Confusion Over Change To ‘Green Start’ From Green Loans..
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July 22, 2010Minister Penny Wong has announced an overhaul for the troubled Green Loans program. A new grants-based Greens Start program will be rolled out in response to flaws detected.
“The new program will be conducted in two stages. Stage one will see accredited individual assessors and/or assessment organisations being awarded grants to conduct energy efficiency assessments on households.
Stage two will call for proposals from community and welfare sector Non Government Organisations and other organisations to provide details about how low-income and disadvantaged Australians can improve their energy efficiency.”www.ecogeneration.com.au.
Confusion About Trained Environmental Assessors
Clearly the thousands of assessors who have paid for their training, accreditation and tools under Green Loans want to know how much work will be available and whether it will pay compensation to those left with no work.
Association of Building Sustainability Assessors chairman Wayne Floyd says he supports the new scheme, which would fund household energy assessments in a more rigorous way than the previous program, but environmental assessors have been badly affected.
It is possible there will be ‘follow-up action’ over alleged staff corruption.
“This [Green Start] scheme will be of particular benefit to low-income households, who spend a greater proportion of their incomes on energy consumption than high-income households” says Penny Wong.
For more info – the media release from Penny Wong.
10 Comments
Got to laugh over on the ABSA forum these highly four day trained Home Energy Assessors are tendering for assessments at $300.00 a home.
Our “dream home” was actually assessed by 3 young people: We built the home north facing, concrete slab, windows open to drafts and catching as much sun as I could afford, low energy materials, but were asked “are the windows double glazed?”: they could not count lights correctly, had no idea of magnetic induction stoves, arrived in an old gas guzzling loud lowered holden, in short they were idiots – and I wasted my time showing them the design features I had designed or built for. It should be a great idea unfortunately the people doing the job are not the Penny Wongs of this world, they are individuals intent on getting the best for themselves.
Robert my husband is an assessor and he receives $220 per assessment (including GST) out of that he is then paying someone $45 per assessment to actually find clients as he tried finding clients himself to no avail…there is not much in it for customers – even when he offered a gift voucher out of the money he would receive from doing the assessment people did not want them. He has been doing it since December and is yet to recover loss of income (income he would have received if he had a full time job) and he is even yet to recover the expenses of running the business.
Michael = The training is poor – my husband spent months studying up on what he could after doing the training course because he did not feel like he learnt enough. Also you’ll find the genuine assessors even if they would like to be able to drive more energy efficient cars and have more energy efficient equipment in their own homes they cannot afford it due to the mismanagement of this whole program. It is really a joke.
Michael – I would’ve loved to assess your house and see the ideas you have implemented. I think the government got the scheme completely wrong once they allowed anyone to become a green loans assessor. I completed a four day training course when they first came out and to gain acceptance into the course you had to prove competancy in the areas of sustainability and/or building design. Eg: engineering, building,electrical, plumbing trade work experience, architecture etc. This was to show that you had some background knowledge in the area, at the very least you to a genuine interest in energy efficency/efficient house design/water efficiency.
This is why the level of pay was at a fairly high rate of 200.00 per asssessment as to encourage qualified people to become assessors without suffering a loss of pay and to make a real difference at the grass roots level.
By allowing unqualified people to do the assessments they were so many flow on effects eg: Computer program gave reccomendations, rather than original idea of assessors giving the reccomendations with reasons and evidence to support reccomendations. Nearly every report I did I had to misrepresent the information to get the computer program to give the recommendations that I knew were suitable.
The real power of the green loans program was to allow people with a passion for efficiency and sustainability into the houses of everyday aussies and have a conversation to them about what they could do to make there household more efficient.
In my experience so many assessors were greenbook checklist tickers who had no interest or knowledge in home design or efficiency and were attracted to the program by the lucrative 200.00 per assessment.
I had an assessor come to assess my house who had absolutely no idea what he was doing and actually giving out incorrect information (didn’t no the difference between solar power and solar hot water!) and the report I recieved was just hogwash and in no way relevant to my house.
He was in and out in thirty minutes on a two storey property!I complained to ABSA and DEWHA but to nothing happened.
These are the sort of people who the goverment and ABSA have allowed to operate to detriment of legitiment assessors like Chantelle’s husband.
In my opinion through bad implementation and scrapping the original competency interviews for people with no trade experience or qualifications, the program was doomed to fail and many of the experienced people who were originally attracted to the program as a chance to share their knowledge such as myself just couldn’t make a living due to poor choice of unsuitable people and just as importantly unsuitable training organisations (I won’t start on those or more already novel sized vent will double)ruining what could’ve been a wonderful program.
Thankyou for the chance to vent!
Chantelle re the $45.00 to chase leads is this done via an Overseas telemarketer?
I still think this new Industry needs to go private and not rely on the Goverment!
Alex, next time you are near mount white just a little north of Sydney, heres an invite….we can vent together!
I left the mining industry to become a assessor only to find out after completing 15 homes that it was “in a mess” I had trouble getting paid, spent thousands on advertising, fuel, phone calls ect ect.
I have now had to go back to the mining sector to pay my bills ?
So I now see that it is called a new name and I have to fill out more paperwork, pay more fees ect ect.
Thanks heaps for the complete waste of my time, money and dreams.
Sorry, but just not good enough
I put in a tender for the GS. I am an assessor for the GL. I hav sorced my own work, and have done quite OK working away well within the guidelines and made sure my clients did get useful info.
What concerns me is that I have already had multiple calls from OS tele operators promising leads for GS (which it clearly states is not allowed). However, in the interim, until contracts have been accepted, there is nothing stopping the gathering of names. How is this right? I have been also contacted by companies looking to include my name and HO number in their bid so they can cover my area (after the submission date!!). “How?” I asked “we just put in a national tender and now we will find the assessors”
How can the independants possibly compete against that? It was supposed to be designed to support regional and remote areas but there is no requirement for the assessor to live any where near that area so the gates were opened for these national tenders by every man and his dog.
Honestly, it seems little was learnt by the mistakes of the GL program. Like I said, I did put in a tender for GS but I feel the invitation of independant operators to submit is merely lip service and will be extremely surprised if there is any other result other than a few companies getting national or state based tenders. It will prove easier for the govt to manage a few entities than many, who cares the quality that the HH sees?
I think it will be a long time for this industry to recover any credibility and I say good luck to all those currently undergoing tertiary education as I think you are going to need it in the years to come. The public has a long memory and dispises wasted money.
Mick how did the OS tele operators get your details is there a leak in the ABSA ship ?
Whoopsie here we go again I feel! As many independent assessors have said so many times, why does the Govt. never learn. I could not agree more with the feeling that this Green [Not] Smart idea is just another re-wrapped GLP. Ready for another Field Farce to take control. Why did the initial interest of would be assessors with a trade, fade away? Sorry P platers, but if you are employed to install insulation by the FAT CATS and run all over the place, leaving a state of disarray, I would never trust you in anyone’s home. The Green Smart should have just been offered to independent assessors. Personally if I see a grant arrive in the PO Box I will take a day off. Drive to my coconut shy range and enjoy knocking off a few Garretts. If you did miss the enquiry into the GLP, then it is all on the GLPAssessor.