Well Well ... all this will show how Government fucks over anyone who makes complaints.....
forget ever going to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and trying to expose systemic corrupt conduct because this department will cover it up also the Australian Public Service Commissioner Sedgewick and Karin Fisher fuck over whistleblowers or complaints made about Agency heads under S41 APS Act.
Now Magistrate Lisa Stapleton of the NSW Judiciary is attempting to protect corruption in Government agencies as well. It is unclear what her motives are or how she could benefit from this but stay tuned and I will find this out.
KEVIN Rudd has accused his public service of not warning him of safety risks associated with the government’s botched home insulation scheme, even as installers started to die.
The former prime minister this morning forced the Commonwealth of Australia, instructed by the Australian Government Solicitor - which sits in Attorney-General George Brandis’s department - into an embarrassing backdown on its gagging of him when it redacted his statement to the insulation royal commission.
His 31-page unredacted statement has now been released and offers an unprecedented insight into cabinet deliberations, normally kept secret for two decades.
The $2.8 billion Home Insulation Program was cut short in February 2010, after the deaths of four young, inexperienced installers, and 224 house fires.
Mr Rudd told the commission today that he and his cabinet relied on regular reports from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to alert them of any government program “going off the rails”. No report, until after four men died, told cabinet the HIP was anything but “on track”, he said.
“It also used a colour signal system: green for “on track”, amber for maintaining “close watch”; and red for “in difficulty”,” Mr Rudd said.
“I understand that there were eight of these reports over the 2009-2010 period. I cannot recall any of these reports through until March 2010 identifying that the Home Insulation Program was anything other than “on track”.”
After a Public Service Taskforce report warned of “significant program design risks, notably safety risks” cabinet then accepted a recommendation to terminate the program.
Mr Rudd’s unredacted statement shifts responsibility for the scheme’s genesis to the public service, and also for its July 1, 2009, rollout deadline, which has been widely criticised as rushed.
“I believe the 1 July date has its origins in that (departmental advice),” Mr Rudd told the commission.
“That is the date that found its way before cabinet’s... deliberation on this question in late January (2009).”
Mr Rudd said cabinet was never warned by public servants that the rushed deadline would put safety in jeopardy.
“Had any public servant or any minister advised the cabinet that there was a safety risk to either workers or householders, I’m confident to say the reaction of ministers would be to say ‘whoa, this has to be dealt with’,” Mr Rudd said.
“If that was to involve a delay (of the start date), that would be the response.”
Installer Matthew Fuller was electrocuted when he drove a metal staple through foil insulation into a live wire on October 14, 2009.
In his statement, Mr Rudd said that two weeks after the death, the Cabinet Committee reviewed a September 2009 progress report - prepared by the Office of Coordinator-General - on the government’s strategic plan.
The HIP was not raised as one of “nine critical issues for the Prime Minister’s attention”.
Two more installers died in November 2009.
Another meeting of the Cabinet Committee on January 18, 2010, Mr Rudd said, considered a December report into the government’s strategy plan. He said the report insisted the insulation program was “on track”.
“I understand this did not change until the February 2010 report (considered by the Cabinet Committee in March), which for the first time noted difficulties in the program.” Mr Rudd said.
Mr Rudd is testifying now. He is being painstakingly taken through the lead-up to the HIP’s introduction by barrister Keith Wilson QC, who is acting as counsel assisting the commission.
The former prime minister stepped into the witness box this morning after the father of Mitchell Sweeney, the installer who died on February 4, 2010, read a brief statement.
Martin Sweeney was tearful as he thanked the commission, led by Ian Hanger, QC, for the “hard work” being undertaken.
“No family should ever have to go through what we’ve been through,” Mr Sweeney said.
“We love you very much Mitchell, and we haven’t stopped missing you.”
Mr Hanger thanked him for his courage in coming forward, and called Mr Rudd.
Mitchell Sweeney was the fourth installer to die. Mr Rudd’s statement reveals that nearly a fortnight later, the Cabinet Committee considered a Public Service Taskforce report into the HIP, which was urgently commissioned in response to the death.
For the first time, the public servants warned Mr Rudd and his ministers of “significant program design risks, notably safety risks”. The date was February 17, 2010. Four men had died.
The Cabinet Committee then accepted the taskforce’s recommendation to terminate the program.
Today Mr Rudd said, as prime minister, he accepted ‘ultimate responsibility’ for the “deep tragedy” of the insulation scheme.
“As prime minister you accept responsibility for the good and for the bad, for anything that a government does over the period which I am prime minister,” Mr Rudd told the commission.
“I have accepted ultimate responsibility for what was not just bad, but a deep tragedy, as it affected the lives of the families concerned.”
He continued: “Ultimately, as prime minister of the day...I’ve said before and i’ve said again, as prime minister I accept ultimate responsibility.”
Released yesterday, Mr Rudd’s redacted statement was still revealing of his relationships with the public service and his one-time colleagues Mark Arbib and Peter Garrett.
Mr Rudd revealed the program was not recommended by ministers, but by the public service itself. He hits back at suggestions the scheme was hurriedly drafted by bureaucrats in one January 2009 long weekend at his direction, or the direction of his department.
Mr Rudd also refuted the suggestion he drove an unreasonable and rushed timetable for the scheme, by announcing a July 1, 2009, rollout date when he launched the scheme on February 3 that year.
“The 1 July commencement date for the full program was part of the original recommendation from the public service,” Mr Rudd said.
Mr Rudd said while he chaired cabinet, that body “collectively approved” the public service’s program and “at that point assumed collective ministerial responsibility”.
He gave an insight into the intensely busy cabinet process, revealing the body handled more than 1000 cabinet submissions between 2007 and 2010. For much of 2009, he said, his government was dealing with “multiple and major” financial and economic challenges, aiming to “do everything possible to avoid a second depression”.
He described Mr Arbib as a “highly competent, highly effective individual”, and said that was why he appointed him to oversee the implementation of the government’s stimulus program. However, he revealed that at the end of 2009, his relationship with Mr Arbib broke down about other political and policy matters.
Mr Rudd insisted that when recommendations to improve safety were made, they were accepted speedily through cabinet or through correspondence with then environment minister Mr Garrett.
“Nonetheless, despite all of the above, four innocent lives were lost in horrendous workplace accidents,” he said.
The hearing continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment