Rudd's Batts come home to roost.

[Rorschach]

The Commission investigating the Pink Batts debacle are finally getting Rudd before it.

Labor Party, ministers hang Kevin Rudd out to dry at batts inquiry
SARAH ELKS THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 14, 2014 12:00AM

KEVIN Rudd has been cut adrift by the Labor Party and two of his former ministers as he faces a searching examination under oath today over the deadly debacle of Labor’s $2.8 billion Home Insulation Program.

The former prime minister will take the stand at the royal commission established by the Abbott government into the failed batts scheme — linked to four deaths and 224 house fires — amid revelations that shadow cabinet did not supply the inquiry with a promised submission defending Mr Rudd.

In long-awaited testimony, former environment minister Peter Garrett yesterday revealed Mr Rudd rejected at least one of his written requests to make changes to the flawed program, before the first of the fatalities among young and untrained installers in October 2009.

And while Mr Garrett accepted “ultimate” responsibility for the scheme’s rollout and implementation, he slammed his former department and senior bureaucrats for repeatedly failing to pass on crucial safety warnings before it was too late.

Mr Garrett said he finally axed the scheme in February 2010 because he had lost confidence in his department.

And while Mr Garrett was not directly critical of Mr Rudd in his oral testimony, his 59-page written statement to the royal commission detailed how Mr Rudd exercised control over the formulation and implementation of the program.

Mr Garrett wrote to Mr Rudd at least five times in 2009 about the troubled program, saying he was forced to ask Mr Rudd’s permission to make changes to the HIP, despite being the responsible minister.

“I was required to seek executive approval for any changes to the guidelines that (were) a departure from the initial government decision,” Mr Garrett said in his statement.

The inquiry has been told the scheme to insulate 2.5 million Australian homes in under three years was rushed, driven by a deadline set by Mr Rudd when he announced the batts program on February 3, 2009, as part of an economic stimulus package to counter the global financial crisis.

It has heard that thousands of untrained and unsupervised installers rushed to take advantage of the cash splash, and that proper training, compliance and audit regimes were not in place from the July 1, 2009, rollout date.

News Corp Australia news papers reported yesterday that supporters of Mr Rudd were furious after opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus failed to follow through on a commitment to supply a written submission to the commission in defence of Mr Rudd and the HIP.

A Labor spokeswoman refused to answer questions yesterday about whether Mr Dreyfus had intended to write a submission to the inquiry, which is in its final days of public sittings.

“The opposition wrote to the attorney-general on several occasions, particularly seeking a workplace safety focus to this royal commission,” she said.

The letters from Mr Garrett to Mr Rudd have been supplied to the commission but not yet publicly released.

It’s understood there could be legal issues about whether they can be released under cabinet rules.

However, Mr Garrett gives some detail of what he told Mr Rudd in his extensive statement.

On at least one occasion, in August 2009, Mr Rudd refused Mr Garrett’s request to reintroduce tougher compliance measures for dodgy installers, requiring homeowners to obtain two quotes for insulation work.

The former prime minister agreed to the change only in October 2009, Mr Garrett said, after the first installer’s death and following another written plea from him.

In a letter on October 28, 2009 — nearly a fortnight after the first death — Mr Garrett said he wrote to Mr Rudd to tell him he was working “urgently” with industry and regulators to “reduce unacceptably high occupational health and safety risks”.

Mr Garrett said Mr Rudd replied the next day, approving the two-quote request and asking the minister to keep the prime minister’s department updated.

The former environment minister — who was demoted in the aftermath of the batts scheme and quit politics last year — was scathing of the advice he received from his department.

Mr Garrett said he was not told of warnings to his bureaucrats as early as February 2009 that three New Zealand installers were electrocuted under a similar scheme.

He was also not told his department had been warned by a technical advisory group in April 2009 that there was a high likelihood of “catastrophic” consequences — such as death and injury — under the scheme.

He should have received those warnings, he said. If he had, he might have cut short the scheme after the first death, that of Matthew Fuller on October 14, 2009, who was electrocuted when driving a metal staple through foil insulation.

Mr Garrett received 66 written briefings from his department in 2009 and 2010 about the HIP, and criticised some for being unclear, incomplete and contradictory.

At times, when the advice was not “sufficiently persuasive”, he was forced to dissent from the advice, he said.

And he confirmed he became distrustful about the advice as early as Mr Fuller’s death.

Mr Garrett said he met Master Electricians in October 2009 after Mr Fuller’s death.

The body warned him to ban foil insulation and that more deaths were possible.

However, he said at the time his department advised him not to ban foil, due to contradictory advice from the government.

He eventually banned metal staples in November 2009, but did not ban foil until February 2010, in the days following the electrocution death of Mitchell Sweeney, who was using foil and banned metal staples.

He also laid blame at the feet of dodgy installation companies, saying it was his “great regret” that businesses did not follow the program’s rules.

Outside the inquiry, Justin Sweeney — the brother of Mitchell Sweeney — said Mr Garrett should have halted the program after the first fatality.

“They should have looked into it further,” Mr Sweeney said.

“One death is enough, not four.”

He said his family was “pretty immune” to sitting through the details of the inquiry, despite it opening old wounds.

“Hopefully the commission comes out with some recommendations but overall my family — and I’m sure the other families — want to ensure if a program’s rolled out again like this in the future, that this never happens.”

Earlier, former Labor ex-senator Mark Arbib, responsible for co-ordinating the entire $4.2bn stimulus package, told the commission Mr Garrett was the minister responsible for the batts scheme.

Mr Arbib said that, in hindsight, the insulation program was flawed. He said the policies should have been “tighter” and regulations “greater”.

The hearing continues today.

[Neferti]

He's not a happy chappy.

FORMER prime minister Kevin Rudd has thrown the insulation royal commission into disarray with a surprise attempt to breach Cabinet confidentiality rules.

Mr Rudd’s lawyers insisted his entire written statement to the commission – including material which government lawyers have decided breaches Cabinet confidentiality, and censored – be made public.

More here.

http://www.news.com.au/national/queensl ... 6917332553

[Rorschach]

Looks like he's trying to dump all the blame on Garret and Arbib.