Insulation risk was worse before rebate

  • John Watson

03 March 2010Coverage of the home insulation program has ignored what went before, writes John Watson in The Age

Peter Garrett's home insulation program was a debacle involving four deaths and 94 house fires, and proved his incompetence as a minister. At least, that's the story gaining the status of official political history, which Peter Costello drew on to attack the Rudd government's plans for public hospitals.

Costello recalls his successful opposition to Environment Department plans to insulate houses ''in the dying days of the Howard government … In those days, home insulation was dressed up as climate-change policy.'' You can see where he's coming from, and why from day one the Coalition ridiculed the ''pink batts'' stimulus measure...

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