Jean Simmons
TODAY I was forwarded an email telling me about the Zebra Australia website, and an entry on it to do with the Senate Inquiry into what I understand to be the building industry and last resort insurance for home builders – see below. I read it with utter despair and dismay! It seems that I have been labouring under the delusion that our governments’ role is to protect consumers at least as much as it looks after the interests of ‘industry’. Save the industry, hang the consumers!
In regard to the Senate Inquiry into the building industry and “last resort insurance”, if the recent PropertyReview.com.au’s report has any veracity at all then Australian consumers, homebuilders and renovators in particular in this case, are in very deep trouble.
Yes Tasmania has dumped its last resort insurance scheme but there are still too many disasters left behind in its wake.
There are far too many people out there who are being, and have been, seriously hurt by the activities of “some operators” in the building industry.
The law, and Australia’s last resort insurance schemes, offer consumers minimal protection if any at all in the end. It is the lawyers and insurers who win/profit(?).
Now the Senate looks like it wants to, or is likely to, or is going to, look the other way while unscrupulous and/or incompetent operators go on doing their worst work. Is this what voters expect? Another whitewash job?
Consumers have been making representations to this Inquiry but we (voters) are all left wondering just what it is consumers, their support organisations and principled builders, have to do to be taken seriously or to even be heard.
You just have to ask just, what is it that the good Senators looking into this whole mess believe will be a good outcome?
I write simply to draw your attention to this nonsense going on in Canberra, seemingly in Tasmania too and out there in the building industry, as it seems to have slipped under the media’s radar. You may publish any or all of the above if you wish but that is not my purpose in writing to you. I write simply to beg you to just give this fiasco some attention and to help keep these Senators (BASTARDS?) honest. And oh yes, what might the Tasmanian Brian Green Affair etc. have to do with any of this?
From where I sit I can see this whole affair delivering you quite a few “column inches.” I might be wrong!
Yours sincerely,
Jean Simmons
A Disillusioned Tasmanian Voter
PS: I have written along these lines to some Senators
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Subject: [Zebra Australia] Senate Inquiry Looks Like A Whitewash … http://zebraaustralia.blogspot.com/
The hyenas are probably laughing!
EXCLUSIVE: SOURCES close to the Senate Economics Committee Inquiry into the rort of Builders Warranty Insurance is nothing more than a whitewash.
PropertyReview.com.au confirmed last night that the Labor Party dominated inquiry into the Housing Industry and Vero Insurance controlled Builders Warranty Insurance is likely to find that the ‘Last Resort Insurance’ schemes should survive scrutiny despite being abandoned in Tasmania .
It still reigns supreme in the Labor Party states of New South Wales and Victoria .
“State Labor governments, the Rudd government are leaning heavily on the Senate Inquiry to support the farce of Builders Warranty Insurance,” one disgruntled Victorian Labor Party figure told PropertyReview.com.au late yesterday.
“The Senate Inquiry seems to be a farce,” he added.
The source revealed to PropertyReview.com.au that the Senate Inquiry and the Rudd government may have been influenced by self interest lobby groups.
In fact, on the Senate Inquiry website the Housing Industry Association have been allowed to write a privileged – totally scurrilous and defamatory response – to the Builders Collective submission to the Inquiry without fear of court action.
Consumer advocacy Choice in its recommendation to the Inquiry stated:
“Australian Governments should take early action to provide better and uniform protection for those who have a home built or renovated. Specifically, this should entail: ? Guaranteed access for consumers to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms ? Provision of greater scope to de-register builders who do not meet appropriate performance standards; and ? A revamping of compulsory builders’ warranty insurance to ensure that it is of genuine value to consumers and that consumers understand the product.”
In August 2004, Choice found warranty insurance basically junk insurance.
In fact, Choice stated:
“In August 2004 CHOICE Magazine investigated home warranty insurance. That investigation found that in most states mandatory insurance was unreasonably limited to circumstances where a builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent. CHOICE also found that the privatisation of home warranty insurance coupled with changes to the insurance market had whittled away many consumer protection measures.”
The HIA in their submission even bagged Choice as being: “It appears that Choice Magazine is not interested in providing a fully informed (let alone a balanced) view on this issue”.
It’s little wonder the cynics are already stating the Inquiry could prove a whitewash manipulated by self interest groups.
SOURCE: PropertyReview.com.au
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Posted By WATCHER #1 to Zebra Australia
And:
http://zebraaustralia.blogspot.com/2008/08/joke-insurance-no-comfort-for-claimants.html
