What lunatics do we have elected in our federal governing body?
I’ve had a look at the Environment Minister’s website tonight after hearing a news article about the Insulation / Hot Water rebate being scrapped.
Immediate disappointment struck as our subsidised, yet, still to be installed system would face a $1600 increase.
My thoughts earlier today were that we’d then need to find another $1600, it turns out that it’s now $1000, so the result is $600. Not too bad, but different.
The issue was flawed though, they shouldn’t be bundling hot water and insulation in the one program, they should be two seperate programs, and if they want to determine eligibility, then ‘you must not have Hot Water rebate’ – etc.
The other screw up is the Green Loans program, we narrowly made it with being through the door on the 17th, but as you’ll see from this Whirlpool thread, many, many, many, many, many others have been met with an engaged tone after several telemarketing bodies have taken up ‘free assessment’ telemarketing calls. This means the hotline customers AND assessors call are bogged down from the moment they open, to the moment they close.
My partner has been trying to follow up on the promised but not delivered $50 green card – for spending on ‘green’ products. The elected officials must be held to their promises, else they’ll go on breaking them.
We had a somewhat difficult experience with the green loans office, week after week of follow ups, no report, it took them several weeks to actually get the report emailed, months after the assessment was done.
I thought to myself this has to be the easiest report ever to produce – get the assessor in, get the readings, he supplies the data on the website, they script the retrieval of the power / water / GHG data from the appropriate supplier, and print and email the report.
No, not the case – they fart and f#$k around for weeks on end, claiming they will call or email you back, with no result. “Oh, it will be done by next week” the polite, but foreign female lady would say. Next week would come – we’ll email it to you. Next week, no email.
So, Peter Garrett goes and touts to the media:
- the discontinuation of the less popular loans component next month to provide for the significant boost to assessment availability;
I read that line and immediately thought of the numerous people on Whirlpool alone, having numerous difficulties getting through, and then I recall the rejections from Community First Credit Union. Look at the name and description of the program, “Green Loan”, “$10000 for Green Improvements”, etc. These are what people are getting them done for (at least, prior to the telemarketers artificially inflating the statistics). Â The reason they are ‘less popular’, is because the call centre is difficult to get a hold of, reports aren’t getting delivered to the users, the banks have credit policies that vary and range from very relaxed, to very restrictive (requiring the invoices to pay the supplier directly..)
The proper process is easy, takes little thought, and could possibly be done whilst high – yes Peter, whilst high as a kite:
– The government makes the decision on who the money is lent to, they do this by guaranteeing the funds to the bank.
– The government changes from whatever poorly thought out and ill conceived ‘green’ assessment system they have, to one of numbers and email / print and mail outs.
– They abolish the telemarketing crap, and allow people who WANT it to seek it out (as we did, and many others).
Sounds simple, ensures that only those who seek it, get it, removes the delays in production of the report, and ensures more people have access to the green loan.
Then, there is the Insulation cockup. As with the First Home Owner Grant, prices will rise to meet whatever perception the installer has of available funding (which reminds me to scrutinize the builders quote when he finally gets it here). If he knows $1200 is available in grants, then damned it, he’s going to ensure he gets it – so he’ll charge that. $600 insulation in the roof, 2 hours of his time. $1200 in his account.
That’s flawed, but I’m sure it wasn’t a fore thought. The claims process is better, and should allow for the insulation prices to drop back to reality. We aren’t getting insulation done by an ‘insulation professional’ (professional, as if). We’ll get the people who are doing the exterior wall removal to insulate before they put the sarking on. They’ve offered to do it for free, we supply insulation and sarking. Bargain (and they are friends, so we know they aren’t ‘cowboys’).
It’s still a bit of a road before we see the power meter spinning backward, and the hot water flowing freely. I’ll do that in a separate post in a moment.
Who the hell elects morons to run the nation? Less popular green loan, my arse. More like poorly managed department. Typical.