Pink Batts disaster invoked over Albanese government's $2.3 billion solar batteries installation scheme

Sky News AU

14-06-2025

Labor's $2.3 billion bid to cut the price of solar battery installation has sparked fears of another disastrous situation like the Rudd government's Pink Batts scheme where four men died doing installation work.
Join SkyNews.com.au to watch the full interview on Business Weekend at 11am (AEST).
The Albanese government claims it will cut the price of battery installation by 30 per cent through its major rebate geared at bolstering the nation's renewables shift.
It has rekindled memories of Labor's Pink Batts scheme under former prime minister Kevin Rudd's Home Energy Efficiency Program where young, inexperienced installers were not protected and died on the job.
A Royal Commission found the deaths of the young men would not have happened if the scheme was properly designed and implemented.
Industrias Services Group CEO Daniel Lazarus has invoked the horror scheme just weeks ahead of Labor rolling out the new rebates.
'We've audited thousands and thousands of systems and batteries across the country over the last ... 12 months and I've seen a material amount of these batteries and solar systems, which are either substandard or a small percentage of being unsafe,' Mr Lazarus said on Sky News' Business Weekend.
'Even that small percentage of unsafe systems is big enough to create real worries about what the scheme might do with the tidal wave of what's going to happen around all these installs.'
He noted the design of the installation program was currently 'sound' and stressed that he was confident around industry standards, but warned Aussies would take advantage of the huge swath of rebates.
'The problem is with this huge influx of rebate schemes,' Mr Lazarus said.
'What will happen with the inevitable influx that will come within the industry to take advantage and what are they going to do to try and maximise the rebate that they obtain?
'How will they take advantage or at least avoid dodging a lot of these elements that are required to receive the rebate, that being standards?'
Despite protocols and standards that arose since the Royal Commission into the Pink Batts scheme, there remains a lack of key inspection mandates across the country, Mr Lazarus cautioned.
'What we're really advocating to industry is around how do you make it such that either all systems, or at least the majority of systems, installed by every installer that's taking advantage of this rebate scheme, is getting physically inspected,' he said.
The rebates under the Pink Batts scheme led to the number of businesses in the installation sector rising from 200 to more than 8000.
It was originally meant to run for five years but finished after just one year and about 30 per cent of inspected installations in 2010 were found to have faulty craftsmanship or to be unsafe.
Mr Lazarus said while there were a few fatalities, alongside less than 100 fires, it would only take a small number of incidents to destroy the whole scheme.
'The last thing that I want to see is a scheme like this which is meant for specific homeowners and the distribution of energy to be called off early,' he said.
Labor said it expects to deliver more than one million batteries under its scheme.