The Home Insulation Program Policy Debacle: Haste Makes Waste

Abstract

The Rudd government's Home Insulation Program (HIP) is widely recognised as a significant policy failure. By reference to standard texts on Australian public policy, this article argues that the HIP debacle owed much to the government's determination to implement a program speedily without adequate planning or consultation. Although the HIP was part of an economic stimulus package to address declining private sector activity resulting from the global financial crisis, the program's effectiveness was significantly diminished owing to insufficient attention to good public policy recommendations that would have enhanced the HIP's potential success Show more