A short while ago in a thread about the French Election (since archived) the discussion turned to spending by Labour through the GFC which I supported.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5098&page=0 .

Graham Young took me to task and said “Very little of what Rudd did had anything to do with our present prosperity, apart from pulling forward a bit of spending, and racking up debts which will crowd the private sector out to some degree and lessen growth in the future.”

My position was that “Rudd was aware things were bleak and knew we were sitting on top of a housing bubble (created in a good measure by the afore mentioned tax cuts) that needed tender loving care to manage or we were headed the way of the States. If we had lost those couple of hundred thousand jobs Treasury said were saved because of the stimulus and the resultant housing foreclosures had popped that bubble we would now be in far more dire straits than we are in now. But we didn’t thanks to the spending.”

I had said “In the end they are two different narratives depending on our perspectives. Neither holds the truth. That is probably for future generations to decide.”

In conversation last week with Philip Adams the rather interesting Bob Katter said of both Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swann; “They were very brave men. To have sacrificed your political life, and your career and your political future for the sake of country. They were very brave and great men.”

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/bob-katter27s-history-of-australia/4010272

He was referring to the way they stepped up to spend in order to keep this country from diving to the depths of others did.

Bob, it would appear, is a bit of a student of political history recently launching a book on the subject. While Queensland parochialism not withstanding I think it is something he truly believes.

While I might have some argument with their method I am thankful that it was done.

I have a feeling history will indeed be kind to them especially given the continuing and probably deepening crisis in global markets.

Rudd was wrong and so is Gillard.There was no need for their useless spending and the debt they put us in.Both will soon be ancient history and good riddens.

C steel....My position was that “Rudd was aware things were bleak and knew we were sitting on top of a housing bubble

Interesting point of view.

Just curious, if, as you say, Rud was so concerned with the pending 'property bubble', why then did he make it easier for first home buyers, by attracting them to with gifts, to buy in what he saw as a ' housing market' that was about to bust.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's hardly what I would call 'looking out for those who trusted you enough, to pledge thier loyal support to you' , wouldn't you say.

Now if that's not reckless, policy on the run, then what would you suggest we call it?

And of cause, many of those loyal supporters, having fallen for his spin, purchased their first home, now have a mortage worth more than their home and are now facing bankruptcy, thanks to Mr Rud, who by the way, still seems pretty well off to me.

It's almost as if he didn't go through the global finacial crisis, unlike the res of us, hey!

As I say, interesting point of view, more proof I would suggest that you lot just can't see any wrong in labor.

Csteele,

That stimulus was required was never in dispute between the two major parties. Where the contention is, is that far more was spent than required in a breath takingly wasteful manner.

The home insulation scheme was also a good idea appallingly managed.

Rudd's and Swan's legacy will be that of financial incompetence and waste.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I find it a little hard to swallow the proposition that Howard would have attacked the crisis with the vigour and expediency that Rudd and Swann did if he had won the election.

Indeed even in August 2010 Howard said "There's some merit in the argument that this has really been a North Atlantic global financial downturn, than a world financial downturn, and we have benefited enormously from that,". He rejected the notion that the efforts of Labour had any impact.

I'm certainly not an economist but there were a number of other governments who took a head in the sand approach and have been badly burnt.

I think we were fortunate to have someone who took this crisis as seriously as they should have. You would need to do a lot of convincing to have me think otherwise.

What was interesting that an independent, close to the action, on the conservative side of politics and a student of great Australian figures like Ted Theodore, should give Rudd and Swann the kudos he did.

Why would he do it?

To me the answer is he doesn't need to toe the party line and can afford to be a straight shooter on this.

Damn I wish we had more independents in our parliament.

Csteele,

That you find it hard to swallow that Howard would implement a stimulus package owes more to your blind acceptance of the Labor line. That they would have spend less is certainly true, but there would have been something to protect jobs, and it would be difficult to be less efficient than Labor's incompetent spending.

What we now have with the carbon tax is an anti stimulatory measure to harm manufacturing in this country.

Steely, have you forgotten the melt down of the Asian tiger economies, which the coalition government slid us through, as if it was did not happen. This was far from what all the pundits expected.

Not panicking is something that you want in a PM & Treasurer, & that is just what they didn't do then, & wouldn't have done this time.

Unfortunately there are still a lot of opportunities in the near future for them to get us even further into the poo.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You write; "That you find it hard to swallow that Howard would implement a stimulus package owes more to your blind acceptance of the Labor line."

Where on earth did I say he wouldn't have implemented a stimulus package?

You are allowed on the odd occasion to drop the rhetoric.

Dear Hasbeen,

The Asian Crisis hit about 12 months into Howard's first term. While I'm not sure it can be considered even close to what is facing the word now there were some fairly strong and positive moves by Howard.

While it is a fair question to ask how much of Australia's resilience was due to the reforms of Hawke and Keating I don't think you can disregard the efforts of the incumbents of either situation.  

Katter gives Rudd and Swann a big rap for their role this time and I am inclined to take his assessment over many others for the reason I have outlined.

Csteele,

You said:

"I find it a little hard to swallow the proposition that Howard would have attacked the crisis with the vigour and expediency that Rudd and Swann did if he had won the election."

and

"Where on earth did I say he wouldn't have implemented a stimulus package?"

Thus a less wasteful approach to the GFC that achieved the same objectives is a bad idea? and paying 2x or more the going rate for school halls was a good idea? No wonder you vote labor.

Not only will this carbon tax effect manufacturing, it will effect just about everything we do.

Sure, the government is saying that the transport and ag industries are exempt, but what about the diesel rebate they're about to loose.

That alone will have a huge effect, as almost everything we use spends a portion of it's life on a truck.

The truth of the mattering that labor has wasted so much money, that we now have to introduce taxes just to claw back some of that waste.

So what's to say they don't go and stuff this plan up as well, after all, just look at their record, it speaks for it's self.

Dear Shadow Minister and butcher,

Gezz fellas. You two puppets are acting like you have the long hand of the Abbott machine firmly up your backsides. It is like the mouths are working but the brains are running to predesigned scripts written by Christopher Pyne.

Butcher has already gone tangent on us delivering the anti-carbon tax spiel. One can just imagine the code.

IF

Labour is given any kudos...

THEN...

Twist any positive into a negative...

ELSE...

Disregard the topic as irrelevant. Be sure to mention Carbon Tax, waste, stuff up, taxes, claw back.

Perhaps we might switch the brains out of attack dog mode and at least answer the question why someone like Katter, who I'm going to say has been a lot closer to the action and probably has a better handle on the political and economic history of this country than all of us put together, might think Rudd and Swann were 'brave and great men' for what they did. Is he just an ignorant fool in your opinions?

Csteele,

You are a fine one to talk. You have Swan's hand up your posterior flapping your mouth to the standard Labor mantra.

Whine Swan is trying to claim Kudos for applying basic macro economics from 1st year undergraduate level in applying a stimulus package, as though he was the first to invent it. Then he wants us to ignore the fact that far too much was spent, and the implementation was a fiasco.

For example the BER was done to protect the building industry from excessive job losses. The result was that so much was spent that the cost of building went up about 15% because of the shortage of available builders.

The pink batts was a good idea, that was so badly implemented that it killed people and burnt down houses. Then was shut down so abruptly that installers were left with unused stock and many lost their jobs.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Congratulations you've ticked a few more talking points.

Now concentrate mate,

Bob Katter.

Csteele,

Nice try. I understand that you need to change the subject after having your Labor fairy tale debunked.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You can't ignore Bob, there he sits, all 10 Gallons of him.

During the recession the total number of construction jobs in Australia went up by around 5% a year. Over the same period the US lost 30% or more jobs in the sector.

What do you think it would have done to our economy to have even half that fall inflicted on us?

Did you know how much money was required to achieve that? You might call it excessive in hindsight but Rudd and Swann did a hell of a job by Bob Katter's reckoning and unless you can give me a good reason to disregard his take and accept yours I will stick with his assessment precisely because it is not Labour Party hype nor Liberal Party dismissiveness.

I don't believe that Howard/Costello would have been capable of handling the GFC response as effectively as Rudd/Swan.

The way the conservatives operate and think would have stopped them from making the necessary decisions.

Their principles consist only of -

1. Smaller Government and lower taxes
2. Less corporate regulation and
3. Deregulation of the labour market

-and that's about all.

To do anything else is "not in their DNA".

They baulk at spending money on infrastructure and their response would likely have been to give tax cuts to corporations and the higher tax rates and further cut working conditions to provide a stimulus at the higher levels.

Rudd succeeded because they provided the stimulus at the bottom level where it would provide an immediate effect instead of hoping for a "trickle-down". This strategy has since been widely acknowledged as being the correct one.

By the way, the insulation scheme was actually something left behind "on the shelf" by the previous minister Malcolm Turnbull. It was poorly managed because the implementation was too rushed but not quite as disasterous as (mis)represented in the media.

Csteele and wobbles.

As pointed out previously the Coalition successfully guided Aus through the Asian crisis with hardly a hiccup, and while not getting a surplus, didn't incur anywhere near the same debt.

Both of you seem to forget that controlled spending in a recession is not rocket science, and Rudd / Swan didn't do anything special.

Construction industry threatened - build something
Car industry threatened - subsidize car purchases
etc.

The problem is that they managed it badly, and we ended up with far more debt than needed, and almost nothing to show for it, nothing at least that would help the economy.

C steel, I can't believe you said this....By the way, the insulation scheme was actually something left behind "on the shelf" by the previous minister Malcolm Turnbull. It was poorly managed because the implementation was too rushed but not quite as disasterous as (mis)represented in the media.

I suggest you try telling that to the parents of those young ones who lost their lives, despite the warnings, or, perhaps one of the many who either can't sell their house, as it hasn't been rectified, or, it's burned down.

As i have said before, there is no shame in not knowing how to implement a good plan, but it's a crying shame when industry experts advice is totally ignored.

Rock star one day, waking disaster the next.

rehctub,

Well it was actually me who said that.

I'm not making excuses but there were also exactly the same number of accidental deaths within roof spaces during the Howard era.

The barring of unions from conducting workplace safety inspections during those years has also done nothing to reduce the appalling rate of industrial accidents and deaths in this country.

If you want to apportion direct blame, why not look at those Contractors who were directly responsible for those people they employ?

"...we ended up with far more debt than needed, and almost nothing to show for it, nothing at least that would help the economy".

No, we ended up with an economy that is still working.

When it come to having infrastrucure to show for good management, a dud railway between South Australia and the Northern Territory, some closed down hospitals plus a bunch of new flagpoles in schools isn't much of a legacy from those 10 glorious years of the previous government.

Wobbles,

For the vast fortunes spent by Labor, what have we to show for it? Railways? airports? Sweet Fanny Adams.

The Pink batts deaths and fires were directly related to the project, and did not include any other fires, and were in spite of written warnings to the minister.

So wobbles...I'm not making excuses but there were also exactly the same number of accidental deaths within roof spaces during the Howard era.

You mean during the largest building boom in our time!

You know, workplaces are becoming a complete joke. It is almost at the stage where for every worker, there is an observer.

While many may have a 10 or 12 hour shift, the time spent actually WORKING is a mere fraction of the time. The rest of the time is spent being inducted with the same safety stuff, day in day out, yet they still get hurt.

Either that, or they ate standing around waiting on someone else to do their job.

There are so many chiefs out there now that we face a serious risk of running out of indians.

Productivity is shot, and the fair days work for a fair days pay is pretty much gone.

Still, to this very day, even after the millions, if not billions spent on workplace safety awareness, we have workers being reprimanded over safety breaches.

Unfortunately legislators, unions etc just don't get it, you simply can't legislate against stupidity.

Dear Butcher,

Sorry but I have to ask, are you schizophrenic?

I mean it is hard to believe your lasts two posts are written by the same person.

While the Labour insulation scheme was the safest ever roll out of housing insulation causing less deaths per house than at any time in our building history, they were deaths that could have been better avoided if the government had taken greater ownership of the process.

Working in the building industry I know how much insulation installers have been, and to some extent still are, regarded as cowboys.

Training was virtually non-existent before the scheme and actions should have been undertaken to force contractors to tighten safety and training.

To me it is a deep failing of modern politicians of both sides. The sentiment seems to be hive the bloody thing off to the private sector and take no responsibility. It was the same with the Australian Wheat Board. I would hate to think of how many lives were lost by funding Saddam through nearly half a billion dollars of bribes.

Yet you seem to want to beat Rudd up over the deaths then say “Unfortunately legislators, unions etc just don't get it, you simply can't legislate against stupidity.”

Finally I can tell you that there aren't too many people sitting on their hands on any of the building sites I work on. Most are subbies nowadays and everyone is hard at it trying to come under the hours quoted if possible.

The safest in our history, with 4 deaths and nearly 200 directly caused house fires.

I would like to see your justification of this.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Sure mate. Shall we tackle the just over 150 house fires first?

Get comfy.

The CSIRO did an excellent study on the risk profile of the Home Insulation Program (HIP) which came out in April of last year though hats off to the Possum for the extra analysis.

The study showed that around 98% of fires caused by insulation will occur within twelve months of installation.

Pre HIP the number of fires per year in freshly (12 months) insulated homes was an average of 31.5. At the time there were about 70,000 homes being insulated per year in Australia. Doing the sums this delivers us a rate of 47.3 fires per 100,000 homes with insulation less than 12 months old.

So if we then do the sums for the 154 house fires in the 1,108,151 homes that were insulated under the scheme we get a rate of 13.9 fires per 100,000 homes which actually falls to 13.1 for the annualised rate.

So therefore the program delivered a risk of fire in homes with installation less than 12 months old smaller than one third the rate pre HIP.

Or to put it another way, it was three times as safe.

Let me know if there are any of the CSIRO's figures you have an issue with.

I am always intrigued how you guys spin yourselves out of facts like these, often quite ingenious really. I'm looking forward to seeing how you will approach this one. I'm sure I will be impressed.

Please provide the link.

You also failed to compare the number of deaths, which is the prime measure of safety, and what primarily sunk the pink batts project. The fires came later.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Sorry for the delay.

Completely forgot until good ol' SPQR reminded me you were waiting on links.

First the CSIRO report which can be found here.
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/hisp/~/media/publications/hisp/csiro-report-hisp-2011-pdf.pdf

Possum's analysis can be found here.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/04/24/the-csiro-gets-hip-to-debunking-media-hysteria/

I haven't had time to drum up the worker stats. They are buried deep in a Parliamentary Inquiry from what I can recall and will take a little research. I will see what I can find.

I note the bosses of Mr Sweeney, a young man who was electrocuted in Queensland installing insulation have been fined but without conviction.

“The court heard Titan gave a verbal directive to workers in late 2009 about using plastic staples.”

“However, the court heard another worker would give evidence that he and Mr Sweeney ignored those instructions because it was faster to work with metal ones.”

"Titan supplies us with the plastic staples and we go and buy our own metal staples," Andre Palomar, brother of Frederick Ramon Palomar, said in a statement.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/bosses-in-court-over-qld-insulation-death-of-mitchell-sweeney/story-e6frf7kf-1226124644917

In this case I would have thought there were two substantial layers of responsibility before anyone can wag a finger in Garrett's direction.

I read the CSIRO report as opposed to the Crickey analysis and in the summary on Pages 3 and 4:

The fire rate per houses pre HIP is 2.5 fires per 100 000, and in the HIP houses phase 2 is 7.4 in the first 40 Days.

Please correct me if I have misinterpreted it.

Neither deal with the issue that caused such a furore, which is the deaths of installers, which Garrett was specifically warned about.

Dear Shadow Minister,

It was you who said "The safest in our history, with 4 deaths and nearly 200 directly caused house fires. I would like to see your justification of this."

Therefore you have tied the house fires with a judgement about the safety of the scheme.

You now seem to be wriggling away from this part of your original contention.

I am happy to go through the figures with you, and yes you have misinterpreted them, but not if at the end you are going to claim it to be of little consequence, something you appear to be laying the ground work for right now.

If you end up conceding the figures to be accurate are you prepared to acknowledge in a direct statement that with regard to house fires this was the safest rollout of housing insulation in our history?

If the answer is yes I'm happy to do the work, if no then what would be the point?

Csteele,

I am interested that you don't find the 4 fatalities the prime safety issue.

But knock yourself out. As far as the house fires were concerned, please show me how the conclusions of the CSIRO were wrong.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You wrote; “I am interested that you don't find the 4 fatalities the prime safety issue.”

Please stop trolling my friend, it is unbecoming.

In asking “please show me how the conclusions of the CSIRO were wrong” I am assuming a deal has been struck and will proceed.

Firstly the conclusions of the CSIRO are not wrong, it is your interpretation of them that is at fault.

The fire call out rate per houses pre HIP is 2.5 fires per 100 000 is of all insulated properties. If we take pre HIP houses that had been insulated for over a year then the figure is 2.4 per 100,000. (it should be noted that after 12 months the figure for houses insulated during the program is 1.63, a noticeable drop.). What you attempt to do is compare this with the figure for HIP houses in phase 2 which is 7.4 in the first 40 Days which is entirely misleading.

What you need to do is include the 7.4 in a 12 month figure for the fire call out rate for houses pre HIP and while the CSIRO doesn't provide these directly what the Possum has done in the Crikey piece is to show that the data tells us there were approximately 47.3 fires fire call outs per 100,000 homes.

The rate for HIP installations within the first 12 months of installation is 13.1.

It is just a case of comparing apples with apples.

Csteele,

If you claim that the HIP was the safest in history, then you need to use the same measure that every safety organisation in the world uses primarily injuries / severity per man hour worked. To fail to do so and them claim I am trolling is a serious cop out.

Car collisions are a safety issue, the measure of traffic safety is the no of fatalities and injuries, not only from collisions but from all traffic incidents.

House fires are one of the many safety issues in insulation installation , the measure of safety in the house insulation scheme is the number of injuries and fatalities which you have chosen to ignore. Instead you offer a re worked analysis of the CSIRO raw data which is at odds with the summary of the CSIRO.

Given the fatality rate which far exceeds industry in general, the claim that the HIP was the safest in history is a blatant falsehood.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Disappointing but not unexpected. The complete switch-a-maroo.

I must say if you engaged your brain in looking at the facts rather than the shell games you use to ignore them you might be worth the effort.

Although perhaps you find the maths a little challenging and this is your defense mechanism.

Still I will hold up my end of the bargain and try and track down the stats on worker deaths that were presented to the Senate.

Csteele,

I have not changed, from my first post I have focused on deaths not just house fires, no matter how you tried to divert it.

I have a degree with a major in statistics, and while I am perfectly capable of spending hours transcribing the data, framing it in a format to suit my objectives as Crickey has obviously done, I simply prefer to refer to the conclusions that the Csiro has produced. The portion I posted clearly showed that phase 2 of the HIP initially had a rate of fires 3x that of pre HIP work.

Given that so far you have yet to provide safety statistics, your proposition that the HIP was the safest is history is unsupported.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Look I would love to believe you about the degree majoring in statistics but by you stating “The portion I posted clearly showed that phase 2 of the HIP initially had a rate of fires 3x that of pre HIP work.” I'm having a little trouble.

You are taking the figures for the phase 2 insulations less than 12 months old and comparing it to all the pre HIP figures regardless of the time since installation.

It is like saying the P platers in NSW have four times the accident rate of Victorian drivers and expecting it to mean something. It doesn't, and if you have trouble grasping even that simple notion you definitely aren't worth the effort I'm afraid.

Csteele,

I have a BComm majoring in Economics and Quantitative analysis along with a degree in Engineering and an MBA. But none of this is required to read the CSIRO report exec summary which obviously you haven't.

I still see that you haven't been able to produce any comparative safety statistics.