On May 18, Scott Morrison won the federal election, publicly crying “how good is Australia!” to an audience of voters across the country. Morrison boldly proclaimed in his acceptance speech that he would support “every single Australian who [depended] on their government to put them first”.
For those affected by the combustible cladding crisis, his words fall on deaf ears.
Aluminium composite cladding is present in buildings across the country, from Sydney and Victoria, to Queensland and Western Australia. It’s also highly flammable. The Neo 200 apartment fire in February, threw the dangers of combustible cladding into the spotlight, which had already claimed 72 lives in Britain’s 2017 Grenfell disaster.
The reality is that hundreds of thousands of people are stuck living in high-rise tinderboxes, and others are left without housing after losing the apartments they worked so tirelessly to secure.
Many affected by the flammable cladding epidemic remain in an unacceptable living situation. Some have been forced out of their homes, and some are instead forced to remain in fear with no recourse. Meanwhile, Scott Morrison is spending his time passing the buck to state governments.
There is a certain irony in Scott Morrison’s victory proclamation that he would “burn for the Australian people, every single day”. Instead, it is us who may burn.
The Coalition government has failed to allocate a cent to a crisis that is endangering human lives, with Josh Frydenberg claiming “the problems in relation to cladding have been a failure of compliance and enforcement at a state level”.
How Australian is that?
In 1961, when 16,000 people in Singapore were left homeless following a major fire, the incident was declared a national emergency. Here, it is declared a “state problem”. Following the Grenfell Tower fire, the UK government offered $358 million for a cladding rectification program. Here, our federal leaders offer little more than thoughts and prayers.
The reality is that I, and many others like me, are directly affected by the actions of this malpractice. My parents worked tirelessly on their dream home, and due to the lack of information they received about the dangers of this cladding, all that work could be thrown into chaos with a stray spark. Yet, our family is one of the lucky ones.
At least we can still escape from the first-storey window when our lives go up in smoke.
For many, the Australian dream has quickly become an anxiety-inducing nightmare. While Canberra debates which human lives matter and which ones don’t, the many students, workers, retirees and families living in these apartments are left wondering whether they’ll be immolated in sacrifice to stubborn bureaucracy. This issue affects Australians from every corner of the country.
As the Morrison government continues to celebrate their $7.1 billion dollar surplus, there is a staunch refusal to spare even two cents for one of the worst building disasters since the asbestos crisis. Regardless of politics, it is irresponsible to waste our time passing the buck while people are living in fear.
We should not need to wait for a corpse to show up before we start taking this seriously. Do not let us burn for you, Scott Morrison.
Centre Alliance Senators Stirling Griff and Rex Patrick plus Senator Jackie Lambie sold themselves and us for small change when they passed the second $140 BILLION set of tax giveaways (very largely for the already rich) backed in the end by Labor. Added to the already legislated $154 BILLION in tax giveaways, we now have at least $294 BILLION in cuts to services over those ten years.
Now, only weeks after that massive giveaway, we are talking of “the cost to the budget of franking credit refunds”, the “Budget cost of increasing Newstart”, “aged care underfunding”, “the lack of stimulus”, “reducing suicide to zero”, and now “refusal to fund removal of flammable cladding”!
Buckley’s chance, for which those three Senators are partly responsible. Remind them.
But, but, their action is not ancient history; amongst its immediately damaging impacts is to provide the Treasurer with an excuse to do nothing as the ship sinks. Longer term, its damaging impact will hurt for the next few years, then do catastrophic damage to the services we need as the huge giveaways to the really rich cut in, exploited to drive the large Budget cuts the morrison Misgovernment wants. Hypocritically, they waved away that obvious certainty of equally massive cuts to services driven by their multi-BILLION tax giveaway with the throwaway line that if it really costs the Budget, Parliament might revoke them in those few years’ time! Yeah, right.
Having chosen their action, they have chosen their consequences. They should expect to be accountable for it.
Andrew Robb’s China-Australia FTA (and his TPP) allows “a self-certified certificate of origin … produced by the importer, exporter or manufacture”.
Another glorious triumph for exploitative “free” trade. Fraud is being praised and rewarded. Let’s import lots of private vocational training providers, all giving themselves a self-certified certificate of origin. Isn’t capitalism wonderful?
In contrast, after the Lacrosse tower fire a 2015 meeting of state and territory ministers resolved to investigate a mandatory certification scheme for all safety-critical building products. CSIRO said urgent regulatory action was needed before the use of (certified compliant) “low-value building products” resulted in “catastrophic outcomes”. It said all high-risk building products should be independently tested to determine their compliance with building regulations. In 2017 and since, the trumbull and morrison Misgovernments have simply refused any restrictions.
I didn’t know that about the CFTA and TPP. Robb is a traitor to the nation (not that I am surprised alas).
Leaves Parliament and gets a job with Darwin port and Chinese company Lendlease who own it. Ah, the rewards of being a Pollie. He was paid $2 million in the short time he worked for them and it appears he did very little for that. Payment for jobs already done? Will we ever know? ICAC.
Government deregulates.
Unscrupulous business operators rush in and take advantage of resulting loopholes, making a financial killing in the process.
Unscrupulous business operators dissolve business, rendering themselves immune from any form of retribution.
Mum and Dads and Joe Public purchase shonky products, ignorant of potential short-comings.
Mum and Dads and Joe Public discover they have been conned and that they have no recourse.
Mum and Dads and Joe Public demand Government recompense.
Government steps in, presents themselves as heroes, get re-elected.
Taxpayers pick up the bill AGAIN.
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.
Indeed. The is the predictable outcome of all that “getting rid of red tape” that Tony Abbott boasted about. Give industry free rein with “self-regulation” and expect them to maintain standards? Not when there’s money to be made through shortcuts.
So Scummo, whose job is monitoring the standards of these products? If he wants to burn for Australia I’ll light the torch for the pyre.
Perth Children’s Hospital asbestos report prompts call for temporary ban on Chinese building materials…ABC Sept 2016
WA’s Building Commissioner Peter Gow blames the presence of the asbestos on both a failure of the procurement process and the contract management process.
“John Holland and Yuanda Australia correctly specified that the materials that they were going to put into the hospital should not contain asbestos, they should be asbestos free,” Mr Gow said.
John Holland is now owned by the communist party of China and gets many defence and infrastructure contracts. Under the China FTA Andrew Robb[er] and the Coalition have enabled China to import 100% Chinese labour on projects over $150 million.
ISDS provisions signed by the Coalition make taxpayers liable for any damages claimed by China if their businesses are thwarted from environmental reasons etc. A double whammy.
And to top it off, Andrew Robb[er] on $800,000 a year with Landbridge, and on their books before quitting parliament, signed off on an agreement that Chinese tradies do not have to produce accreditation.
How good is the argument for an independent, federal, Australian ICAC
The bit of fluff that Morrison set up is useless.