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Green loans - a great idea mismanaged into a debacle

Christine Milne

by Christine Milne

22 Dec 01:19pm

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Filed under: Climate Change, Environment, Government, Green Loans, Green Start, Mismanagement

68 comments

I am a big supporter of energy efficiency initiatives and want to see all Australian homes retrofitted with energy and dollar saving technologies from blocking up drafts, solar hot water and insulation to double glazing.

It all looked so promising…

It is a no brainer in a world desperate to reduce fossil fuel emissions and power bills to roll out a national energy efficiency scheme to reduce costs to the planet and to the householder.  But Green Start is not the way to proceed. Australia needs a National Energy Efficiency Target like the Renewable Energy Target that is a market based mechanism delivered by the private sector according to clear rules set by government. I agree with Minister Combet that it is not a good idea to throw good money after bad.

So what went so wrong with the Rudd government’s Green Loans election promise of 2007?

This great idea to audit household energy use and to make interest free loans up to $10,000 available to carry out the recommended work turned into a nightmare for the nearly 10,000 people who decided to enter the business and for the thousands of householders who in good faith had an assessment done.

1.    The Minister and the Environment Department made it known that between 1,000 and 2,000 assessors would be appointed and on that basis people drew up a business plan and paid for training to become assessors.

But no proper check was made on the number of people training or seeking accreditation and it soon go out of control until in the end up to 10,000 people had paid for training and there were not enough jobs to go around.

2.    There was no nationally accredited training course and no requirement that the training was offered by registered training organisations so some assessors were well trained and others were not so that there was no quality control on the people who would conduct the assessments but they all paid between $2,500 to $3,000 for the courses regardless of the quality.

The Department promised to upgrade the training to certificate iv at government expense. But it didn’t happen.

3.    Once trained they were promised that there would be an online booking facility which would enable them to book home assessments and be paid accordingly but the government never developed the online system and stuck with an inadequately staffed call centre.

4.    The government then permitted middlemen who could employ lots of assessors and book lots of assessments into the system allowing them priority access to bookings unfairly competing with single assessors or small businesses. This led to the tick and flick assessments that many householders rightly complained about.

5.    Once the assessors did an assessment the report was then fed into an assessment tool which would spit out the government report that the householder could take to a bank to get a loan.

6.    But the assessment tool was badly calibrated so that the reports it spat out were often wrong and did not reflect the recommendation that the assessors made, therefore making them look incompetent in the eyes of the householder.

7.    The Government reports were months overdue and so no one could get a bank loan and the government abolished the loans component because of supposedly poor take up.

8.    The government then wound back the programme promising to fix it before the commencement of Green Start but in the end decided it was thoroughly broken and ended the misery.

Throughout I had been calling for all these issues to be addressed and wrote to the Auditor General in February 2010 seeking a complete audit of the mess and since have been calling for compensation for assessors who had been so badly treated by the Government.

Yesterday the Government promised $15 million for upgrading training to Cert iv for assessors who want to stay in the industry. It promised $15 million to for training costs up to $2,500 for those who want to upgrade their qualifications and $3000 for compensation for previous training.

The Government must ensure that this money is paid promptly or assessors will be left in the lurch for yet another year. It must also ensure that the department responsible for such maladministration and waste of tax payer dollars is held to account.

But most importantly it must develop a national energy efficiency target and scheme to roll out in 2011 so that the jobs and business opportunities flow and the community can benefit from lower bills while reducing our emissions.

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68 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • fairsfair says:

      12:31pm | 22/12/10

      all this tut tutting yet you are in bed with them. What is your point?

      Reply

    • Jotun says:

      01:03pm | 22/12/10

      I think she’s trying to say that Labor are idiots, please stop stuffing up Greens ideas.

      Maybe.

    • Zac says:

      12:53pm | 22/12/10

      Pink Batts killed a few young men, Green Loans got hundreds out of job, education revolution or like I call it ideological revolution got labor to 35% and Greens in bed. Then to top it up we had the “Moral challenge of the generation” - Climategate. This is a colourful government or rather I should call them criminals.

      Reply

    • typical says:

      12:55pm | 22/12/10

      Another piece of lefty rubbish.

      Reply

    • Steve_of_Cornubia says:

      12:55pm | 22/12/10

      Lots of care and no responsibility = the Greens party.

      Reply

    • Daniel says:

      06:14pm | 22/12/10

      Ah Labor is in government not Greens. Get with it mate.

    • Steve_of_Cornubia says:

      08:08pm | 22/12/10

      The writer of this nonsense is a Greens Senator. With it now, Daniel?

    • Daniel says:

      08:38am | 23/12/10

      Yes but as I said before the Greens are not in government.

    • Joel B1 says:

      08:59am | 23/12/10

      Rubbish, of course they are in government.

      Or do you mean like two Green Cabinet Ministers in Tassie who still insist they are in opposition.

      You couldn’t make it up.

    • Troy says:

      01:59pm | 17/01/11

      @Jotun, we are probably lucky Labor did run this sceme as if the Greens ran it, it would still be running and bankrupting the country all in the name of Global Warming. It is spectacular the utter incompetence of the Labor Government lead by the nose by the minority Greens.

    • Jim says:

      12:59pm | 22/12/10

      The only thing worse than Labor total incompetence when it comes to handling tax payers dollars is the compensation it throws out when things fail miserably.

      $30 million to green loans assessors
      $15 million to pink batt contractors

      How many millions to shonky car salesmen or construction companies taken to task over their $6M school tuck shops?

      $58 million for two security people to East Timor I read the other day.

      But where’s the compensation to all the parents who had to buy laptops when that promise fell through?

      How much will be paid out to people over the NBN?

      Reply

    • Jack Thomas says:

      02:38pm | 22/12/10

      If you thought Labor and its Luvvies were bad, move over for more kinder level economic rubbish from the likes of the Greens.

      Labor is too weak to hold them accountable, while its Luvvies all have their snouts in the public trough (and live next door to them in their million dollar + inner city terraces) so let this rubbish slide on by. Many Greens are now Labor Luvvies too snobby to rub shoulders with those common union types.

      I’ll bet Hitler thought the Third Reich was a great idea too Christine, just mismanaged…

      Thankfully some are waking up to the great green con.

      Case in point, Victoria’s state election result and the number of new (Liberal) MP’s with actual life experience, CV’s full of business ownership, working in the private sector, and other crazy things.

      Greens were wasted for their vaccuous existences. Hardly a seat.

    • Disillusioned says:

      01:15pm | 22/12/10

      I wrote the original analysis for the systems to drive green loans. Right from the very first day that the green loans team walked into the offices of DECCW in sydney, it was clear that the man running the program was a life support system for an ego. From day one, all dealings from Canberra were dishonest, deceptive and sneaky. The man running green loans was not interested in the program - he only wanted to shut down the competition to his “baby”. His pet project was what will become known as “mandatory disclosure” - the rating of every home in Australia at the time of sale, and the calculations that would drive that program. He tried to take by deception, all the intellectual property of a group called NABERS. When they walked away from negotiations, the man running green loans, let’s call hime Steve, handed the project illegally (as found by the senate inquiry) to a mate for all software development. In fact, over 90% of the contracts handed out by Steve were either fraudulant or illegal, or both. Steve was sacked. The software produced for green loans never worked. It was never really meant to. The entire project was a debacle, yet Steve is now involved in the Mandatory Disclosure project. Seems Steve is a labor mate, and can do no wrong… Steve told me “I have $350 million to spend” during our first meeting. Spend it he did… Well, waste it really…

      Reply

    • Brad of Bentleigh says:

      02:43pm | 22/12/10

      Mandatory disclosure exists now, and applies to all commercial property with a net lettable area of >2000M2.
      It will achieve exactly nothing, but has racked up massive costs with no real benefit having ever been described accurately.
      Apparently there is a groundswell of commercial tenants who only want to lease (at inflated cost) 5 star NABERS rated buildings.
      This is true for [some] government tenants, but the list ends there.

      Great way to make some cash [for some] in the mean time though.

      PS: These rules (slightly different, certainly not NABERS) also apply to the domestic market in the ACT, and was running for a while in QLD (until it too was scrapped). Soon to cover all houses in Australia that are sold.
      The pity is, some of this could be beneficial, but the fact that the system is flooded with ideologues who know nothing about commercial reality, means it’s doomed to failure.

    • Disillusioned says:

      04:36pm | 22/12/10

      Hi Brad, Mandatory Disclosure will be brought in for homes by the end of next year (or so the current plan goes). “Steve” was behind the ACT home rating system, and is bitter and twisted because it did not become a national program. His plan seems to have been to entrap NABERS with dodgy contacts (he tried twice) and take their intellectual property. That way he would be the big man in the Australian domestic ratings scene. Poor little Steve.

    • Harquebus says:

      01:28pm | 22/12/10

      Christine, when are you going to give peak oil the same attention that you give to climate change?

      Reply

    • scaper... says:

      01:30pm | 22/12/10

      Crocodile tears from a person who wants to shut down industry, return us to the caves, legalise drugs and tax the dead. Piss off, watermelon and take your bullshit global warming with you!

      Reply

    • Colin J Ely says:

      02:08pm | 22/12/10

      I say, Scaper Old Chap, jolly good show! I fail to see how I could improve on your erudite offerings in the Queen’s English to expose this Literary and Political Charlatan! wink

    • Ben says:

      06:46pm | 22/12/10

      Well said scaper.

    • RJB says:

      09:31pm | 22/12/10

      Well said scaper, I was about seven comments further on and still found myself chuckling at your spot on contribution.

    • nosthow says:

      01:30pm | 22/12/10

      Where would 2010 be Christine without noshows “TONY Awards” given out each year by me for the worst political performance of the year. Last year as viewers would remember Malcolm Turnbull swept all before him and won the Gold, Silver and Bronze for his year in trying to dislodge Rudd with a dodgy email and for sinking so low in the polls - the “limbo kid”. Who will win this years awards - we will now open the envelopes…...
      GOLD TONY - goes this year to Tony Abbott for losing the unloseable election in 2010 ! Well done Tony ! Tony won hands down for his “performance” in effectively being given 90 metre’s start in a 100 metre race and still losing !
      SILVER TONY - goes this year also to Tony Abbott for his breathtaking bald faced cheek at trying to pull the wool over the eyes of his Opposition partners in trying to convince them he was a winner !  Many are now asking Tony “Tones how come if you are a winner we are on the losers bench?”
      BRONZE TONY - goes this year again to Tony Abbott for his brilliant performance with just 36 hours to go and desperately trying to convince a doubting electorate he was “electable” he said I will be going without sleep to campaign ! Fooled the converted Tony but not the masses fella - note you are still unelectable !
      Well there you have it viewers - once again a “loser” who has swept all before him. God bless you Tony and I am recommending you for Honorary Labor Party membership - you great big Labor asset you !
      Happy Christmas one and all - “I love youse all !”

      Reply

    • Andrew says:

      02:01pm | 22/12/10

      This year’s “He’s off his meds again” award goes to ...... nosthow.

      I used to think you were a Labor staffer, but not even the Labor party would employ someone as clearly unhinged and one eyed as you. You need professional help.

    • Aitch B says:

      02:57pm | 22/12/10

      @nosthow

      I’d really like to use stronger language but I think people will get my drift if I say that you spend far too much with your right hand on an appendage other than your nose.

      What a waste of oxygen you are!!

    • Andy says:

      03:32pm | 22/12/10

      ADHD is a terrible affliction. We should pity the man.
      Actually, it’s more like the blogging equivalent of Tourette Syndrome.
      Just awful!

    • Mike T says:

      04:06pm | 22/12/10

      Thanks again for your post Lostnow. you really are as nutty as a squirells T#RD…......

      Your posts have become a great sense of amusment for all. Sort of like the sight of a drunk naked men dancing in the street. You know it’s sad, but you just cant help but have a giggle.

      Please continue your rants, they are a wonderful advertisment as to why people should never vote ALP again.

      Regards, Concerned yet amused

    • Richard says:

      04:33pm | 22/12/10

      Ah yes nosthow, that old “unloseable election” line again. Well, even though you are a fanatical character assassin, at least you are predictable. But even still, the election can’t have been that “unloseable”, since you yourself were “confidently predicting a comfortable ALP victory” merely two days before-hand. Although to be fair, you do have such a terrible track record at predicting election results (case in point: Victorian election) that just by announcing how easily Labor would win may well have have jinxed your own side and made it almost “unloseable” for Tony Abbott after all.

      My advice to you nosthow is to be little more even-handed and balanced in your commentary in future, maybe even try to surprise us with an original argument every once in a while. If you start doing that, you never know, you might even be taken seriously.

    • nosthow says:

      04:52pm | 22/12/10

      Wow I have again flushed me out a “mess o Rednecks” ! hahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    • scaper... says:

      05:24pm | 22/12/10

      Flushed out is not the correct term…it is called trolling!

    • C1 says:

      06:38pm | 22/12/10

      Now “Notshow’ apart from one reference to Squirrel droppings, I do not see any reason why you can refer to those who rightly criticised your ramblings as rednecks! It gets a little tiring to have any comment not aligned to your own bizarre part of the spectrum that is public comment to group them in such a manner.
      To out it mildly - you are a a twit!!!!

    • TCB 24 X7 says:

      01:02am | 23/12/10

      I think the gold should go to you.
      Abbott did beat gillard 73 to 72 seats, it was those 4 Geldings that put your mob in power.
      Aussies dont want labor,cant you see how weak labor is and led by a weak leader.
      Hell your mob cant even protect our borders, but then again what can you expect from a party with no balls.

    • Muzz says:

      10:23am | 23/12/10

      If my memory serves me correctly Tony Abbott became leader for one reason only and that is he opposed the CPRS.  I heard him say quite clearly on the colour TV that if Malcolm (the Liberals’ Rudd) was willing to drop his support for the CPRS he would continue to support him.  Malcolm wouldn’t drop it - Tony became leader and we didn’t have a CPRS. Thank goodness!  The stupidity and waste of these green initiatives is breathtaking.  I look forward with interest to the new year to see if a carbon tax finally gets up.  The 5% Combet is talking about is, I suspect, no more than a gesture to appease theGreens.  It will also give the coal-fired power generators something to blame when they have to put up their prices to cover the cost of long overdue maintenance.

    • Scarneck says:

      01:36pm | 22/12/10

      “maladministration and waste of tax payer dollars”...there should be a governmental department with a minister for such. Fair enough points Christine, me thinks Julia ain’t that green!  (It appears that Punch followers aren’t that interested in Green correspondents)

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      06:01pm | 22/12/10

      Yes, but who would be the (only) minister for government waste? There’s so many contenders… Seems to me waste and mismanagement are skills that labor has in spades. gillard (BER), conroy (NBN), wong/garrett/combet (Green loans, insulation), swann (every damn thing he touches), rudd (enough said), the list goes on and on…

    • Zac says:

      01:54pm | 22/12/10

      Scarneck,

      (It appears that Punch followers aren’t that interested in Green correspondents)

      You certainly should get an awaaaard for getting that right!!!! i.e, we will not fall for pink, green and all the other colourful scams that is yet to come.

      Reply

    • Colin J Ely says:

      01:59pm | 22/12/10

      Perhaps Ms Milne would like to furnish we, her humble readers, with conclusive proof that ‘the world is desperate to reduce fossil fuel emissions’? Or is it only a ploy by vested interests to throw a spanner in the works of International Trade and a way of some Third World Despots to get some funding for another gold lined palace without their down trodden citizens finally rebelling at their waste?

      Reply

    • Andrew says:

      02:06pm | 22/12/10

      It’s so difficult to take anything from the Greens seriously.

      I have no love of this Labor party but their far Left wing (a.k.a. the Greens) are a far worse proposition.

      Still, we can always count on the Greens to point out the faults in anything (normally you can blame the big bad capitalist). The Greens always need someone to blame but never present a viable alternative.

      Reply

    • Andy says:

      02:21pm | 22/12/10

      The Greens make Labor almost look fiscally responsible…
      I said, almost.
      How much is it going to cost to get rid of all that nasty naturally occurring CO2 again?

      Reply

    • Jay says:

      02:30pm | 22/12/10

      Cash for clunkers will be the next disastor. Push more small businesses to the wall and destroy more lives.  Red for danger should be replaced with Green. Anything green turns to compost sooner or later.

      Reply

    • Super D says:

      03:26pm | 22/12/10

      The questions Christine Milne and the Greens must answer is:  Given the ALP’s complete inability to successfully implement any environmental programs how can the party of the environment continue to support them?

      Reply

    • G. David says:

      04:12pm | 22/12/10

      Simple. The “party of the environment” is really a party of the far Left and Environmentalism is just a convenient excuse to impliment their extreme Socialist agenda.

    • Daniel says:

      06:18pm | 22/12/10

      G David the Greens are not a socialist party. If your gonna play with the big boys do a bit of reading and get across the political jargon.

    • Nigel says:

      07:00pm | 22/12/10

      Daniel, have you read their policies? Government ownership of industries, increasing company taxes, revoking aspects of national competition policy, top marginal tax rates of 50%, removing health insurance rebate, increased government borrowing, financial reform with a vague goal of providing ‘global economic justice’.  Walks and talks like a duck then there’s a good chance it is a duck.  The Greens are socialist in all but name.

    • Daniel says:

      08:40am | 23/12/10

      Nigel, You better look to Germany at the “Die Linke” party. They are full socialists. The Australia Greens dont want to tear down the government structure and replace it with a workers party that controls assets and the means of production. Get with it. Broaden your views.

    • MarK says:

      04:02pm | 22/12/10

      Hi Christine,

      You were actually trundling along ok until the final paragraph where you came an enormous cropper. Well paragraph 2 is a bit dodgy but that is your view and you are entitled to it - totally wrong as that may be. We do not need a “target” to aim for. But I digress.

      You gave s a nice run-down of the history behind the Green Loan debacle which pretty much sums up the whole Rudd Gillard experience. Have well intention thought bubble. Have no competence. Run the thing until it is FUBAR. What is the fix? Lets spend our way out of it.

      Then we get to your error.

      “But most importantly it must develop a national energy efficiency target and scheme to roll out in 2011 so that the jobs and business opportunities flow and the community can benefit from lower bills while reducing our emissions. “

      What sentimental bullshit is this?

      Take a stick to your servants and bash this pathetic government - hey that’s a fair and easy game to play - but to then try to spring that crap on us at the end as if we won’t notice.

      Really?

      No explanation.

      Copenhagen, Cancun (hell even Kyoto itself does not want its name associated with targets any-more) spelt the end of this crap.

      No one wants them.

      No one follows them.

      No one believes iin the dribble.

      You then go and toss all your credibility off the cliff anyway. Lets look at Spian. One of the biggest invetors in Green jobs. Net result? It is a basket case running screaming from the thought of anymore damage being done. Germany - HAHAHA, the same.

      Look at “our” forays here into Green jobs. Any time this is put up as a funded option it alls in a screaming heap. That Toyota cash of $60 odd million that Rud gave to a surprised manager was what - about $200k per job subsidy. That is some incentive.

      I am sure you have something somewhere that shows a green jobs scheme working. Please proivide the details seriously. I would love to see them.

      But the grewatest lie of all is saved to the end.

      How the hell do you expect to enact your policies, to cut greenhouse gases and make our bills cheaper?

      Please tell me. I for one do not want one aspect of my life changed because you worship a false idol.

      Climate change is crap. Its prophets are debunked.

      Explain how, if my lifestyle stays the same, you will reduce my day to day bills.

      Please.

      Reply

    • Green dreams says:

      06:04pm | 22/12/10

      Christine, you’re either incredibly naive, or else living proof that any tool can get elected to the senate on a Green ticket. The only job and business opportunities likely to flow from a national energy efficiency target would be from more failed government subsidised propellor factories and seats on jumbos jetting off to UN climate conferences. And here you go, trying to wash your hands of Labour’s appalling waste and mismanagement, as if the Greens, most of whom have never produced anything useful in their lives, would have done any better. Pfft

      Reply

    • Green Goblin says:

      10:03pm | 22/12/10

      With all due respect Green dreams “any tool can get elected to the senate”...I omitted the Green ticket sentiment for reasons you and me know - you just don’t have to be on the Green ticket!

    • Daniel says:

      06:22pm | 22/12/10

      Fantastic piece Christine. Highlighting how LLabor has totally lost control of any idea they try to implement. Why arent they talking to Greens more though? They dont seem to have any idea. How hard is it to asses a call centre and staff it. They couldnt organize a raffle they are so useless. I really hope they get wiped out in NSW in our state election. Keep up the great work federally.

      Reply

    • C1 says:

      06:45pm | 22/12/10

      I just love the 20/20 hindsight that the Greens apply to everything. It also amuses me that they take credit for any initiative (successful ones I might add) produced by the major parties. Of course you can say it was your idea when you make comment on every single issue that arises. You do not mention that someone else has to do the heavy lifting to get it in place. You can just sit back smugly and say it only happened because of us. Of curse if it goes to the clag (you can see where I am heading with this) you turn around and say it was screwed up in the implementation by lesser mortals.
      If it wasn’t so potentially dangerous to Australia and future generations, I would love to see the Greens running the show for a term and seeing how it ends up.

      Reply

    • Holly says:

      07:22pm | 22/12/10

      Greetings to Nosthow - I am nominating you as commenter of the year - the commenter and fellow sh-tstirrer most likely to cheer me up on any given issue.

      Just love the “advice” (parental type lectures” we get from the likes of Rosie and Nicole, and now Richard I see today joining them - “try to be a little more even handed and balanced in your commentary in future” and “try to surprise us with an original argument everyone in a while” - please guys since when have you ever followed your own advice. 

      I am coming to the opinion that the entire commonwealth public sector - with the possible exception of Treasury, the ATO and Centrelink - fell asleep or played video games for the entire period of coalition government as there was nothing to do but implement GST, give tax cuts to rich and business people and hand out welfare to the same groups.

      All skills at implementing programs were lost during this period as they had nothing to practice on.  The shock of being asked to implement useful or innovative programs has been too great.  There is nothing like demonstrating a bit of “learned helplessness” and you know you will never be asked again.  You just sit it out until the odium you have caused means labor loses the next election and then it will be back to “business as usual”.  Hopefully by the time labor is in again you will have retired.

      I don’t know what happened to the accountability of program managers or Departmental Heads.  Maybe Rudd should not have kept on Howards men.

      Nosthow I have a confession.  I’m starting to think I prefer Abbott to Scott Morrison.

      Reply

    • nosthow says:

      08:07pm | 22/12/10

      @Holly - greetings Holly - lovely comments and yes good old Richard, Marky and Co never follow their own advice - if they had their way nosthow would be hung drawn and quartered ! hahah Good news for them Holly I will be here in 2011 bigger and better than ever . Happy Christmas to you Holly !

    • NicoleG says:

      08:15pm | 22/12/10

      Excuse me Holly, but I have not given nosthow any advice or lectures today, or even yesterday. And it’s been a good few weeks since I’ve given you one Missy. I’ll take that as a compliment. Now you’ve made me just choke. You prefer Tony Abbott? My work is, well, working.  See, you do really miss me smile

    • steve parker says:

      08:44pm | 22/12/10

      Christine - no one believes you or Brown’s nonesense anymore as witnessed by the elections in Victoria. Do you get it?

      Reply

    • Colin J Ely says:

      08:56pm | 22/12/10

      Christine! What happened?
      You can publish a piece on here and yet you have NEVER written anything on the site that you yourself started on the Just Grounds (formerly AgMates) website? We have all been waiting with baited breath to hear your ideas on such things as the MDBC, Australia’s future power needs and Property Rights? Perhaps now you have had time to write this you could honour us with your presence? wink

      Reply

    • NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

      10:22pm | 22/12/10

      Hi Christine,

      There has been so much talk about living green and being environmentally friendly when it comes to our life choices.  I do not see any improvement or progress when I look around our part of the world which happens to be Australia.  We live in one of the hottest continents of the world, and yet we do not use “solar energy” efficiently at all.  Electricity consumption is way up high and seem affordable right now!!  And who knows about the future!!!

      However, this may not be such a good idea in the very near future.  We need to be aware of problems facing the rest of the world right now.  And in the process, change our life styles and choices accordingly.  Instead of polluting our already fragile environment, we should look for solutions which are lasting and less damaging to our world.  We should invest more in our use of “solar energy” for everyday living purposes.  It may pay back in time, not in dollars but with the idea of living “globally and intelligently”.  Besides the fact that it is less costly and will benefit future generations to come.  Best regards to your editors.

      Reply

    • Jane says:

      04:57am | 23/12/10

      Just a reminder, the Rudd Government as you prefer to refer to it, actually is the “same” Government! It is still the Rudd/Gillard Labor/Green Government to be more correct and has been for the last 3 years, nothing has changed!

      Reply

    • thatmosis says:

      06:25am | 23/12/10

      “But most importantly it must develop a national energy efficiency target and scheme to roll out in 2011 so that the jobs and business opportunities flow and the community can benefit from lower bills while reducing our emissions. “

      Thats the funniest thing i have read this year. This will not reduce the bills but increase them. have a look at the Qld experience where the people did the right thing on water but now because they did water will cost more. Im sick of the Greens telling everybody that going Green will save money because it wont. The Electricity suppliers are now going to increase the cost per household and business because they have to recoup the tax that the federal government is placing on them from the 1st january 2011, this in turn will force the price of everything up that uses power in its production, storage etc. Wheres these miraculous savings coming from. and when do we see them. This is the biggest con ever foisted on the Australian Tax payer in the history of Federation and one not backed up by reliable science but predictions and maybe’s that are once again being proved false by the actions of Mother nature. We are now having the rains that we were never going to have again, Europe is in the grip of one of the coldest winters on record but you clowns still stick to your mantra of Man Made Climate Change because your whole exisitance hinges on people believing this rubbish. Go away and leave the Tax payers of Autstralia alone. Get a real job

      Reply

    • Vaunted says:

      08:40am | 23/12/10

      Well said Thatmosis, I wish I’d had that rant. I don’t believe however that “real job” is a viable option for Christine as, according to her Wiki bio at least, it appears she’s never actually had one.

    • locky says:

      08:58am | 23/12/10

      Here here

    • Frustrated says:

      07:52am | 23/12/10

      Christine - you and your fellow loonies are ruining the country!
      Pensioners can’t keep warm in winter or cool is summer, people are struggling with forever rising utility and food bills - AGW is a scam, renewable energy cost a fortune we can not afford it - and now you are blaming Labor for it all! YOU ARE IN BED WITH THEM!!! - You are helping them to make our lives more difficult - and I dearly hope the lot of you get tossed out as soon as possible before you can cause more harm to us.

      Reply

    • Holly says:

      08:16am | 23/12/10

      Don’t get too carried away Nicole - there would be less than a degree of separation in it.  The difference is that Scott Morrison takes himself seriously when he makes outrageous utterances, whereas we can see from Tony’s tiny smirk that he does not really believe a word he says and politics is really one big game.

      Anyway Happy Christmas all and I hope Christine hasn’t persuaded you that you must extinguish your Christmas lights to reduce your carbon footprint.  Off to play my Bob Dylan Christmas Carol CD - possibly the only tragic in Australia to have bought a copy.

      Reply

    • locky says:

      09:03am | 23/12/10

      I hope you play that cd with the use of solar power.In the car you drive run by renewable energy

    • Mal says:

      09:27am | 23/12/10

      enjoy the fisting Holly

    • Joel B1 says:

      08:40am | 23/12/10

      Am I right that the Solar Panels etc were simply a middle-class handout that pushed up the price of electricity for those people who can least afford it?

      If so, then well done Greens!

      No-one hates the poor like the Greens. After all it’s hard to be sanctimonious and Greenie know-all when you’re struggling to feed your young family on one low-income…

      PS Pegg Putt left Tas parliament to get a job as a “Climate Change Consultant”. Shows how lucrative the Green way can be for some people.

      Reply

    • John Parry says:

      08:05am | 11/03/11

      Well, it works for me! Free electricity (and enough extra to pay my gas bill and water bill too) for the next 6 years! Thanks Kev and the greenies.

      But don’t worry, the bleeding heart, tree-hugging, leftie brigade will still steal an enormous chunk of my income this year. I’ll still be paying for you and your kids don’t worry.

    • Don says:

      09:31am | 23/12/10

      The only way alternative energy is going to be viable is when EVERY part of the production and installation chain for the energy source - wind, solar -  uses energy that is not subsidised by fossil fuels. That will never happen so lets move on.

      Reply

    • guy lee hanlon says:

      04:37pm | 23/12/10

      If the greens had control of the federal government, then Australia’s future would be dead perfect.
      implement all 363 green policies asap

      Reply
 
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