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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
O/N H-384300
MR I. HANGER AM QC, Commissioner
ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE
HOME INSULATION PROGRAM
BRISBANE
9.33 AM, MONDAY, 19 MAY 2014
Continued from 16.5.14
DAY 36
MR K.N. WILSON QC appears with MR J.R. HORTON as counsel assisting
MR T. HOWE QC appears with MR D. O’DONOVAN for the Commonwealth of Australia
MR T. BRADLEY QC appears with MS A.J. COULTHARD for the State of Queensland
MS L. CARROLL appears for the family of Matthew Fuller and the siblings of Rueben Barnes
MR M. WINDSOR QC appears with MS K. O’GORMAN for Peter Stewart and 32 others
MR D. BARROW appears with MS C. HUNTER for Jessica Wilson on behalf of the family of Marcus Wilson
MR W.M. POTTS appears with MR A. HANLON for Murray Barnes
MR S. KEIM QC appears for the family of Mitchell Sweeney
MR I. HARVEY appears for Mike Mrdak
MS C. DUNLOP appears for Martin Bowles
MR P.W. EVANS appears for Malcolm Richards
Copyright in Transcript is owned by the Commonwealth of Australia. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 you are not permitted to reproduce, adapt, re-transmit or distribute the Transcript material in any form or by any means without seeking prior written approval.
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COMMISSIONER: Yes, Mr Wilson.
MR WILSON: Commissioner, the first witness today is Mr Martin Bowles.
COMMISSIONER: Good morning, Mr Bowles.
MR BOWLES: Good morning.
<MARTIN BOWLES, SWORN [9.33 am]
<EXAMINATION-IN-CHIEF BY MR WILSON
MR WILSON: Is your name Martin Bowles?
THE WITNESS: Yes, it is.
MR WILSON: Have you provided a statement to the Commission dated 23 April 2014?
THE WITNESS: 22 April, I believe.
MR WILSON: I saw that’s the date on the front and you’ve signed it on the 23rd.
THE WITNESS: I signed it on the 23rd. That’s correct.
MR WILSON: You’ve got a copy there obviously with you.
THE WITNESS: I have.
MR WILSON: I just wanted to ask you a few questions about the statement, Mr Bowles. You took up your position as Deputy Secretary of what I might call the Department of Climate Change for ease on 22 February 2010. Is that – that’s the case
THE WITNESS: That’s correct.
MR WILSON: Now, shortly after that, you refer in paragraphs 3.56 and following to a meeting that you attended shortly after your appointment. Can I ask you so far as the people from the people of environment who attended that meeting, do you recall the names of any?
THE WITNESS: I recall there’s probably around 20 to 25 people there. I think the only person I can recall might have been Malcolm Thompson who was a Deputy
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Secretary at the time. There were probably others but it was basically my first day in the job and I was trying to understand what I was being tasked to do.
MR WILSON: It’s just that you say in paragraph 3.5 it was all the players who had been involved from the Department of Environment. It was probably a selection of them.
THE WITNESS: There probably would have been a number of different people but I just can’t recall the specific names at this stage.
MR WILSON: And so far as you’re aware, were people who had left the Department invited back to attend that meeting?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I think not necessarily left the Environment Department but I think Mike Mrdak, who was the Coordinator-General, he had – I think at that stage had left that role and was – was the Secretary of Transport and I think he was at that meeting as well, from memory.
MR WILSON: Yes. Do you recall if a gentleman named Kevin Keeffe was there?
THE WITNESS: I don’t believe so but I – to be honest, I can’t recall because Kevin Keeffe, I think, had left
MR WILSON: He had left the federal government.
THE WITNESS: He had left the Environment Department and was working somewhere else. I don’t believe he was there but I didn’t know all the players around the table at that stage so I can’t really comment any further.
MR WILSON: A lady named Beth – either Riordan or Brunoro?
THE WITNESS: I, again, can’t recall.
MR WILSON: And a gentleman named William Kimber. They’re the three that I particularly wanted to ask about.
THE WITNESS: I cannot recall any of those people. I’m aware of some of the names but on that Sunday – as I said, day 1, effectively – I can’t recall whether they were in the room or not. They could have been but I just can’t recall who was there.
MR WILSON: And in terms of enabling you to familiarise yourself with what you were going to do, were you given any departmental files or documents to bring you up to speed?
THE WITNESS: Once I took over the role, obviously, there was a range of documents that I had access to that came across to the – I was moving into the Climate Change and Energy Efficiency at that stage so there was a range of
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documents. Whether that was at a full set at that stage, probably not but over the next weeks and months, I did get access to whatever I needed to that was available. I have to say it probably wasn’t everything that I could definitely – because my job was going forward. It wasn’t so much going back.
MR WILSON: Yes. I will just interrupt you there, Mr Bowles, because I’ve overlooked my learned friend at the end there.
COMMISSIONER: I’m sorry.
MS DUNLOP: Certainly. My name is Catherine Dunlop. I’m here to assist Mr Bowles. I’m not seeking a formal representation role.
COMMISSIONER: Thank, Ms Dunlop.
MS DUNLOP: Thank you.
MR WILSON: Sorry, for that.
MS L. CARROLL: Commissioner, for the record, my name is Carroll, spelt C-a-r-r-o-l-l, initial L. I appear on behalf of the Fuller family and the siblings of Rueben Barnes in the absence of Mr Perry and Mr Anderson today.
COMMISSIONER: Thank you.
MR WILSON: Just coming back, then, to that line of questioning, Mr Bowles. In order to go forward, did you feel you needed to understand what had gone wrong or was it simply a case that the program was finished and now it was a matter of taking remediation steps?
THE WITNESS: It was probably a mixture of both. I needed to have some understanding of what had happened but I didn’t have to go into the intricacies of the program, albeit I did try and gain some knowledge to learn lessons. So as we went forward with the remediation program, the same issues weren’t, you know, done again, basically.
MR WILSON: And one of those – this is jumping ahead a bit but one of those would presumably be only to get people to do work under the remediation programs who are qualified and trained to do that work. Is that
THE WITNESS: That – that’s correct.
MR WILSON: Just turning to paragraph 3.6 of your statement, you just refer there to:
At the meeting, some views were expressed as to why the HIP had to be discontinued.
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Were they views expressed by people from within the Department or from higher levels of government?
THE WITNESS: Recalling the meeting as a number of years ago now but all of the different groups – so there was the Department, there was people from PM&C, from memory, and obviously Mr Combet and some of his staff. The issue was mainly from trying to get a bit of knowledge from all of the different perspectives on what had actually happened and leading up to the discontinuation of the program on 19 February. So it was a range of views across different agencies, from memory.
MR WILSON: And this again skips ahead a little bit but was any consideration given to reviving the program albeit with a lesser range of approved materials to be used?
THE WITNESS: I’m not sure at that meeting we necessarily got into any discussion around what a future would be. There was discussion, from memory, around putting an insulation component into the renewable energy bonus scheme. Whether that was discussed at that meeting or not, I can’t recall.
MR WILSON: At that meeting, a number of former – sorry, I will ask again. At that meeting, those people who attended who had been in the Department of Environment, had they been moved across to the Department of Climate Change under the machinery of government provisions?
THE WITNESS: At that stage, no. The machinery of government happened on 8 March so it was about a week or so later and then there were – anyone who effectively was working in either the home insulation part of that business or the energy efficiency part were machinery of government moved into Climate Change, which became Climate Change and Energy Efficiency from that point in time.
MR WILSON: And did you form any view as to the – I’m thinking of the word to use – the state of those staff in terms of their levels of anger, stress – whatever?
THE WITNESS: Obviously, over the first number of weeks and months, I did form views that there was probably a very high level of stress amongst the staff. Anger I don’t think is probably a term I would use.
MR WILSON: No. I invite you to put the description on it.
THE WITNESS: Yes. No. I think there was stress. There was definitely a lot of work that we had to go forward with. There was a lot of work that they were doing. They were – you know, they were trying to do, I think, their best in the circumstances they had and – yes. So I’m not sure I would describe it as anger but there was definitely stress – definitely stress.
MR WILSON: Was there an incidence of people leaving work because of stress-related conditions?
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THE WITNESS: My understanding is yes, there had been from my recollection. And even if we fast forward into the work we did, there were some pretty stressful circumstances and I would suggest people probably also left during my tenure there because of the stress of the circumstances.
MR WILSON: Now, could I bring you back, then, to the statement and to paragraph 3.9 on the second page. You say you immersed yourself in the details to understand as much as you could. Sitting there now, did you form any views as to the way in which the HIP was designed?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes, I did.
MR WILSON: Just so you know, I’m going to ask you about designed and implemented.
THE WITNESS: Design and implementation?
MR WILSON: So I’m asking you first about design.
THE WITNESS: I did but, obviously, I’ve been able to reflect while having a think about appearing here today but equally back then, I had to try and understand, I suppose, what had happened in its broadest sense because my job wasn’t really to go back and deal with the design of the program. It was about how do I actually design a remediation program but I did need to reflect on some of those issues at the time.
MR WILSON: So as you did that, did you come to any views about the design of the program?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I did in the broader sense. I think there were changes in the design of the program from when it started out, effectively in its first phase, which was the rebate to the homeowner. I think probably the most significant change was the change to a payment to suppliers versus the rebate to the home owner. I think that was probably the most significant change in design, from my perspective.
COMMISSIONER: Mr Bowles, just dwelling on that – and this might be a matter of common sense, you know, for any of us, but if you have the home owner making a contribution, as they were under the old system, $400-odd, aren’t they going to be more conscientious about making sure the job is done properly and that they – you know, that it’s all done properly, whereas if it’s all free, then perhaps they don’t care.
THE WITNESS: Yes. From a personal perspective, Commissioner, I believe absolutely if there is money coming out of your pocket, you’re going to be a little bit more conscious, I suppose, of what’s actually happening.
COMMISSIONER: Yes.
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THE WITNESS: I mean, it’s a – it’s quite a fascinating area, you know, because I had no experience in this base before I got into this role, but from my perspective it probably did mean, once we moved away from a rebate type system to a payment to an installer, that the home owner was getting a free good, therefore it probably took – in the main, probably took less interest, if you like, in what was happening.
COMMISSIONER: Yes. Thank you.
MR WILSON: And did you form any views about the way in which the program had been implemented?
THE WITNESS: I suppose, I can only really go on what I saw in developing the remediation programs. So, reflecting back, I think from an implementation perspective, there could have been a better focus on governments and the issues associated with accountability and the like around that. It’s very hard for me to say a lot about what happened in those days, because I wasn’t there.