Inquiry will investigate claims the Rudd government’s economic stimulus program was rushed, without due regard for safety

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The royal commission into Labor’s botched home insulation scheme, which has been blamed for four deaths, will begin hearing evidence in Brisbane on Monday.



Queenslanders Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes and Mitchell Sweeney, and Marcus Wilson, from New South Wales, died while installing insulation under the former Labor government’s scheme.

The $2.8bn stimulus program, launched in early 2009 during the global financial crisis, has also been linked to at least one serious injury and hundreds of house fires.

The $25m inquiry will investigate claims the economic stimulus program was rushed, without due regard for safety.

A Queensland coroner last year found haste was a significant factor in the Queensland deaths.

Lawyer Bill Potts is representing Murray Barnes, the father of 16-year-old installer Rueben Barnes. He wants to take key former ministers to task over their roles in the program.

Rueben Barnes was electrocuted while laying batts in the ceiling of a house at Stanwell, Queensland, just three weeks after he began working for an insulation company.

Potts has told the ABC he wants to cross-examine the former Labor minister Peter Garrett, and other key figures including the former prime minister Kevin Rudd and former treasurer Wayne Swan.

He said he wanted to establish “the thinking behind the government and the need to rush this out in circumstances where it appears that safety was not in the forefront, but speed was”.

The public hearings begin at 9.30am on Monday in Brisbane magistrates court and are expected to last up to five weeks.

Ian Hanger, AM, QC, has been appointed royal commissioner.

A report of his findings and recommendations is expected by 30 June.

Labor frontbencher Penny Wong hasn’t been asked to appear at a hearing but said she was happy to assist the commission.



“The key issue here is to ensure that the commission focuses on what’s important, which is workplace safety,” she told ABC Radio on Monday. “We saw some dreadful incidences of a lack of workplace safety and we saw some very tragic results as a consequence.”

She criticised the decision of the present attorney general, George Brandis, to grant the commission access to cabinet documents, overturning a century of tradition.



Anthony Albanese, also a cabinet minister in the previous Labor government, said the workplace safety issue was critical.



“There have been a number of inquiries already, including the coroner’s inquiry in Queensland that was very comprehensive,” Albanese said.