By looking at value for money in individual projects, do you mean an independant costing of every project? That cost would have been significant and I don't recall any governments going to that length to scrutinise their own spending programs. Please provide evidence if that's what you think is the norm.
Whiskers, you appear to have unlimited time to construct verbose and largely illogical posts. That's quite up to you. But if you imagine I'm going to trawl through the various media to find you verbatim quotes of the rorting, then you will be sorely disappointed.
To be candid, I'm now convinced you are just trolling. Your remarks don't demonstrate any genuine capacity to consider the realities.
I will just say two things:
There was a detailed report in "The Australian" a few weeks ago which quoted the costs for a considerable proportion (more than half) of the schools building as being
double per square metrefor a simple single storey hall or library compared to a
multi storey office block in the much more awkward building situation of a CBD, including elevators, multiple ablution facilities per floor etc etc..
I don't recall whether is was Gillard or someone else where I heard that 95% of school principals were relatively happy with the work they got.
Of course they're going to say that unless the outcome is really badly built. There is no suggestion that the actual buildings have been substandard, just that they are simply not value for our taxpayer dollars.
But, since 'value' is a rather subjective term, there is more than one way to ascertain whether there was widespread reckless or frauduland spending and the Auditor General found that 95% of School principals were relatively happy.
It's not subjective at all, if you simply compare cost per sq metre for like buildings.
The schools were not permitted to get their own quotes for what they wanted and were not permitted to ensure there was real value for money.
Instead large contracts to major construction firms were let. these firms building in various extra 'project fees' and similarly euphemistic terms to cover the excessive cost.
Some parent teacher associations raised strong objections but were overruled. It is, however, due to their persistence that any investigation at all is happening.
Given the hundreds of projects undertaken, the few bad one's I've seen are certainly bad, but certainly not an extreme number in the total scheme of things. As a mate of mine used to say, sometimes **** happens. I recall some departmental investigation was indicated re some of these cases. There may have even been some sackings or reallocation of duties and still time for fraud charges if applicable. Be a bit patient to let (or get involved in the process of) justice take it's course and see what eventually pans out.
Terrific, Whiskers. Let's just all sit back and smile, and say oh well it will all work out in the end! For god's sake, some of us actually care about how our tax dollars are spent, especially when we have people struggling to exist on miserable benefits, people who are homeless, who can't get a hospital bed etc. Where is your sense of priorities?
All true, the problem is every man and his dog ran out to become an batt installer. You also had guys start up as sole traders and had no experience except for a 2 week course (think it was that long?).
Ah moXJO, you exaggerate. The course was two whole days. I know this because one of the quotes I got came from a bloke who was a carpenter.
He said when he came to do the quote: "This is the easiest money I've ever made in my life, I'm just raking it in for doing next to nothing."
He went on to say that all he had to do was spend five minutes on the internet to register, go down to the Gold Coast and sit through people talking about insulation for two days, no questions asked at the end or assessment of the competence of the participating would-be installers, and off he went.
He came back and was able to employ as many additional installers as he wanted, none of whom were required to do the course or have any qualifications or experience. All was just okey dokey as long as he himself had done the two days.
He quoted 50% more than did the two long established firms from whom I also received quotes. Although I had no intention of using this shyster, I suggested he needed to reduce his quote to be more reasonable if he wanted the work. "Not on your life", he said, "I have as much work as I need at the price I'm charging".
So there you are, there's a first hand example of the sort of crap that has gone on.
And here's one more: I eventually decided I wouldn't have the insulation installed after all, so cancelled the arrangement I'd made with a well known national firm. To my amazement, several months later, a bunch of paper arrived in the mail, declaring that insulation was installed to the exact value of $1600 (the amount of the subsidy) in September at my address.
Would I please sign the attached form and return so they could claim from the government.
I reported this fraud to the government hotline, and guess what, Whiskers?
They just didn't want to know about it. Didn't want to take down the name of the firm or any other details. So much for the government wanting to know about any rorting.
So I sent the details to the Opposition. They were decidedly more interested.