Environment Minister Peter Garrett has come under fire for his roofing foil insulation scheme, which has had a quick A$50m injected into it for home safety inspections to occur after a series of safety issues, including the death of four insulation installers.
The political and media sharks are circling:
The Australian
The Oz editorial: The Rudd government’s green image takes a hit
That’s embarrassing, but the real damage to Mr Garrett and the government is the way the issue will play out with average Australians. It’s the kind of snafu voters never forget, along the lines of “if these blokes can’t even insulate a roof, how can they run the country?” That the program has imploded over safety fears compounds the image problem.
The Age
Katharine Murphy and Tom Arup: Fading star
Garrett’s political challenge would be difficult enough on its own, but it comes at a time when the politics of climate change has shifted on terms negative for federal Labor. The imbroglios amplify the sensation that the government has lost its political mojo on climate change.
Daily Telegraph
Mark Mann, Mark Mann blog, Garrett giving green a bad name
Peter Garrett’s Department of Environment is giving green a bad name. Three major Federal Government green programs being run by the Department of Environment have now descended into farce or tragedy.
The Courier-Mail
Dennis Atkins: It’s time to wind back the spin on insulation scheme
It was Garrett, however, who had difficulty seeing the outcome as his explanation was lost in a torrent of verbal sludge about meetings, consultative groups, reassessments, forms, guidelines and standards.
Elsewhere
Crikey’s Bernard Keane, The Stump, The pursuit of Peter peters out… but more berating of Barnaby to come:
There was more than a trace of blood in the water around Garrett as he called a press conference right before Question Time today. Several journalists wondered whether he was going to resign, although given the lack of pressure from the Opposition, it didn’t quite scan that Garrett was either going to offer his head or was going to be pushed by Rudd
…
The grilling consisted of three questions on the administration of his portfolio, which Garrett handled nervously but relatively well, taking his time on his third answer to explain in detail the process for assessing assessors under the Green Loans program. The depth of detail into which Garrett went seemed to suck the life from the Opposition, because after that they turned their fire on, of all people, Lindsay Tanner.
…
It was not the sign of an Opposition in hot pursuit of a wounded Minister. There was none of the bite or tension that usually gives away that even Government MPs know they’re in trouble.
The Opposition never came back to Garrett, who must have been unable to believe his luck. …Garrett now only has one more Question Time to survive before Parliament rises.
Mark Bahnisch, Larvatus Prodeo blog: Should Peter Garrett resign?
Yet none of this goes to the question of whether Garrett *should* resign.
Central, here, I think is the fact that his department was alerted to the possible adverse consequences on several occasions before the scheme went ahead, by both the NECA and state bureaucrats.
It’s also taking the government’s environmental focus away from climate change.
ABC
Jonathan Holmes: Journalists weather the changing climate
The science needed selling. But where were the salespeople? Who is there, arguing passionately and compellingly that climate change is real, and urgent? … Peter Garrett has been sidelined.
…from Jonathan Holmes:
“…There’s no denying that the climate change deniers, or sceptics, (the term you prefer depends which side you’re on) have succeeded, to a degree that orthodox climate scientists find baffling…”
Of course, that’s it. Blame the Boogeyman.
Doesn’t say much for the “overwhelming body of evidence” and the robust “scientific consensus” if half a dozen ‘crackpot’ “sceptics” and journalists can bring down the hundreds of thousands of carpetbaggers and rentseekers burrowed deep within the Klimate Khange Industrial Komplex.
Beyond the wailing, it sounds more like the great unravelling.
Has someone checked “the models”? Maybe the data needs rigging again.
Phil? Where are you Phil? It might be time to crank up the shriek-o-meter again…the research funds are running low.
But check with Al first about doing another PowerPoint preso; he seems to have gone missing.
Garrett is as good a politician as Joyce is a Finance Minister.
If he ever was.
After being humiliatingly stripped of his ‘natural’ mandate as Herr Climate for Rudd, Garrett has stumbled from political train wreck to train wreck.
Green Loans, Pink Batts and now Foil Batts.
Three strikes, Peter – and I’m generously overlooking his other ministerial failures.
You’re out!
Not even Future PM, Barrenness Gillard’s tacit endorsement will save his bacon.
well does that mean that everything the government puts money in to and things are not perfect is the governments fault.
If they had to think along those lines with all the institutions that get government funding nothing would happen.
We cannot expect life to be perfect, these programs had a huge amount of people working in them the same as most big projects.
Re roads rail construction and a lot of gov funded infrastructure.
Its just the liberals finding something to go for.
Every thing that happens at the end of the line is not the ministers fault he cannot be in every roof .
remember awb, weapons of mass destruction , the dogs on the wharf.
people have such short memories its really up to people like crickey to remind people
be cause the press want. But then i never buy their papers any more cannot find anything to read. Thats why the Internet will take over because we can choose what we read,
Peter Garrett is qucikly learning that in Politics there is ‘No Time For Games’!
What game he is playing here is anybody’s guess.
When you consider the size and scale of the insulation program rollout, it would be common sense to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of adequately trained personnel on the ground capable of performing the work before introducing the program.
Garrett, being the minister responsible, should have been aware of this.
Furthermore, when he was alerted to the safety concerns, why wasn’t the program temporarily halted until these concerns were addressed?
Me thinks Garrett is simply out of his depth. Blaming the installers is a cop out.