The Gillard government’s controversial insulation scheme could give rise to work for law firms, with Hunt & Hunt already canvassing the market for insulation container detention claims. The firm revealed it has spoken to litigation funders and garnered in-principle interest in working on a contingency basis.

The suspension and later cancellation of the Home Insulation Scheme left many industry stakeholders facing huge customs duty, GST or transportation and storage costs as containers full of the insulation products remained stranded with no market for them to go to and this is the basis for the claims. Discussions between Hunt & Hunt and the government are continuing and while the initial claims were rejected by the government on the basis that industry did not have a contractual relationship with the government directly, the legal argument rests on negligence based claims outside of any contractual relationship.

Andrew Hudson of Hunt & Hunt said that the administration of the scheme and the way it was cancelled added to the level of compensation now required. “A proper “exit strategy” would have considered the position of those with insulation “on order” based on expected sales and those handling the transport of that insulation, given that those orders relied on the Scheme which was established and promoted by the Federal Government,” he said.