Today’s rallies by Green Loans home sustainability assessors around Australia highlight the Rudd Government’s ongoing failure to fix the problems arising from its appalling mismanagement, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Action Simon Birmingham said today.
Rallies are taking place in Sydney outside Kirribilli House from 9am, in Brisbane at South Brisbane Station from 7.30am marching to the Goodwill Bridge, in Adelaide at Victoria Square from 8am, and on the New South Wales Central Coast opposite Westfield Tuggerah on Gavenlock Road from 10am.
“Green Loans has been a monumental breach of promise and a monumental case of mismanagement by Peter Garrett and the Rudd Government,” Senator Birmingham said today.
“It is nearly four months since Penny Wong took over the Green Loans mess from Peter Garrett, and outlined the steps she was supposedly taking to address the program’s many problems.
“Yet even today, trained assessors remain in limbo waiting for contracts to be finalised, contracted assessors are being paid late for the limited work they can now undertake, and there’s no word on when overdue audits and reviews into the Green Loans program will be finished, let alone whether their findings will be made public.
“The Government’s failings in relation to Green Loans include:
- promising the appointment of 1000 assessors, but training nearly 10,000;
- requiring a system of booking assessments with Government, but failing to provide a bookings system that could cope with demand;
- promising that home sustainability audits would be supported by loans, but then cancelling the program’s loans component without warning;
- promising that home sustainability audits would be supported by $50 Green Rewards Cards, but then failing to deliver a single card; and
- allowing the Green Loans program to be plagued by suggestions of substandard training, fraud and preferential treatment.
“The Rudd Government is rightly being condemned by the Green Loans home sustainability assessors it has stuffed around at every turn.
“An explanation from Mr Rudd or Senator Wong of what they will do for the thousands of assessors hurting as a result of the Government’s incompetent mismanagement is long overdue.”