Energy Efficiency Minister Penny Wong must commit to publicly releasing a further report on the failed $300 million Green Loans program following yesterday’s damning findings, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Action Simon Birmingham said today.
A further audit was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in February, with its findings still to be released.
Peter Garrett, still at that stage the responsible Minister, gave PricewaterhouseCoopers the specific task of auditing the assessor accreditation process and adherence to the terms of the Protocol for Assessor Accrediting Organisations between the Department and the accrediting organisation.
Despite a clear initial intention by the Government for there to be several such assessor accrediting organisations, the only one ever appointed was the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA).
A Senate inquiry into the Green Loans debacle was last week told that ABSA’s comments and the department’s final comments on a draft report were being considered before the PwC report’s finalisation.
“This PwC report will clearly identify deficiencies in the Government’s own management and implementation of its Green Loans program,” Senator Birmingham said today.
“Following the damning findings in overdue reports released yesterday, it is important that the PwC report be released also.
“Assessors who have invested their own time and money in this failed Government program deserve to know fully what went wrong, as do taxpayers footing the bills.”