OMG, can you believe it!! blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/04/24/the-csiro-gets-hip-to-debunking-media-hysteria/ . OK, as I understand it some people lost their homes and worse, their lives, and that's terrible but you have to ask yourself about the role of commercial media in this country. The story is very concentrated but there's a good summary.
Excellent find logman!
Executive summary:
The number of fires per 100,000 installs that occurred within 12 months of installation was 47.3 before the Home Insulation Program and 13.9 during the Home Insulation Program
The Home Insulation Program reduced the short term fire rate by approximately 70% compared to what was happening before it.
The Home Insulation Program was over 3 times safer than the industry it replaced in terms of the numbers of fire experienced within 12 months of getting insulation installed.
Lies, damned lies and statistics... 
Only sheep rely on "mainstream" media these days, they are such a waste of space it isn't even funny.
Heck, pretty much all tv these days is little more than vacuous nonsense most of the time.
My current favourite is planking. Clearly the facts are being distorted, as everybody knows this craze was started by our current federal government and their comprehensive set of "policies"... 
And Logman, tip of the iceberg mate. You need tolisten to the likes of Anthony Lawson. Even bloody John Pilger is a gatekeeper and he was a man that I used to admire very much.
I'm just disappointed I guess, for a couple of reasons. That the government are so lacking in the guts and determination to defend the policy and then to kick heads when the conservatives in the Parliament and out in the real world state that ministers are responsible for deaths etc. The labor party need to get out there on talk back radio and give the likes of Mitchell, Jones, Bolt etc the fight that previous leaders of labor were only too happy to dish out. Keating never took a backwards step and Hawke would have died in a ditch to protect policy. This current crop seem strangely weak willed. Secondly I'm disappointed by the gullibility of the electorate. I'm disappointed that if you say that the home insulation scheme is " A debacle", "a Rort" or Garrett is responsible for the deaths of people in house fires loud enough for long enough then a large mass of people will just believe it without any evidence. Well here's evidence, The CSIRO report into house fires and insulation and an analysis(see above) but who cares, the battle is lost. This whole thing makes me very pessimistic about getting any difficult or complex changes made in Australian society. So we've got some big issues to deal with at some stage, like global warming, the republic, wars, refugees etc etc but if all it takes to defeat a proposition is repeating a slogan( "stop the boats", "Great big new tax", "they'll take your back yard") etc then we're rooted.
