Pelican,

For someone that berates me for being unbalanced, you want to extend the terms of reference on the AWB rort far and wide after the most obvious avenues had yielded nothing, yet for the pink Batts disaster which killed 4 Australians, burnt down nearly 200 homes, and wasted billions of taxpayers money, an internal review is sufficient. Puleez!

Garrett got a slap on the wrist.

What of the BER rorts? more internal white washes? The department run buildings cost twice what similar buildings run by the independent schools cost, and left only 30% of principals happy that they got what they asked for. This was either mind blowing incompetence, corruption, or back handers for union buddies. Of $16bn, this should have been done for no more than $9bn.

Considering these previous 2 examples, a productivity study would seem a no brainer for the NBN.

Well I'm all for a productivity study. That should be part of any major expenditure no matter who is introducing it.

Why an Inquiry into pink batts if the outcome and errors are already transparently exposed and documented. What would the point be other than feeding the Coalition propaganda machine.

What would an Inquiry achieve that has not already been widely acknowledged? Given your concern about expense to taxpayers - how does duplication benefit the public right to know in this case (given they already know)?

Pelican:

"Why an Inquiry into pink batts if the outcome and errors are already transparently exposed and documented"

I would agree, but we are yet to see any independent review, only an internal audit which found that Garrett was essentially not responsible for anything that occurred within his department.

The same goes for the BER. Even the Victorian Labor treasurer acknowledged that by mid 2009 that the stimulus was no longer required, and that there were serious delivery issues, but the internal "review" found that the BER met its stimulus requirements and most of its delivery goals.

When is a government department reviewing itself going to find much wrong. These were complete white washes, and external audits are called for, perhaps not a judicial enquiry, but not an internal back slapping.