government announced today that 50,000 houses would have the foil taken out or have safety switches fittted.

With 4 workers dead, 105 houses burned and a reported 30% of batts 'totally useless', I would call that a complete stuff up.

The taxpayers will be footing the bill and you can bet the insurers will put rates up to cover their losses.

Next the 'totally useless' batts will have to be identified and replaced, again at taxpayers expense.

Buying overseas insulation, when it was supposed to stimulate our economy.

Yep, a monumental stuff up.

I woul;d not let the government off the hook at next election.

According to the Age a senate enquiry was told by officials;

“pre-program rate of installations was 65,000 to 70,000 a year, with 80 to 85 insulation-related fires a year. Roughly 30 per cent were linked to new installations, on industry estimates. The program insulated more than 1.1 million homes. If 94 fires have been linked to this, the implication is that the fire risk was roughly four times lower than before, even as the number of installations rose 15-fold.”

As yet I haven't seen any evidence to contradict these figure so it has been the safest roll out of insulation by far in our history primarily because of the safeguards put in place including the registering of installers and the inspections.

Talk to a few 'tradies' about what has gone on in the past and most will say the clean-up of the industry was well overdue.

One of those electrocuted was installing foil insulation that had been banned from the program by Garrett month earlier. As I indicated earlier there have been concerted efforts by the work safety organisations around the country to clean up the domestic building game since it was lagging well behind the industrial and commercial fields. It has made me lift my game and since last year I certainly will not put anyone on domestic site now who has not been yellow carded.

But cavalier attitudes still exist so to have four deaths, one through heat exhaustion, although extremely distressing for families and workmates, I didn't think was extraordinary over 1.1 million homes. We have lost three workers to industrial accidents in the last six months within our small shire.

The quotes I delivered in my previous post were from the Liberal Party platform for the Canberra elections.
http://www.canberraliberals.org.au/files/L8E2AX68GO/Home%20Insulation.pdf

To tell you the truth I liked their scheme better than the Government's with its focus on the poor and state housing (would have seen this ethic in the schools funding) but there is nothing about regulating the insulation industry, something that was recognised very early by Garrett.

Sorry Banjo I neglected to address your “reported 30% of batts 'totally useless'” remark. You will have to point me to where that assertion has been made, preferably somewhere other than a Murdoch paper if you can for obvious reasons but if you can't I will even take it from that source.