Page 819 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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Garrett about this scheme. He knew that he had received briefings about this scheme and he knew that Peter Garrett had written back to him.
While we are on this subject, I will ask the minister to address this issue when he deigns to speak: is this pile of documents the complete list? It is quite clear to me, as someone who has worked as a ministerial adviser, that there are obvious lacunae. This minister attends ministerial councils for environment protection and other things. There are no briefings in here in relation to anything that may have come up in relation to the home insulation scheme or any of the other energy efficiency schemes as part of his ministerial council responsibilities. I want the minister to assure this place that no such documents exist. If he cannot assure this place that no such documents exist, I want him to assure this place that he will search to see if any such documents exist and report back here. It seems to me that there are documents missing.
In addition to those missing documents, there are documents that are clearly missing from correspondence between the Chief Minister and Senator Birmingham in relation to the Senate inquiry into energy efficiency. There are in this pile a letter from Senator Birmingham asking the ACT government, through the Chief Minister, to contribute to that Senate inquiry and a letter back from Mr Stanhope to Senator Birmingham saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Anyone who has ever worked in ministerial liaison knows that there are more documents that are associated with that. A request like that from a senator to participate in an inquiry would not go to the Chief Minister without briefing material attached to it. Where is the briefing material? Is this the complete list? I think not.
The minister has said there were no complaints. Then he qualified. He said there were no documents, and then he said there were no complaints of a particular sort. He said on 11 February that the ACT fair trading authorities had received seven complaints in the last seven months about high-pressure sales tactics from people trying to sell insulation. That is not true. The minister said this; he also said it in the media. But what he was actually told—the email that Mr Seselja referred to makes it quite clear—was this: they had received seven complaints, but they were not solely about high-pressure sales tactics. The email says:
Predominantly these … related to … M&D conduct …
“M&D” is “misleading and deceptive”. The email goes on:
… this issue made up 4 of the complaints.
1 complaint related to an occasion where allegedly they have been denied the rebate—
that is, it was not about misleading and deceptive comments—
2 complaint relates to inadequate quality of installation.
When the minister in this place said that he had received seven complaints about high-pressure sales tactics, that itself was untrue. There is an email to support that which was circulated about 2½ hours before he answered that question in the
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