Electricians Head Down Under

NAMES and contact details of home owners who installed roof insulation under the failed $2.45 billion stimulus program are being bought and sold for up to $100 each by entrepreneurs who profited from the Rudd government scheme and are now cashing in on the clean-up operation.

The government has offered to pay for safety checks of all 50,300 homes fitted with foil insulation, after it was discovered inept installers had caused some roofs to become electrified.

Electricians can bill up to $400 for each safety check, or more if they can justify the expense.

Last week, the government said it would also pay to remove foil or fit safety switches in all 50,300 homes because of ongoing safety risks. Electricians can bill the government for this work, which is expected to cost up to $1000 a home.

Queenslander entrepreneur Luke Cleeve saw an opportunity in the insulation scheme and has since turned his sights on the government's safety inspection program.

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Related Coverage

* New twist in insulation fiasco Courier Mail, 4 days ago
* Foil to be pulled from 50,000 homes Adelaide Now, 4 days ago
* Combet to remove foil insulation The Australian, 4 days ago
* Combet to strip foil from 50,000 homes The Australian, 4 days ago
* Ease of rorts shocked insulation installers The Australian, 9 days ago

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Mr Cleeve has been offering installers $60 to $75 a name for their customer lists and then on-selling those details to electrical contractors. However, he said he believed there was nothing wrong with the practice.

"I saw an opportunity," he told The Australian.

"There's a need for these leads right now. I can't see anything illegal about obtaining a database."

Mr Cleeve set up an insulation business, Green Easy, last August. He began by importing insulation and selling it to installers, before branching out into arranging installations for homes.

The 30-year-old said he made a $40,000 loss after the scheme was suspended last month, leaving him with $180,000 of products.

He said he hoped to recoup some of those losses by acting as a "middle man" for electricians working to fix issues caused by inexperienced installers.

Mr Cleeve told one insulation installer his company could deliver as many as 1000 inspections a week but, yesterday, he told The Australian that figure was probably too high.

He said all the electricians to whom he sold the client lists were above board.

Greg Combet, the minister charged with responsibility for the insulation scheme after Environment Minister Peter Garrett was demoted, said yesterday he did not approve of operators buying and selling client lists. "The government does not support this," Mr Combet said.

"I have asked the department for advice about whether there are any privacy issues that need to be considered."

Mr Cleeve said he had legal advice that the practice did not breach privacy law.

Evidence of the practice came to light as it emerged that thousands of Australians who received free insulation could be left without home insurance.

The opposition has received complaints that insurance companies are refusing to offer policies to householders who obtained insulation unless their homes had passed a safety check.

The government has so far committed to inspecting only 150,000 homes with non-foil insulation. It has said it would inspect more of the 1.1 million homes insulated under its botched program, if necessary.

Shirley Mansell, 75, recently took advantage of the government's free offer to have the two homes on her rural property insulated with batts.

She told The Australian that when she tried to have the properties insured with the NRMA, including for fire, she was told she would either have to have a certificate signed by a qualified electrician, at her expense, that the insulation was safe or be subject to the government's proposed audit of at-risk homes.

She said that when she rang the government's hotline, she was told that only 15 per cent of homes would be subject to a random audit, meaning she could be left with an electrician's inspection bill. With her insurance up for renewal, Mrs Mansell said the NRMA told her it could not insure the two houses for fire as it would not cover the government-installed batts.

"I can't afford the cost of this inspection and I don't believe I should have to pay for an inspection of the batts when it's the government that's created the uncertainty which has caused insurance companies to demand inspections," she said.

Mrs Mansell said she rang the government hotline and was told that she was only one of so many in this exact position and that the department had applied for her to be on the list.

"I was told that that although I'm elderly, isolated, have medical problems -- I can't move too fast -- all the department could do was put me on a waiting list," she said.

A spokesman for the NRMA sad it was not the policy of the company to ask questions about the installation policy as part of any risk-assessment process. But he said he would have to check the details of the case today.

Revelations about the inspections came as the parents of Matthew Fuller, who was electrocuted while installing insulation, accused the government of gross mismanagement.