We might have this as a regular beginning of the week feature – what stories did various PR people try to bury in the tail end of the news cycle over this last weekend? What are they hoping that we won’t talk about this week because “it’s old news” now?
What blog posts have you already written/read on these stories?
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Thus is one that was apparently buried in the back pages of the SMH. ABC2, of all places, brought it to public attention this morning.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/abbott-looks-like-electoral-road-kill-20100405-rn6f.html
Paul Burns: I would scarcely call a page one pointer and page 4 as “buried on the back pages of the SMH”. That comment sounds like spin.
Here’s one from last Thursday – Henry doubts humans can save their environment – that not only dead-airs Henry’s criticism of current climate change attitudes and policy on the day before Good Friday, but also almost entirely buries this lede:
There’s quite a nice explication of the tragedy of the commons and the free-rider problem in there too.
Another article in the Herald Sun from last Wednesday points out that the Productivity Commission study was only done to fulfil a condition required by Nick Xenophon before he voted to support the govt’s stimulus package last year. Trying to bury the report from a study that the govt didn’t want to happen just before a long holiday + school holidays combo is a classic.
It’s not that it didn’t get reported, it’s just that most of the headlines were taken up with bad stories from a long way away and fun stories about what everybody should be spending their money on over the long weekend, so this story was well “below the fold”. Just as the govt expected it would be.
What about this one. Released on Thursday. Very convenient of course because there isnt any newspapers on Good Friday!!!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/01/2861889.htm?section=justin
I heard in the last 1-2 days before the vewwy vewwy quiet weekend the vewwy vewwy quiet news that Greg Combet has asked Rudd for more time to re-launch the insulation scheme, as apparently the June deadline they set for themselves isn’t long enough to, ahem, fireproof the government against the installation headaches:
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/doubt-cast-on-new-roof-insulation-scheme-20100330-r98a.html
Could they be trying to delay re-launch of the scheme until after the election, to avoid the feeding frenzy every time there’s a fire? Or could they be genuinely trying to “get it right”? Dunno, it’s “old news”, so who cares, right?
But the other thing I don’t get is the media group-think endless repetition that the original scheme as governed by Garrett was “linked to” 4(!!!!) deaths (!!!1!!) and 120 (!!!1!11!) house-fires (!!!11!!!). Analysis of the pre- and post- scheme numbers shows that the rate of injury, death and fires per 1000 installations actually dropped, by a factor of around 4, under the scheme Garrett administered. Pound-for-pound, the “hasty rushed botched” government scheme was something like 4x times safer than the natural industry background level of safety. I don’t get why the govt spin doctors have played that with such a dead bat, and just let the media mantra about “linked to” deaths continue. I mean, drinking alcohol is “linked to” thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries every year, but I don’t see anybody trying to demote the health minister over it. I guess they just decided that anything to do with insulation is now electoral poison, and to let “old news” stay that way…
JohnL @ 2,
It was ABC spin. Not mine. I only read newspapers from Google News.Still, interesting spin. Could it signify a change of direction. (Not sure, it may have been just because I was not really looking, but was Abbott’s mug removed from the 7.30 titles last night?) Does our ABC sniff a Labor victory in the winf. Could they actually be getting some courage? Have they finally got over their not paranoid fear of Abbott and his Liberal nasties?
@Merc, I don’t get why they haven’t been pointing out that the insulation stimulus program was 4xsafer than the normal industry background safety level either. Mind you, it wouldn’t be a good look to be perceived as somehow minimising the deaths that did occur, which probably is the way that the Opposition and Murdoch pundits would spin it.
*I* don’t get why they don’t point out that the employers were the ones responsible. And that the Liberals are in favour of personal responsibility and are generally against Industry regulation. So obvious, but the government just lies there and seems to enjoy the kicking.
They probably haven’t been claiming it was safer, because it wasn’t.
Desipis, whatever has happened to your faith in statistics? Or are you claiming these are false?
Heh, good ol’ desipis never fails to disappoint. Consistency isn’t one of his strengths or maybe he’s taking the piss.
Malcolm Turnbull just announced he wont be recontesting Wentworth next exlection. Via twitter!
On Easter Sunday evening, SBS did a spin piece on the Turin Shroud. It was obviously propaganda, but I think it was designed to stir up the Catholic faithful, and give them some succour in light of the child abuse cover-up scandal.
PC,
What statistics? I hope your not referring to Possum’s efforts.
tigtog @ 7 – perhaps they have run some focus groups and discovered that running that sort of line doesn’t work very well. For similar reasons as to why people don’t really care about whether the tonnes of oil spilt per tonne of coal exported is going up or down, they just care that there has been an oil spill.
Ditto for Helen @ 8 – just blame the ship’s crew or captain for the oil spill or assign some of the blame to the government for insufficient monitoring and regulation?
And it does create further risks for them – eg if the rate of fires goes up in winter or as the insulation settles or just plain unlucky a month or so out from the election.
Here’s one that waited until well after the weekend:
Malcom Turnbull has announced, via his website and Twitter, that he will not recontest Wentworth at the election.
What’s that old proverb about damning with faint praise?
Statistics aside, I’ll be interested in how they spin the fact that no one will pay the toll for the Clem7.
desipis,
maybe they won’t have to spin it at all, if they just refrain from jumping to rushed conclusions.
Desipsis disputes 100% of statistics that conflict with his/her preconceptions.
Chris@15: ‘… people don’t really care about whether the tonnes of oil spilt per tonne of coal exported is going up or down, they just care that there has been an oil spill.’
A similar spin-set applies to road tolls. We are never made aware of how the road toll (both per capita and in total) is increasing in direct proportion to the increase in the number of cars on the roads. Instead, the spin always puts the responsibility on motorists to drive more safely.
(In 1980, there were approximately 5 million cars on Australian roads, in a population of about 12 million. Now there are approximately 14 million cars in a population of 22 million.)
The latest home insulation fire figures (ABC News, 25 March 2010) show 120 fires for 1,100,000 home insulations under the Government’s home insulation program – one fire for every 9167 insulations.
Robyn Kruk, Secretary of the Department of the Environment, told a Senate Estimates Committee on 22 February, 2010 that in the years leading up to this program there were an average of between 65,000 and 70,000 insulations annually and 80 to 85 fires a year in insulated homes.
Using the figures which produce the most favourable result (the lowest number of fires and the highest number of insulations) , 80 fires for 70,000 insulations works out at one fire for every 885 insulations. (80 fires for 65,000 works out at one for every 813 insulations; 85 fires for 70,000 equates to one every 824; and 85 fires for 65,000 works out at one for every 765.
So, the rate of fires declined from one every 885 insulations to the most favourable one every 9167, roughly 10 times safer.
Mercurius,
FTFY.
JohnL,
As with previous attempts at analysis, you’re completely ignoring the time factor. The pre-scheme numbers are annual rates, while the numbers relating to the scheme are not. Adjustment need to be made to reflect the different nature of the data otherwise you’re comparing apples with oranges. For the most part I’ve not seen data about fire rates based on age of installation so it’s a baseless assumption to assume that the majority of fires related to the insulation scheme have already occurred.
Concluding that government regulation, that has little or no evidence of actual behavioral changes, can make magically make something 10 or even 4 times safer is absurd. Its cause to reassess the analysis and assumptions behind the result. For what it’s worth I’m not arguing that the scheme was definitely less safe (despite the wording of my previous comment), just that the anecdotal evidence suggests it and I’ve seen no quality data or analysis to suggest otherwise.
desipis, your doubts are only valid for the following hypothetical scenarios:
1) Insulation fires were in excess of 90% from existing stock, less than 10% from new stock, annually, in the years leading up to the program.
Industry, fire services, police and insurance companies disagree with you, and rule this possibility out. Unless you wish to argue they are all wrong, we can safely conclude a sizable proportion (>30% IIRC) of insulation fires were caused by new installs.
2) There’s a dramatic increase in insulation fires before next February ie. the current figure more than quadruples, within the next 10 months.
At that time, we’ll have the total figures for all fires related to insulation installed under the program, a year on from the very last install. You can then create as many annual slices within that 18-19 month period as you wish, to attempt to make the numbers balance out in your favour.
Based on the current rate of increase ie. additional fires in the last 6 weeks or so since the program ended, I really don’t value your chances.
On a side note, can someone explain why it’s perceived there’d be more insulation fires occurring in Winter, than Summer? This has never made much sense to me, but I might be missing something.
Well one reason it may have ended up being a safer is because even very poorly trained people (or those with zero training but gain experience on the job) will on average do a better job than your average DIY insulation installer who does it only once. So we may have ended up with the wierd situation where the insulation installation industry on a whole was much less safe because of a big influx of dodgy operators and inexperienced workers, but overall insulation installations were safer because the DIY people who had even less of an idea about safety stopped installing as it was cheaper and easier to get someone else to do it.
Not exactly something for a government to be proud of nor the sort of thing a government would want to advertise, but it would explain the statistics.
btw I bet the government projected energy savings are not reflected in the actual domestic energy use – will be interesting to see after 12-24 months to see if there has been a measurable drop. Have started to see some reports on building forums from people complaining that insulation has even made rooms in their house hotter in summer – they’ve got the free insulation but not done anything about the radiant heat from entering (unshaded walls/windows) and so the insulation traps the heat inside and it can’t cool down at night. Should be better in winter though.
Nick,
Do you have data for the last 6 weeks?
Are you sure that you want to bet on that Chris?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/22/2852153.htm
desipis @ 23, why do you assume that your anecdote provides a better basis for analysis than Possum’s multiple data points?
joe2 @ 27 – its a pretty big call to attribute that to the insulation scheme given that natural gas usage also dropped (anyone using natural gas to heat their house in summer?!). Perhaps the drop is due to the price of energy going up and as they say people becoming more energy conscious? I know my energy usage has dropped significantly over the last two years without any insulation being added.
Fair enough, Chris@29. If you are prepared to just arbitrarily rule out any decrease of electricity or gas usage in any way due to the insulation roll out, your money is safe.
It’s a great way of getting the result you want. There will be no way of ever judging a benefit because you will just determine another cause.
David Irving,
I’m not challenging Possum’s data points, just the gaping holes in between them.
joe2 @ 30 – or you can just claim any increase or decrease in energy usage to justify your pet scheme – doesn’t make it true though! But seriously drop in gas usage in summer due to extra home insulation? Only maybe if they accidentally wrapped it around hot water tanks
desipis, I made an assumption the last 30-40 fires (the ones that have bumped the total up to the currently reported 120) had all occurred in the last 6 weeks or so. After reviewing Malcolm Thompson’s answers to the senate committee, it turns out that wasn’t necessarily the case.
Which would change very little. If there’s been a lag in correlating some of the fires, there’s been a lag in correlating some of the fires. The point stands that your doubts rely on a dramatic increase in fires occurring somewhere along the line, lag or no lag. So far, nothing. No increase at all.
“the insulation installation industry on a whole was much less safe because of a big influx of dodgy operators and inexperienced workers”
Chris, given the strong likelihood Possums’s analysis turns out to be correct, there’s actually no evidence that in any way supports this assertion.
Nick – you’d have to look at the history of previous insulation caused fires to see what percentage were caused by DIY jobs and what were caused by “professional” installs. As well as know what percentage of each occurred beforehand – a bit hard given DIY jobs wouldn’t be tracked. As far as I know no one has done this analysis.
But there’s very few reasons to believe that anything the government did would encourage a greater proportion of responsible insulation business owners to enter the market than already existed and quite a few reasons to believe the converse. Just the fact that it was always intended to be a short term scheme would lead to the encouragement of people who want to make fast buck to get into the installation business rather than those who want to build a long term business.
That’s fair enough, Chris, and I agree the number of self-installations would have dropped – otoh, the insulation business has always attracted a fair share of dodgy operators who have always chosen to hire inexperienced workers. Man-and-a-van with a storage unit, and a mobile. That’s nothing new. I’ve bought a lot of insulation over the years in the car parks of those storage units.
We could go around in circles trying to account for all of that, but in any case, there’s still no basis remaining for asserting “on a whole was much less safe”, when the opposite appears to be more probable, and more likely.
despis @ 18:
History repeats itself there. The Story Bridge opened as a toll bridge, and so everyone kept using the Victoria Bridge and Grey Street (William Jolly) Bridge until the 6d toll was lifted from the Story Bridge.
Nice attempt at spin Chris@32. The gas component drop in usage is a very small part overall yet you focus on that as if an electricity fall did not happen.
Insulation reduces the need for air conditioning over the summer period and may well be a factor in increased energy savings.
Desipis at 23: Your comment that I completely ignored the time factor is wrong as is your assertion that I am comparing apples with oranges.
It is obviously necessary to explain in simple terms:
• Robyn Kruk, Secretary of the Department of the Environment, told a Senate Estimates Committee on 22 February, 2010 that in the years leading up to this program there were an average of between 65,000 and 70,000 insulations annually and 80 to 85 fires a year in insulated homes. The use of the plural indicates at least in the years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 these averages would have applied.
• What is being looked at is the number of fires in a given period of time to the number of installations in the same period of time. Obviously, the installations in 2008-09 could not have caused any of the fires in 2007-08. Equally obviously the installations in 2009-2010 could not have caused any of the fires in 2008-09.
• The fact that some of the fires in 2009-2010 could have been due to houses insulated in 2008-2009 and that some of the fires in 2007-08 could have been due to houses insulated in earlier years does not alter the number of fires that occur each year in insulated homes.
• As I said the most favourable result on the average figures in the years leading up to the Government rebate scheme equates to one fire for every 885 insulations in 2007-08 and 2008-09.
• From 1 July 2009 until the present time there have been 1.1 million home insulations and as an ABC report said on 25 March 2010 there had been 120 fires.
• Because the insulation program has been suspended until at least the end of June, the total of insulations in 2009-2010 will almost certainly remain at 1.1 million.
• I concede that so far the number of fires in 2009-2010 relates to just short of nine months. Translating the 120 fires for just short of nine months to 12 months would indicate about 160 fires for the year, or one fire for every 6875 insulations. Even if it reached 200 fires, the proportion of fires to insulations in the year would one for every 5500 insulations.
• On any measurement this is a better result proportionally than the proportion of fires to new insulations in 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
• Accepting that the best average of the proportion of fires to insulation before the present scheme was one in 885, the same proportion under the scheme would result in a total of 1243 fires for the 1.1 million insulations in 2009-2010.
Your statement “For what it’s worth I’m not arguing that the scheme was definitely less safe (despite the wording of my previous comment), just that the anecdotal evidence suggests it and I’ve seen no quality data or analysis to suggest otherwise” is to use your own term “absurd”.
The statement of the Department of Environment Secretary to a Senate Estimates Committee that is capable of showing the proportion of fires to insulations in previous years is anecdotal evidence. Comparing the proportions of fires to total emissions arising from her anecdotal evidence in the years before the rebate scheme to what we know so far for 2009-2010 does suggest strongly the rebate scheme produced proportionally far fewer fires for the number of installations in that year.
desipis, your anecdote (which I don’t believe you’ve even shared with us) has a lot more gaping holes than Possum’s multiple data points.
This is a faulty way of measuring the risk of fire from an insulation installation. The unit of measurement should be fires per installation-month.
Firstly lets take the pre-scheme data, assuming Possum’s estimate that 30% of fires are from installation is correct. We have 0.3 * 82.5 = 24.75 fires per 67,500 * 12 = 810,000 installation months, or about 1 fire every 32,727 installation-months.
Now the new data we have 7 months of an installation schemes, which crudely puts the average age of installation at 3.5 months for a total of 3,850,000 installation months. We have 120 fires in that period which puts the rate at 3,850,000 / 120 fires = 1 fire per 32,083 installation-months. Or about the same rate.
Given the high error margins (+/-200%) we’d need to apply given the crude approximations involved; if we took Possum’s low estimate of how many fires were from recent installations we’d get one result (1:3), if we took the high estimate we’d get an opposing result (3:1). We really can’t make any judgements as to whether the scheme meaningfully impacted safety with the currently present data.
Oh really? The headlines write themselves, Desipsis…
JURY STILL OUT ON INSULATION SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS
INSULATION PROGRAM FAILS TO LIFT SAFETY RECORD
NO IMPROVEMENT IN SAFETY RECORD AFTER 7 MONTHS
MINISTER, STOP THIS CARNAGE: INSULATORS BEING KILLED AT SAME RATE AS EVER
Mercurius, what do you imaginary headlines have to do with anything?
I am not Mercurius, desipis, but surely you can see the point he is making?
From the “present data” which you claim to be, at best inconclusive, msm is having no trouble making up stories and headlines in a particularly negative light.
Which is what people are trying to say here. It is a beat-up.
joe2,
I haven’t argued that it’s not a beat-up. I think it was a poor decision to end the scheme. I’ve just criticized Possum’s analysis, and the conclusions reliant on it.
Apology desipis I should have read more closely.
joe2, no problem.
It amuses me how often people falsely extrapolate a focused critique into a all out disagreement motivated by partisan politics. Both sides of politics seem far too ready to use spin whenever it suits them, particularly with misleading use of statistics.
Ditto for Helen @ 8 – just blame the ship’s crew or captain for the oil spill or assign some of the blame to the government for insufficient monitoring and regulation?
Damn straight I do. Why is it such a strange thing to hold the captain and corporation (and perhaps crew, depending on their level of responsibility) responsible)? Why is it that once a private corporation or individual is in danger of (shudder) losing money because of a cockup, suddenly all the Friedmanite personal-responsibility-invisible-hand-of-the-market fans are in favour of a level of government micromanagement which would make North Korea look laissez-faire? suddenly, EVERYTHING’s the government’s fault.
Let the Governments, State or Federal, take a share of the responsibility if it’s related to their actual input into the situation.
I haven’t heard anything on the nooz about anyone slapping this shipping company with a very expensive cleanup bill, which upsets me, but I haven’t exactly had my ear glued to the radio or my eyes to the dailies.
I think we need to be more proactive and force all cargo ships to be covered by an environmental bond which is more than enough to cover the cost of a cleanup for that type of ship. The bond would be forfeit in case of an incident. Any ships not covered by bond should be forced to pay some form of fine: enough to cover insurance for clean up costs as well as a punitive amount.
Well said, Helen. Just remember when Labor’s in power it’s all the govermin’s fault and personal responsibility is suddenly an alien concept. Of course when the natural order is restored and a Coalition government is returned, personal responsibility will make a long overdue comeback.
Helen @ 47 – nothing wrong with holding the captain, crew and company responsible. I don’t see how that means that other entities can not also bear some responsibility as well without actually reducing the culpability of the captain & crew. For example if a child services is repeatedly warned that a child is being abused but fails to investigate, and the child eventually dies – the abuser is obviously responsible, but child services and the government that oversees it should also bear some responsibility.
There have been a few news reports saying that the ship owners are liable for the cleanup bill (well up to 25 million I think?) plus up to a million dollar fine – which seems to be way too small especially compared to the cleanup costs. More recent reports have been saying that many ships in the past have been taking a short cut in this area and some have even been fined – though I guess the fine has not been high enough to deter other ships.
desipis @ 48 – they certainly should be required to carry sufficient insurance to cover the cleanup costs. And thats one way to get rid of dodgy companies and crew as they will find it increasingly difficult to obtain insurance.
‘They probably haven’t been claiming it was safer, because it wasn’t.’
So if it wasn’t safer it must have been as safe or less safe.
‘We really can’t make any judgements as to whether the scheme meaningfully impacted safety…’
But you have already made a judgement that it was not safer. As I said, consistency ‘aint your strong point desipis.
That’s a good idea @ 48 though.
Was this ship actually operating under the Chinese flag or a “flag of convenience”? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
Helen @ 53 – news reports have been saying its chinese registered
adrian@51,
Fair call. That first sentence needed some indicator of uncertainty, in that they hadn’t been claiming it was safer because they didn’t have evidence demonstrating it was safer.
I guess I was using safety logic (which is a bit like lawyer logic), if you can’t prove it’s safe then it’s not safe regardless of whether it is actually safe.
Desipis at 40: My how you twist and turn.
For example, you say: “We have 7 months of an installation schemes (sic)….. We have 120 fires in that period…”
Well, the 120 fires relate at least to the period 1 July 2009 to 25 March, 2010 which is just short of 9 months.
So, it is misleading to use seven months from 1 July 2009 to early February 2010 for installations and nearly nine months from 1 July 2009 to 25 March 2010 for the number of fires.
Then you say: “… assuming Possum’s estimate that 30% of fires are from installation is correct”. I have gone back to the article “Did the insulation program actually reduce fire risk?” and cannot find any reference to “30% of fires from installation”. Perhaps you can explain your reference to Posum’s estimate.
What the article did do was have three scenarios for 2008 figures: the first with 10% of fires caused by existing insulation and 90% by new installations; the second 50% of fires caused by existing insulation and 50% caused by new installations and the third 90% of fires caused by existing installation and 10% by new installations.
The factual errors in your post provide just some of the reasons I cannot take your convoluted approach seriously. Perhaps you can explain the basis for your assertion that “the unit of measurement should be fires per installation-month”.
As far as I can understand it your definition of an “installation-month” for the insulation scheme derives from setting an average age of installations at 3.5 months (which is half the 7 months the scheme has been running) and multiplying 3.5 by 1.1 million to get this weird “installation-month” figure of 3,850,000 “installation-months”. Then you divide that by 120 to get a total of 1 fire per 32,083 “installation-months”. Of course if you multiplied the actual time the scheme has been running by 7 you would get 7,700,000 “installation- months” and when that was divided by 120 fires you would get one fire for every 64,167 “installation-months”.
Yet when this exercise is attempted for the pre-scheme data, you multiply the 67,500 installations for the year (Possum’s average of installations in 2008) by 12 (the number of months) to get 810,000 “installation-months”, which you then proceed to divide by the artificially lowered 24.75 fires for the year (80 to 85 were the figures he quoted using Peter Garrett’s figures) to get one fire per 32,727 “installation-months”. Of course if you divided by the number of fires in the year (80 to 85), you would get the figures of one fire for 10,125 “installation-months” (80 fires) or one fire for every 9529 “installation-months” (85 fires).
It’s surprising what happens when you adopt a consistent approach even with your weird “installation-months” concept.
JohnL,
It appears I got some of the dates/counts mixed up. A quick read of Possum’s article gives a count of 93, perhaps that’s a better number to use for 7 months with the 120 being used for 8 months. So the result would change by a factor of 7/9. Not exactly going to get near the 4:1, or 10:1 ratios claimed.
Apologies, this came from Nick’s comment at 24.
Except there were over 3 million installations prior to this scheme. So for 2008 there would be roughly 36 million installation-months to divide by 80-85 fires if you don’t adjust for the last 12 months.
Admittedly there were two important things that I skipped over in the analysis of the pre-scheme rates (because they cancel each other out, and I hadn’t yet had a coffee at the time).
1) The average age of an installation done “in the 12 months prior to the fire” will be 6 months not 12 months (effect: half installation-months),
2) however for half of the fires caused by installations done “in the 12 months prior to the fire”, the installation will have occurred prior to the 12 month time frame for the fires (effect: half fires).
There is no net effect to the installation-months per fire.
To explain point number 2) a bit further, if we break fire up into 3 categories:
A) Fire from old installations (e.g. installation in 2006, fire in 2008)
B) Fire from installation last year, but within 12 months of installation (e.g installation in late 2007, fire in early 2008)
C) Fire from installation this year (e.g. installation in 2008, fire in 2008)
The pre-scheme numbers contain data for all categories, and we can use Nick’s or Possum’s estimates of fires from “installations in the 12 months prior to the fire” to reduce that to categories B and C. However the data for the scheme only includes fires from category C (and not even all the potential fires at that). The best we can do is extrapolate and adjust the data to match.
Oh and my “installation-months” is based around the Mean time between failures concept.
“Well, the 120 fires relate at least to the period 1 July 2009 to 25 March, 2010 which is just short of 9 months.”
There were installations before July 1 2009, when the rebates began paying out. As of:
25/05/09 – 20,000 installations
18/06/2009 – 30,000 installations
19/07/2009 – 80,000 installations
19/08/2009 – 185,000 installations
19/11/2010 – 500,000 installations, 135,000 in the last month
All of that can be factored into your installation-months.
As of 25 March 2010, it works out to 1.5 times as safe under the program.
“Apologies, this came from Nick’s comment at 24.”
The >30% figure was from an Age article, which referenced Possum’s article. It says (more or less) at least 1 in 3 insulation fires occur within 12 months of installation, which I haven’t seen any reason to dispute.
That said, it wouldn’t be difficult or time-consuming for the department to contact all of the 85 families who had insulation fires last year.
Indeed they can. This data shows the installations to be weighted towards the end of the period instead of the linear approximation I made, which indicates a lower amount of installation-months and hence higher rate of fires. I’m not sure how you get to 1.5 times as safe, I still only get 1.25 times as safe. Either way a far cry from the factor of 4 touted, and still nothing conclusive given the quality of the data. The last two revisions of the count I’ve seen have the number of fire rising significantly so the issue is far from settled.
You’re right, desipis, I miscalculated.
11.5 months * 20,000 installed = 230,000 installation months
+ 9.5 * 10,000 = 95,000
+ 8.5 * 50,000 = 425,000
+ 7.5 * 105,000 = 787,500
+ 6.5 * 90,000 (^) = 585,000
+ 5.5 * 90,000 (^) = 495,000
+ 4.5 * 135,000 = 607,500
+ 3.5 * 200,000 (^) = 700,000
+ 2.5 * 200,000 (^) = 500,000
+ 1.5 * 200,000 (^) = 300,000
= 4,725,000 installation months
(^) = extrapolated
/ 120 fires
= 39,375 fires per installation months
Compared to before the program
= 32,727 fires per installation months
= 1.2 times as safe
I reckon US and Russia’s announcement to reduce nuclear weapons is just spin. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/rudd-is-needed-at-nuclear-summit-20100407-rs2f.html
So now they will have enough to kill us all just 100 times over rather than 150 times over.
If Nick and desipis are not spoof artists, they could soon be paid a visit by men in white coats with some funny jackets for them to wear.
At 57 desipis tells us that that for 2008 there would roughly be 36 million “installation-months”.
On a calendar month basis, desipis is talking about 3 million years.
That’s a mere 2,998,212 years earlier than Australia was settled by white people.
Nick at 61, calculates 4,725,000 “installation months” for the period of the insulation rebate scheme.
Translated into calendar months, that’s a more modest 393,750 years.
Nick also works out there have been 39,375 fires “per installation months” (sic) during the rebate program, compared to “32,727 fires per installations months” (sic again) before the program.
Nick posted this at at 1.14 a.m. on Wednesday, 8 April, so he may have been tired and emotional.
Professor Rodney Tiffin, Emeritus Professor of Government and International
Relations at the University of Sydney” in his article headed “A mess? A shambles? A disaster?” (Google this and you will find the article) mentions that in 2008, 3.18 million Australian dwellings had insulation. The rebate program has added 1.1 million, giving a total of 4.28 million.
So taking Nick’s “39,375 fires per installation months” during the rebate program and “32,727 fires per installation months” before the program, we
get a total of 72,102 fires or one fire in every 59 insulations in Australia.
Is anyone still taking them seriously?
JohnL,
Your inability to understand abstract units does not undermine anyone else’s sanity. The 36 million installation-months means that if you built a house 3 million years ago and got insulation installed by today’s standards, you’d expect to have had about 80-85 fires in the time that has passed.
I can see it’d be fun to try and explain some electrical engineering analysis to you where imaginary numbers are used…
Well desipis, as I understand it there were not too many houses built with insulation 3 million years ago for there to be 80-85 fires in even one.
So, I think that is carrying abstract units to weird extremes.
And if there are 80-85 fires in any insulated house built 3 million years, that means a fire on average every 37,500 years for 80 fires and one fire on average about every 35,295 years for 85 fires.
Of course, there would be the problem of rebuilding the house after each of these 80-85 fires.
It would also be interesting to hear your explanation for the discrepancy between your statement that if you built a house 36 million years ago, you would expect 80-85 fires in that time and Nick’s calculations of “39,375 fires per insulation months” (sic) for the rebate period compared to “32,727 fires per insulation months” (sic) before the program.
These abstract units sure are capable of giving vatly divergent results.
Frankly, I think you and Nick would be better occupied in thinking up names for his 4,725,000 “insulation months” and your 36 million “insulation months”.
That should be “vastly divergent results”.
I’ll just note that in getting bogged down in arguing the statistical toss, there is no longer any discussion of spin tactics happening. It’s a nice illustration of how spin works to distract us from what else is going on that the hacks don’t want us to notice, but could we get back to actually examining some spin now?
Nina Levu upthread has a good point: how much of the new nuclear weapons limitation agreement is meaningful and how much is simply theatre? How is the theatre being spun?
The reduction on the number of nuclear weapons is still good even they have more than they need because the fewer they have, the lower the probability that they misplace one.
The commitments about when the US is going to us nuclear weapons is pretty much spin though. No doubt with sufficient provocation and desperation they would break that agreement – and they’ve pretty much said so in regards to biological weapons being used against them.