tweake:

 

retrofit houses/industry.  people/companies plus govt and electric companies pay for it. fairly common overseas to have retrofit programs to upgrade old houses etc. even electric companies subsidize big industry to run more power efficient equipment.

 

our home building standards only increased last year. they have horribly below par for a very very long time. so even a 1 year old home is below spec. plus we don't take things like air tightness into account (or solar gain), so in real practical terms even the new standards where below par when they came out. then add in that other countries are increasing their standards, so even our new standards are out of date before we even build new homes to that standard.

 

the problem is vested companies have been waging the dog to keep them well fed at the expense of people having good homes.

 

You either have some very... strange ideas, or less strange ideas and a very strange way of presenting them. 

Where is all this magic money coming from to retrofit?  Where are the defined standards by which to complete these retrofits will occur that will increase the longevity and weatherproofness of a home?

Which vested companies have been waging the dog to prevent new standards being established and implemented and for what purpose are you claiming this was done? Building companies get paid to build, stricter or higher standards usually cost more, and therefore the higher the profit per building.

It's much more likely the costs were higher and the CUSTOMER complained. Standards being raised is usually a consequence of progressive Governments ramming them through regardless of objections, and they aren't usually popular for it, for a long long time down the road.