Green Loans in limbo

To extend the program ever further, DEWHA is implementing a cap of 15,000 assessments a week, with individual HSAs capped at three assessments in any one day and five in any given week. Given that there are 600,000 bookings to go around, that means the program will run for at least another 40 weeks - or until the end of November 2010. Since there are already 7,000 accredited HSAs (as of February 12, 2010) - the 2000 applications in the pipeline notwithstanding - each one will conduct an average of about two assessments per week, for $400 of take-home pay.

To fix the problem created by the previous solution, DEWHA proposes to restrict the number of HSAs under contract to 5,000, give or take 1,200. HSA numbers already far exceed this, and it is not clear what will happen to those who don't make the cut (and a press release wouldn't hazard such a guess about such a thorny issue, naturally). These numbers would still only mean three assessments a week, on average, for a gross income of about $30,000 per annum.

The ultimate lunacy, though - so far - is that to make way for the funds to perform these addition assessments, the actual green loans are being scrapped. Yes, the Green Loans program - conceived to help people adjust to more environmentally-friendly lifestyles by lending them easy money - is breaking free from its eponymous but somehow "less popular" burden. What reason remains for a householder to get an assessment? Even if you can put up with someone like me spending two hours in your house pointing out everything that's wrong with it, the up-front funding to fix those shortcomings isn't there any more.

Besides, one can't really be sure that the lack of popularity of the loans is even real. If there are assessment reports outstanding since October all over the country, the supposed unpopularity of the loans might well be nothing more than an inefficiency of the mechanism that finalises the reports. If GLP Assessor's figures are to be believed, 85 per cent of those householders waiting for assessment reports are considering the loan; and if those figures aren't to be believed, they're certainly high enough to warrant a second look elsewhere.

ABSA has also issued a press release welcoming the changes to the Green Loans program, but not without its own signs of frustration. ABSA Chairman Wayne Floyd confirmed in the press release the warning from August 2009 about the impending flood of trained assessors, and confirmed the glaring lack of a decision about what would happen to the trained and accredited HSAs who would be denied DEWHA contracts. Interestingly, the press release welcomed the funding for the extra 600,000 assessments, but made no mention whatsoever of the suspension of the green loans themselves. With five times as many assessors as predicted, and with no need to keep a kitty aside for the actual loans, where do they think the money for the extra assessments has come from?

Assessors in limbo

So where does that leave the poor sole assessor? Or, indeed, the poor sole yet-to-be-contracted-to-DEWHA assessor?

The short answer is still, sadly, exactly wherever they were. The booking call centre was taken off-line entirely on Friday and may remain closed for a few days. Even if I receive news of my contract application to DEWHA, I won't be able to get started on any assessments. (Still, at least I won't be waiting on the phone all day to figure that out for myself.) DEWHA is supposed to be getting back to me about the contract in the next week, but they may just have been holding off while they finalised all of these "significant changes".

As usual, the voice with the greatest degree of sanity is coming from the Australian Greens. Senator Christine Milne has been issuing press releases of her own, criticising "maladministration" by the leadership of the Green Loans program and wondering, as I am, what will happen to the little guys who have been swept up in this mess. You can see a video of her addressing the Senate about the program here.

Most interestingly, Sustainability Assessors Australia is considering a class-action lawsuit against DEWHA. SAA claims that the government has misled the general public about the program, consequently leaving a lot of people thousands of dollars out of pocket. GLP Assessor is watching this development with a great deal of interest. If there are other HSAs struggling with this, there's plenty of material to read while they sit at their desks pressing redial.

The political attitude

In a previous post on my blog on the trials and tribulations of becoming a HSA, I already touched on the bigger picture. People are deeply concerned about environmental issues, and we all want to do our part to help. Suddenly, an entire new industry appears, with exciting job prospects and the promise of environmentally-friendly milk and honey. (Well, maybe just honey.)

However, the government, especially at a federal level, is comprised of followers, not leaders. The Green Loans program is merely a toe, dipped in by a government long ago convinced by the bigger boys that the water's too cold for a swim. Its worldview is one of abundance, where nothing matters other than the road onward and upward, lined with a lifestyle that gets more affluent and therefore easier and more pleasant. Ordinary people would be fortunate not to be so greedy, or so complacent.

As I said before, it would be an even greater shame if the green-collar industry became something of a taboo before it even got off the ground. Here lie any number of untapped opportunities to teach us how to do more with less - in preparation for having to do less with even less in the longer term. For now, though, it seems that Mr Garrett only wants more. I don't know why: he can't like what he's got. Perhaps he thinks he can handle a bit more. Personally, I wouldn't be so confident.

Even so, would it be so bad if he did step down as Minister? We saw with Andrew McNamara - the former Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Innovation and Climate Change - that even the purest idealism and the best intentions are drowned out by the noise of the clunky old government machine, but now that he's not in politics, he can speak and act as he chooses instead of toeing the party line. I can't imagine Mr Garrett doesn't understand this and didn't see it coming. If he does resign, though, maybe he'll get the band back together - and go back to doing something respectable, instead of politics.