(Transcripts from SBS World News Radio)
A Royal Commission has concluded the former Labor government's Home Insulation Scheme was fundamentally flawed, and deaths associated with it could have been avoided.
Tabling the report in parliament, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has blamed what he calls the Rudd government's "dysfunctional culture".
Thea Cowie reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Fundamentally flawed, rushed and unregulated - they're just some of the criticisms levelled at the so-called "Pink Batts" program in the Royal Commission report.
The $2.8 billion scheme began in February 2009 and was designed to stimulate the economy during the global financial crisis.
It was terminated a year later following hundreds of house fires, and the deaths of four installers, three from electrocution and one from heat exhaustion.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says some good should come out of the report into a bad scheme.
"I hope that this report brings some comfort to everyone affected. The report's findings are grave and its recommendations are detailed. It details a litany of failures arising from a dysfunctional culture."
Mr Abbott says the government will provide a preliminary response to the report by the end of the month, and a final response by the end of the year.
"The Government's response will focus on ensuring that such a catastrophic policy failure never happens again. I thank the Royal Commissioner, and his staff, for their work. I particularly thank the victims' families who shared their anguish with the Commission. (hear, hear)"
The Royal Commission's brief was to examine how the Labor government assessed workplace health and safety risks of the program, and whether warnings were dealt with adequately.
In the report, author Ian Hanger says the installers would not have died if the program had been properly designed and implemented.
"The reality is that the Australian government conceived of, devised, designed and implemented a program that enabled very large numbers of inexperienced workers - often engaged by unscrupulous and avaricious employers or head contractors, who were themselves inexperienced in insulation installation - to undertake potentially dangerous work."
The report finds the Rudd government failed to identify and manage the risk of injury or death for installers, and was too slow in making changes to the program after the death of the first installer.
Other conclusions are that the government relaxed the training requirements; planning was sacrificed for speed; and the environment department was ill-equipped to deal with such a large, complex program.
Labor's legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus says there's nothing new in the costly, 361 page report.
"We've expressed concern at all times that that $20 million, or perhaps more, needed to produce an outcome - something of use. That's why I started today by saying we very much hope that the families of the four installers who died will take some comfort from this exercise, because at the moment it doesn't appear that the report, despite its length, has really advanced much beyond what was already known at the end of the eight previous inquiries."
The report calls for the establishment of a new law to penalise companies that defraud government programs.
The inquiry heard evidence that $24 million worth of fraudulent claims against the insulation program were written off by the then government.
Labor Leader Bill Shorten says it is not the time for a political fight.
"If there are lessons in this report which can improve safety so that other families never have to go through this again, then we will approach that appropriately. We're up for any improvements we can make to safety, and the lessons. We're not up for a political blame game."
In May, former prime minister Kevin Rudd told the commission he accepted ultimate responsibility for the program's failings.
But he did not accept that burden alone.
He said former Labor environment minister Peter Garrett, parliamentary secretary Mark Arbib and numerous public servants all had duties to monitor certain issues.
