Big Marn's NRL alphabet scoop By Darryl Brohman

[The Gronk]

The best way to ensure safety is to let people trained in identifying safety issues and working to get them fixed on site.  These people are called union reps. 

Of course, under workchoices union reps were banned from entering worksites. 

 

[Guest]

Fluffy No I am not in the industry as you know but as I have an ABN number with a couple of weeks training I could have been installing insulation in peoples roofs when the program was first introduced.  A scary thought.

Were you involved in the installation side of the business of just production?

My info comes from a few mates who were in the commercial fit out industry who downed tools and installed batts like crazy for months. 

They were doing 3-5 installations a day 6 days a week.  And funny how they said that all of their costings came in at between $1,500-$1,600 each time whether it was for a one bedroom unit or a house. 

All they had to do was submit the invoice to the government and a couple of weeks later they received the money in their Bank account - between $25-$30,000 per week with not a lot of outlay for the batts.  Almost no checks or audits.  It was too easy to get the money from the government.

The scheme should have been restricted to existing insulation installers and should always have been on a rebate basis.   

My wool insulation come from the US because I was told that it was almost impossible to get australian wool insulation.

Fluffy you are in the production side of insulation and can probably give a better idea as to whether the reported 25% of installations used batts from overseas.  I thought that whole idea of stimulus money was to create australian jobs?

No doubt there will always be deaths and fires with insulation but the risks could have been mimimised under the scheme.  I beleive that there have been no deaths from installation of foil insulation until the governments scheme.

Work choices was dead before the insulation program started so there is no excuse for the government not to have the unions help control the scheme.  or was it because the unions also said that it was an unmanageable scheme?

I also had someone over for the green loans scheme.  he told me that the government was paying him $200 per visit to a home and he was doing 5 visits per day 6 days a week.  Almost no outlay other than car expenses so work out how much he was receiving for someone with no experience and only a week or two training.

I am told that i may receive a report as a result of the visit in another 6-8 months time and that i can no longer obtain an interest free loan from the government to upgrade my house to make it more energy efficient. 

Another waste of money scheme?

We could go on about the schools as well but will leave that for another time.

And also good to see that some of you blokes are still blaming Howard but won't critisize the current government.