Opposition wants Green Loans inquiry

Updated Fri Jul 9, 2010 3:52pm AEST


The Federal Opposition is calling for a police inquiry into the Government's dumped Green Loans scheme, which was set up to allow Australians to make their homes more energy efficient.

The Government has announced it is replacing the Green Loans scheme in response to three highly critical reviews of the household energy efficiency program.

It is also investigating allegations of kickbacks to staff at the Environment Department.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt says Prime Minister Julia Gillard should be held accountable for the failure of the program.

"There must be an apology by Julia Gillard to taxpayers and to assessors and to homeowners for a program which ran off the rails," he said.

"This was pink batts, fortunately, without the tragic consequences."

Mr Hunt also says former Climate Change Minister Peter Garrett should be sacked.

"Not just the home insulation program, not just the solar program but now the Green Loans program has been systemically rorted," he said.

"They've lacked control, they've had poor management, faulty design, significant overpayment and this is the same scheme."

But Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says her Department is already investigating the claims.

"Peter Garrett did what he should have done, which was to act on concerns," she said.

Under the original scheme householders were offered free energy efficiency audits by registered assessors, $50 vouchers to spend on green products and access to interest-free loans to make improvements on their homes.

The critical reports found widespread lack of compliance with government regulations on procurement, absence of effective program supervision and poor financial controls for the program, among other things.

The reports blame the department's focus on speed rather than on quality.

Instead of loans, the Government will now give grants to accredited assessors and to community groups who provide practical help to low income Australians to improve their energy efficiency.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the new plan is lacking in detail.

"The main thing that we'll be looking for is that it's credible, that it's not being done in a rush and that the necessary audit processes are in place, that it actually rolls out as it's intended," he said.

"We simply can't afford to waste another two years with these headline grabbing announcements such as the home insulation and issue and the Green Loans issue."




http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/09/2949505.htm

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Did we ever learn of the outcome of this enquiry?

More Greens- Labor corruption.

Getting Labor to investigate this is like asking Dracula for advice on donating blood :(

Can't Labor get anything right?  Everything they put forward and attempt to implement ends up in huge cost blowouts, failure and eventually...............withdrawal.  

:P No matter though, Jooles has promised to do better next time

Sounds similar to the inquiry into  Howards  Gun buy-back scheme that I recently read about. I actually pasted an article on it in one of the other  topics..There were alot of concerns there also.