In a major Southern Hemphisphere Nation, a solution to the flagging economy was implemented.
Peter Garrett a former lead singer in the Political Rock BAND midnight oil and now this nations MinisterFor The Environment oversaw the Govt subsidised installation of Roofing Insulation into Millions of homes across this nation.
The programme entailed a $1000 dollar approx Aus payment to the householder who said yes to having squads of newly appearing insulation installers putting roofing insulation into their roofs.
Not long after this scheme was implemented a story was in the papers about the fact that some of the materials for this insulation were sourced from China.
This was quickly forgotten as hundreds of new companys were sprouting like mushrooms eager to take the taxpayers billions.
Over time many homes were filled with this insulation.
But it turns out Peter Garret knew not much about Electricity, and a large percentage of homes had foil installed in their roofs as the insulation material, yes folks aluminium type foil one of electricitys friends.
So here we had thousands of poorly trained insulation workers going into unsuspecting peoples roofs and throwing down foil over and very near to expose electrical lighting conductors that are in roofs.
Despite the legal statutes in Australia saying no Electrical conductive material shall be placed within a certain distance of an exposed Electrical conductor other than those materials of an Electrical circuit(this is not a quote just common sense.
The result? people have died of electrical shock due to the foil?
House have burned down due to the foil?
Now the Govt is scrapping the scheme and is about to pay Electricians who were not involved at alll in the installations(yes thats right foil was layed in a roof full of electricity and no electricains were deemed necessary in the insulation installation process) to test every home that was subjected to this ludicrous foil installation nightmare, we are talking about hundreds of millions of further tax payer money to fix up a mistake a first year Electrical apprentice could have seen coming.
Almost two billion dollars? worth of money down the drain,for a mistake almost every schoolboy could have forseen?
Foil is a conductor, roofs are very dangerous places for foil and Electricity placed near each other and in a lot of cases touching.
How do governments justify even a basic lack of knowledge of Electricity?

Does anyone have an opinion?
"How do we sleep when our roofs are burning"?

Originally posted by Dr Conspire
Does anyone have an opinion?
"How do we sleep when our roofs are burning"?

That’s a pretty funny synopsis. I wonder if I’m the only one here who gets it.

Originally posted by murfdog

Originally posted by Dr Conspire
Does anyone have an opinion?
"How do we sleep when our roofs are burning"?

That’s a pretty funny synopsis. I wonder if I’m the only one here who gets it.

Perhaps, depends on the level of" illumination" in regards to eighties and nineties rock music, the ATS members possess.
The music has hit the roof however in the last day or so with a documentary on Australian TV exposing the jobs creation before safety message that was allegedly repeatedly conveyed to those implementing the scheme by senior bueracrats and suchlike.
A young non electrical worker died apparently by stapling a foil sheet into a live conductor in a roof(POWER STILL ON) yes they needed it for light and fans(never heard of portable generators apparently and extension cords.
The total cost of this scheme is now estimated to exceed 2billion dollars australian (inc cost of testing each home for electrical and fire hazards,
this is at a time when money cant be found for hospitals and nursing homes.
I just find it strange the whole arrangement.

Kinda sad really considering how many houses have caught fire just how fitting that particular quote is.

Unfortunately just like most of this Governments 'schemes' this one was another one that was not regulated *sigh*

[edit on 28/4/10 by damn_ummmm]

They had newly arrived Indians(no not the red indians type) going door to door asking elderly pensioners like my mum" Excuse me please but can I stuff your roof with rolls of foil " or suchlike...cowboy operators can be Indians at the same time I guess
My mum in her wisdom chose a local established buider who specialised in Roofing insulation.
The Established firms deserved exclusive contracts.
But apparently th egovernment was in a hurry to" stuff peoples roofs" with insulation, mmm I wonder" did someone get obscene amounts of money to rush this thru" no that would never happen in a democratic nation with a lawyer as the responsible minister, no it was just one of those things "You wouldnt read about it" no never.

I do sympathize with the poor folk who lost there homes or worse yet there lives from this debacle. It reminds me of what president Reagan said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
on a lighter note can any of you Aussie’s tell me what the heck a vegemite sandwich is?

Originally posted by murfdog
I do sympathize with the poor folk who lost there homes or worse yet there lives from this debacle. It reminds me of what president Reagan said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
on a lighter note can any of you Aussie’s tell me what the heck a vegemite sandwich is?

Way too risque for us to mention,

Just an update.
Apparently Peter Garrett had wrote letters to Prime Minister Rudd warning of the insulation risks.
This has been reported today in the Australian media.

Can the OP post up some sources for this story?

Why would there be exposed electrical elements in the attics for the foil to come in contact with?

Maybe it is different wherever this allegedly happened, but here in the states there can be no exposed bare wires that would be able to come into contact with ANYTHING else in the attic.

It's almost like Peter Garret was the Arnie of Aussie politics. Bought in the inject some razzle dazzle and pique the interests of "savy" voters. Little did they realize how useless this guy would be. I do feel sorry for him though, he has a lot of blood on his hands.