Environment Minister Peter Garrett cannot be trusted to fix the mess he has made out of the troubled household insulation program, federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
By refusing to sack him, neither can Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he said.
The coalition is continuing to pressure the government on its bungled scheme, which has been put on the shelf following mounting criticism and the link to four deaths.
Mr Garrett on Sunday admitted he had only recently read a damning risk assessment sent to his department in April last year.
The report warned that lax controls could lead to fraud and criminal behaviour, inflated charges and ineligible people accessing the program.
It also said the federal environment department was ill-equipped to roll out the $2.5 billion program.
"It's absolutely inconceivable that a report that the minister himself commissioned was not actually seen by the minister until a fortnight ago," Mr Abbott told reporters on Monday.
"And if the minister and his department did know about his report - and it would be ineptitude on an extraordinary scale if they didn't - why didn't they act upon it."
He called for Mr Garrett's head based on "monumental incompetence which has led to tragedy".
Mr Abbott said voters wanted answers, adding that there was no timetable for fixing the program.
"You've got people living in houses that they fear might be deathtraps and the minister who created the problem is the minister who is now supposed to sort it out."
He tagged Mr Rudd "Prime Minister Blah Blah" for failing to act decisively.
Labor backbenchers were backing Mr Garrett on Monday.
Mike Symon said the department looked at dozens of reports before the program was rolled out.
"The advice is taken from it and it's then given to the minister," he said, adding that the deaths and fires were caused by shonky operators, not the scheme itself.
Sid Sidebottom refused to concede the government had been to slow to act, saying people were sick of the "media attack" on the minister and the "theatre of the politics".
"It's like any program, none is perfect, and where you see changes that's where you need to do that," he told reporters.
"Laying blame at the feet of particular people at the moment serves no good."
But Mr Abbott said the environment minister must be made accountable.
"I just don't think he can hide behind public servants."
Liberal frontbencher George Brandis said the prime minister should have sacked Mr Garrett a "very long time ago" because the minister had sat on the report for 10 months while 90 houses had burnt down.
"It's not the point that Mr Garrett couldn't personally supervise each insulation," he told reporters.
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham says he hopes a Senate inquiry hearing on Monday could provide clearer answers that Mr Garrett had so far failed to provide.
"We need straight answers from this government, rather than the type of cover-up that seems to have occurred to date," he said.
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