for many months i have watched the numbers of dead and injured grow steadily. at the moment you've got the blame game going on. abbott whilst a critic seems only to have woken up months after the casualty lists have started growing, garrett a minister and not an electrician has taken some very bad advice
management theory says this
when something happens that you don't understand and goes against your opinions, plans and ideologies..
1 do nothing
if that fails
2 deny anything is going wrong
if this can no longer be sustained
3 destroy or ignore those who deliver the message you don't want to hear and carry on as normal.
the roof insulation problem has come about for a few reasons
1 the way houses are wired up has and continues to be a problem, even new houses have cables running hither and thither across the beams physically unprotected. from an electrical view point cables need to be protected, the problem is the interpretation of the australian rules. the wiring rules say that hard wiring needs to be wired in such a way as to stop damage to people, livestock and property.
roof spaces that can be accessed, are, by the wiring rules, likely to have people clambering all over the cables snaking their way over the beams, vermin can attack the unprotected wiring etc.
electrical wiring, by rights, needs to be protected from physical damage eg heat, vermin etc. the problem is that for many years the wiring in the roof areas and walls of houses is/ have not been protected adequately from damage, well might you have RCDs protecting the circuits BUT RCDs are strictly plan B (the second line of defence of safety. by the way it is not uncommon for RCDs to fail , i come across them on a fairly regular basis) - thus with this in mind , physical protection of cables is critical for electrical safety.
with an eye to the future it might be suggested that all circuits in houses be housed in thick plastic conduit to stop damage to the cable and in some appropriate manner allow the heat in the conduit escape. if the individual circuits are housed in conduit (long plastic pipes where electrical cable is run) then little heat would be built up in the cabling (there are rules regarding cabling and the current it is allowed to carry in conduit). as long as people can access roof cavities cabling should be physically protected. at the moment few if any cables are adequately protected in houses - which means ANY development of the house has the potential for injury.
the wiring rules need to be changed so that ALL new houses have cabling run in conduit for its entire length (rigid pvc conduit is relatively cheap when bought in bundles as used by the construction industry).
until electrical cables are protected along their entire length we will see more deaths as the years go by.
2 the people installing the roof insulation have done no risk assessments. if they had followed the protocol no deaths would have occurred. its just not physically possible to inspect all electrical installations, like any law, it is only as effective as those people willing to follow it. speeding for example is illegal, you get fined and might in some cases be thrown in gaol for it. however despite the law people still speed despite taking driving lessons, buying licences and agreeing to follow the laws of the road. when someone speeds the minster for transport isn't taken to task and sacked because someone disobeyed the law by speeding, it is absurd to suggest otherwise. over the years many people have died despite many changes to the law - in reality like many things accountability and responsibility are incumbent on the individual. the reality is that roofing insulating companies have disobeyed the law and carried out no reasonable risk assessments - leading to the deaths of workers and injuries to customers.
3 governments are law making bodies not experts or people with particular knowledge on matters of science, technology and other related matters of the physical world. governments are political bodies, hence at a time when people are dying it makes good political sense to complain about these matters instead of finding solutions. the bush fires that killed nearly 200 people (for example) have reached no real conclusion except that it was very bad - the underlying causes have not been addressed and even if the causes might well be found, solutions are those are most expedient to those who make the decisions.
when faced with real world problems that cannot be solved by making many people employed or unemployed, playing with interest rates or creating new laws by the thousands - governments collapse. it becomes easier to create new taxes to tax global warming and the entire economy out of existence (the great big tax) or deny the problem exists in the first place (skeptophrenia).
in the case of roof insulation the dead started stacking up and the alarm bells woke no one including the opposition in parliament. when howard was in power few alarm bells could wake lord downer of baghdad (australia despite all evidence pursued a policy of war without examining any facts)
unless root causes are addressed the problem will cause more and more problems not only in the present but the future.
