Canberra Times
Tuesday 30/3/2010 Page: 2
The Rudd Government could face a class action lawsuit from home sustainability assessors left financially out of pocket by the suspension of its flawed Green Loans scheme. A campaign website has been set tip by a group of assessors, with a Western Australian lawyer enlisted to lead the bid to take legal action against the federal environment department. So far, 180 people who incurred debts as a result of the scheme's training, insurance, registration and equipment costs have signed up to take part in a class action.
Fieldforce, the biggest business operating under the loans program, is also seeking compensation, claiming changes to the scheme have put 500 jobs at risk. The loans component of the program was axed last month. The Government also announced the number of assessors would be capped at 5000, with each assessor able to conduct only five home audits a week. Australian Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said thousands of people had been plunged into debt after paying more than $3000 to train as green home auditors under the scheme.
"We have received hundreds of heart-breaking entails and letters from people who are in terrible financial trouble as a result of the Green Loans scheme," Senator Milne said. "We have letters from people who invested savings, borrowed money from their parents or mortgaged their house to train as home assessors. They are utterly crushed."
The $175 million loans program is part of the same energy efficiency package as the Government's $2.7 billion home insulation scheme, which was dumped last month after being linked to four deaths and more than 100 house fires. Both schemes were part of the Rudd Government's $42 billion economic stimulus package. The Green Loans program aimed to cut energy and water use by training and paying assessors to conduct free home audits. The assessors advised householders on applying for interest-free loans to finance changes such as installing solar panels, grey water systems and rainwater tanks.
Following questions raised by Senator Milne and Simon Birmingham during a Senate estimates, the program is being investigated by the Auditor-General and a Senate environment committee inquiry. Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has also called for "a frank assessment of the program". Australian utility and business services group, UXG is seeking compensation for assessors working under its subsidiary, Fieldforce Services. The company's finance director Mark Hubbard told business media yesterday Fieldforce had been in discussions with the Government "for some time" regarding compensation.
The company has suggested to the Government it could take over running a revamped Green Loans program. "One form of compensation could be its delivering the program entirely," Mr Hubbard said. During the recent Senate estimates hearing it was revealed Fieldforce's call centre had preferential direct email access to the federal Environment Department to book home assessments, while other companies said they spent up to three hours on the telephone trying to book audits. They claimed the preferential arrangement allowed Fieldforce to secure up to 30% of audits.
0 comments:
Post a Comment