Coalition’s own goal in the insulation shoot-out

Luke says:

03:27pm | 23/02/10

I did notice Abbott interject when the PM said look at the opposition leader sitting over there laughing, (or something similar) and Abbott made a point of standing up and saying he wasn’t laughing and that he did take terrorism seriously.

Peter says:

03:34pm | 23/02/10

Don’t bet on it Tory - the Libs are so full of themselves that they’d front the opening of a paper bag at the moment.  But it helps us to see how silly they are.

The Cricket says:

03:41pm | 23/02/10

Tory,

Four Australians have died in the past year from this bungled home insulation scheme. How many have been killed by terrorists?

luke says:

03:47pm | 23/02/10

Yes, they might have kicked an own goal but the Rudd government has kicked more own goals with its policies and broken promises, insulation scheme, television bribes, Julia Gillard school memorial halls, backflip on hospital takeovers, border protection, 43 billion dollar unfunded broadband scheme and too many other failures I can’t be bothered writing.
With Tony Abott’s approving rating now at 43% and climbing, the Rudd government cannot afford to let Peter Garrett keep his ministerial role for environment. If they continue to say the insulation scheme is a success and Peter Garrett is their best minister for the job the voters will really start to worry what a failure would be under this government.

Bryndal says:

03:50pm | 23/02/10

What a cheep comment

There is no relationship between the 2 - thats the point of the aticle. For the Libs to make a comparison is just jumping the shark. It is getting to the point of the criticism being counter productive. It is a very different message than the one being put forward by Malcom Turnbul on Q&A last night. He sounded quite reasonable compared to the shrill scaremongering of the current front bench.

H of S says:

03:55pm | 23/02/10

Wow Tory,

We are having a Romulan mind-meld moment (I’m not a Trekkie btw, Wars over Trek every day)

My exact thought when I read about Mr. Birmingham’s comment was “own goal”

Also the concept of jumping the shark has been on my mind today due to Bushfire Bill’s interesting piece on the politcal sword site:

http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/

Michael Nelson says:

04:05pm | 23/02/10

@The Cricket.  Well, let’s see. How many Australians have died in the past twelve months serving in Afghanistan?  Sure, one man’s religious student is another man’s violent criminal, but you get my point.  Perhaps the question we all should be asking is how many tradies get killed on the job every year through dangerous work practices / sites, and what can be done to eliminate preventable deaths like those completely.

Jeff says:

04:05pm | 23/02/10

I think Peter van Onselen is quite right. Kevin Rudd will keep Peter Garrett on as a Minister until all the ugly surprises have come out. When sacked Peter Garrett will take the bad smell of the failed scheme with him.
I have to ask - what is Peter Garrett doing there in the first place???

Dylan says:

04:07pm | 23/02/10

Democracy is dead.

Front Row says:

05:34pm | 23/02/10

The bottom line is that it was a silly way to say what I imagine most of us were thinking.
What Mr Rudd really has to worry about is that many on his back bench are bright enough to recognise his panicky resort to talking up “terror” in a vain effort to remove the insulation disaster from the media mix.  It was terror that drove that, Jim, but not as we know it.
The Libs might well remember a similar situation when their own fading PM did pretty much the same thing in a less pressing situation. Mind, that was seen by many in the conservatives as a sure sign Howard had truly lost it.  We know what happened next.

Caney says:

06:11pm | 23/02/10

Mr Rudd the micro-mismanager?

Mikko says:

06:47pm | 23/02/10

Has the old Midnight Oiler got anything right since he was elected -  he started out with his foot in his mouth over a comment along the lines of we can tell them what we like now and change our minds when we are elected. And the promise to end Japanese whaling or at least take them to court over it (ok now there is an election looming they may actually start the ball rolling in that direction by November according to his boss).
Or the seas could rise by 6m prediction last year which even the IPCC disowned.
Now the home insulation fiasco has thousands of home owners wondering if their homes could ignite while they sleep, they could get electrocuted if they set foot in their ceiling, or poisonous formaldehyde fumes could leach from cheap imported fibre bats (much worse than CO2). If I had any of that stuff in my home I would be more worried about all the above than terrorists suddenly landing on my roof from a helicopter and I think a lot of Aussies would agree.
Now we are expected to believe his department received a report 10 months ago warning all this could happen and deaths would result, but nobody told the minister responsible until last week.
Yeah right, Garret’s doing a great job, just ask all the genuine businesses and employees in this industry who are now out of work, and the home owners who are in limbo. It a prize stuff up but he knows who’s going to save him.

For the Workers says:

07:18pm | 23/02/10

I read most of the above and am simply horrified.  What happened to the Party who looks after the workers?  What happened to the Party who would fight for the workers?  It has become subsumed with hatred and greed and spite.  There is no heart or guts in the ALP any more.  Just smug, over fed, cosseted. spiteful, shiny bum wimps who can’t see past staying in power and bugger anything or anyone else.  You make me sick. . Blaming dead kids and people prepared to take risks to put food on the table for their families.  From the top down -  “I’m all right jack, bugger you” Shame on you.

John A Neve says:

07:38pm | 23/02/10

For the Worker,

The Labor party is no more for the worker (however you define them), than the Liberal party supports small business.

The Labor and Liberal party are both far removed from their origins.

Anthony says:

08:20pm | 23/02/10

If you throw your cat a bone and it chokes is it your fault. No you might say but what if it was a chicken bone. Throwing money into a dodgey environment despite warning is negligent.

Radical Chick!! says:

08:41pm | 23/02/10

I don’t like what this Government is doing….When the though gets going they arrange a diversion about terrorism and state in front of the media that they’ll be acting though on arrivals to Australia from “suspected” countries….well I really think this smacks of racial profiling….and here is more it does not sit well with me when this Government never has worried about this issue….all of a sudden they’ll take out the terrorism card when they are in huge doo doo over the incompetency of Mr. Garrett who really shouldn’t even be there any more. Not after costing four lives to Australia ( Hey on a side note: Has anybody seen the trade Unions complaining about the Government yet??? You would if the PM was John Howard!)
But yesterday a blogger made an interesting point…
Krudd may be scared of what Garrett may have to say if he goes to the backbench. Garrett may have nothing to lose and may just open his mouth about how this PM works….that makes sense…that would explain why Krudd took responsibility for this disgrace. He now should do the right thing and resign.  But not losing my breath over this!!! The man thinks he can do no wrong…....!

Alex says:

09:13pm | 23/02/10

Can someone tell me exactly how a rebate killed these workers. Abbott has fained his outrage for political mileage, without any real respect for workers. I did not hear him once call on the government to investigate occupational health and safety causes for these workplace deaths. All we have heard is that the rebate and the Minister has led to these deaths. This fake sensitivity for tragic incidents, from the guy who beat up on a dying man that was a victim of negligence in the workplace at the last election. The hypocrisy is astounding and alarming.

Mark says:

09:30pm | 23/02/10

Cna’t see how it blunted them. Anyway all the libs have to do is point to cozy deals in Indonesia and and overflowing Christmas Island. We already know Rudd has let in suspected “terrorists”.
Smoke and mirrors by Rudd. Spin spin spin. Distract.
All to his usual plan. I think the Libs would love a stoush on terroism and border security. A step too far by Rudd I believe if Abbott plays him right.

Jay says:

11:07pm | 23/02/10

Evan Findlay - thank you. Finally the actual truth…

The tragic deaths were the result of careless employers, inexperienced employees and greed.

Even a Christian God can’t protect anyone from that.

Where are the actual regulators (you know - the Australian Constitution *cough*) - the States and Territories who actually regulate the industry being called to account?

Garrett is flawed - no one on either side of the fence can say they aren’t. The LNP wants him gone, and if the shoe doesn’t fit - they’ll keep trying.

If anyone has more reason to get the arse - it’s Conroy.

Midnight spoil says:

11:15pm | 23/02/10

Forget for a moment about the P Garrett’s insulation adventures and consider the amazing success of Kevin Rudd and his mentor Al Gore in coming close to introduction of global tax on the air we breathe. Taxing air was ongoing dream of many governments in the past but these two leftist fellas are very close to forcing it on everyone in most undemocratic way.

KM says:

06:39am | 24/02/10

One can only wonder the sorrow that would have been displayed in parliament if one of the worker killed in the insulation program was a sibling of one of the front bench of the labour party. Perhaps one of Garretts? Or Rudds? Im betting they wouldn’t be so flippant about the young people that died then.

acker says:

07:18am | 24/02/10

What Simon Birmingham says does sound pretty stupid within a week of his leader Tony Abbott almost being backended by a truck, which I suggest is a much bigger and real danger threat to all Australians than terror attacks or dodgy roof insulation.

Alex says:

09:41am | 24/02/10

Can someone please explain to me how the Rudd Government, or Peter Garret or his department are responsible for the installation of insulation.

At the risk of sounding crass and heartless the 4 deaths have occured due to insufficient training or pure negligence on the behalf of the installers.

Under Workplace Health and Safety legislation every person has a responsibility for their own safety.  The buck falls with the installer and their employer.  The reality is that half of these guys were in it for a quick buck, didn’t bother to think what they were doing and the have paid the ultimate price.

It happens in all forms of construction, it is a sad fact of life.  As previously stated, 1 of them was using metal fasteners which had been previously banned.  Has anyone thought that maybe what actually needs to be done because of this is that the government needs to considering ordering an investigating to housing electrical standards.  And that house roofs should not actually be live in the first place.

This is nothing but the coalition attacking the government over and issue that they have no control over, and the majority of Australians blindly following.

I am sorry that these people died, but they had a duty of care to themselves to conduct their work in a safe manner, some didn’t, their employers had a duty of care to make sure their employees were appropriately trained, some didn’t.  This is the reason why people died, the government is not at fault.

Piers says:

10:07am | 24/02/10

Birmingham tries so hard to be taken seriously but how can anyone really consider him a Senator of substance. His vapid contributions are generally poll driven rather than driven by conviction. When he is left without a script comments such as this one escape his lips. Rather than desperately pursue media attention as vindication of his greatness he should work on having something to say first.

Peter of Adelaide says:

10:13am | 24/02/10

For Rudd Labor to use Simon Birmingham’s correct comments shows how desperate the Government is.  Together with it rolling out terrorism and other matters to try anything, anything at all,  to escape very well justified scrutiny of Rudd, Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett.

In my view and no doubt many others the comment by the Liberal Simon Birmingham was correct when he said that the greatest threat to Australians in the past twelve months was the Rudd/Garrett insulation roll-out. This incompetent and dangerous roll-out has caused 4 deaths, 86 or so house fires, 1000 electrified roofs and possibly another 160,000- dangerous roofs. 

However it must be many years since there was a death due to terrorism in Australia.

For Mr. Rudd to announce this terrorism issue today was just another of his endless attempts to fool the public and deflect attention from the Rudd Labor/Garrett insulation dangerous debacle.  Which could have been avoided and lives etc saved by prudent listening to the many warnings, the use of commonsense, and sense of responsibility by the Labor Government to the community. Which is still absent.

Apparently the terrorism threat in Australia is at medium and has not altered in the past few years. 

What is also of serious concern is that Rudd Labor has allowed Australia to be swamped with unprecedented numbers of boat people, some of whom have come from terrorist areas, such as Sri lanka. And appear to have had a very minimum of security checks before being allowed into Australia.

Without checking I think that world wide the influx of boat people to other countries in the past twelve months has been only 5%, while here in Australia the influx - due to Rudd’s irresponsible welcome mat -  is around 25%.

peter of Adelaide says:

10:14am | 24/02/10

I strongly agree with a previous blogger who states that Question Time is a farce.  The Rudd Question time is a disgrace and the worst I have seen in at least 20 years. And most media like the Speakers Office and the Parliamentary Procedures committee ignore the complaints from myself and possibly others - over the past 12 months - for the Parliamentary People’s house - most clearly represented by Question time - to be informative, fair and balanced.  And to actually represent the half of the population who represent the Coalition side of politics instead of being swamped by Labor’s Dorothy Dixers and very serious dishonesty about and misrepresentation of the Coalition.

Carl Palmer says:

10:25am | 24/02/10

“..and the Green’s attempt this afternoon to censure the Government in the Senate is unlikely to get much traction” - I guess that will depend on the media.

It was carried and it reflects what the Senate thinks of the Govt’s $2.45 billion insulation scheme and its handling of green programs. It would certainly give the opposition more ammunition – if they can’t handle the bat thingo won’t it bring a chill to your spine when they start taking about the nuclear waste dump in the NT. Martin Ferguson won’t be able to cut the mustard but I have no doubt that Peter Garrett and his department will do an outstanding job. Oh and the PM should definitely get involved.

Scary

Time to go OS I think…

James says:

11:03am | 24/02/10

Pretty disgusting how the opposition pretend to care about the deaths of 4 workers, then use their deaths to score cheap political points.  The whole beat up is continuously rubbing in the fact that these guys are dead to their families.

Randal says:

11:18am | 24/02/10

A very misleading piece Tory, whilst I agree Birmingham erred on biting at the governments bait in releasing a White Paper his statement received very little pick up on the 6pm news and instead it was grabs of Abbott maintaining a strong attack upon an embattled Minister.

As for Border Protection, the Opposition credits are very strong in this regard and the electorate is more than aware that when it comes to security issues the ALP is not the team to be on.

So no harm done and Garrett, who will survive, will continue to be a weak link in the Ministerial chain and the Opposition will use him at the prime example to highlight the failures of the Rudd government.

formersnag says:

02:06pm | 24/02/10

The entire, red/green/labour coalition, desperately wanted economic stimulus spending, on anything, anywhere, ASAP. They wanted to delay the onset of recession till after the election, that and buying the votes of tradesmen.

Willy K says:

02:20pm | 24/02/10

I love the Labor hack and Kojak apologists telling us to ‘move on!’

The caring ALP in all of its glory.  If you are not filling a paper bag in an alley for them or helping a goon get a bludging gig in the Public Service then you can all go and get f’d.

Nothing has changed with the ALP and their masters the Unions since the Wars.  I still remember my grandfather telling us that when he arrived back from Tobruk the Unions went on strike for more money (during a war!) and refused to unload the soldiers gear!  The farmers federation came in and did it for them and so did the soldiers themselves!  This happened all over the country.  Makes you proud doesn’t it?  True colours under pressure.

Garrett has proven himself just another Labor grub.  I thought that he was better than that.

Luke says:

09:20am | 25/02/10

Deaths from terrorism: 0
House fires from terrorism: 0
Electrified roofs from terrorism: 0

Deaths from insulation program :4
House fires from insulation program: 90
Electrified roofs from insulation program: 1000

What exactly did he say that was incorrect?

JeniferHowe says:

09:28am | 19/07/10

If you’re in uncomfortable position and have got no money to go out from that, you will have to receive the mortgage loans. Just because that should aid you definitely. I get secured loan every year and feel myself great because of it.

sahi says:

09:13pm | 01/07/11

Shame on Kevin Rudd debarcle conclusion of the isolation in which people died and political business people will lose top scorer in this election, to send all its MPs in their constituencies to help people who have had insulation installed.ldl cholesterol levels
And none of the Labour voters? will have to wait to make the Labor Party voters are served first.