Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenGum
Spexx, I'm scared by Peter Garret's dancing. He's now a (junior) federal minister, despite having been in charge of the most bungled of our stimulus projects.
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I was talking to someone who works for the state gov., but in that industry (i.e. environmental engineer putting together policy and projects for encouraging the masses to use their electricity more wisely). His take on it was that the insulation industry are basically cowboys and always have been and that this is well known and the scheme basically gave them carta blanche to do whatever they felt like.
Now, this one I'm not sure about, but I thought I also heard that there were concerns prior to the whole thing blowing up (i.e. people dying when installing insulation) and Peter Garrett flagged them and was shouted down. In short, this last paragraph basically ends up being political gossip, so until we've verified the truth of it, no constructive comment can really be made.
On a personal level, I wonder for Peter Garrett if it would have been better to gracefully retire from the role he had as frontman of Midnight Oil - the music was just a sideline really, from what I can see, it was getting their message out that was the most important thing for them-and perhaps go and work for an NGO, rather than become involved in government. As much as I agree with Zen on this point, I hope that people do remember Peter Garrett for more than the insulation bungle because Midnight Oil were hugely influential in bringing issues like Aboriginal Land Rights into the public consciousness in a way that a talk fest never could have done.