Gillard's insulation fire and safety secrecy

20/08/10

Julia Gillard must come clean and break her silence on the numbers of house fires and safety risks under her disastrous Home Insulation Program.

The Government has stopped providing media and the public with regular updates on the number of house fires linked to its disastrous insulation scheme. Updates were being posted on the Department of Climate Change website.

But on 15 July - only a few weeks after Julia Gillard seized power from Kevin Rudd - the updates suddenly stopped. The clock abruptly stopped at 190 house fires.

Soon after the brakes were also applied to updates on how many houses were found during safety inspections to have dangerous or dodgy insulation installed.

Mr Combet arrogantly said he wouldn't be providing the public with this safety information anymore.

Previous audits had found there were likely to be 240,000 Australian homes with dangerous or dodgy insulation. Now the Gillard Government is deliberately hiding these safety figures.

The latest toll admitted by the Government is 190 house fires. But we know that number is higher. There was an insulation fire reported in Melbourne on 30 July. And previously reports of insulation fires had been averaging almost one a day.

The Prime Minister must today release the updated number of house fires and safety risks discovered in her big home insulation mess.

Julia Gillard likes to boast that stimulus programs like the home insulation scheme somehow boosted her economic credentials.

But hiding the safety risks and fires caused by her program confirm her to be in a state of denial on the damage the program she helped to devise has caused.