Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

First, I'd like to make some remarks in relation to the position regarding the copper smelter at Mount Isa and the copper refinery in Townsville. I must say it will be absolutely heartbreaking for those communities if the copper smelter in Mount Isa and the refinery in Townsville close. I say that as someone who, decades ago, spent a lot of time in Mount Isa as a young in-house lawyer at Mount Isa Mines and acted in some really difficult cases involving some workers at Mount Isa. I got to know some of those miners. They were some of the best people I've ever met in my life—down to earth, salt of the earth and really good people. So I really am feeling for the communities in Mount Isa and in Townsville at the moment, and I desperately hope that a way is identified to keep the smelter in Mount Isa and the refinery in Townsville open.

I should say, wearing my hat as shadow spokesperson for multicultural affairs, that Mount Isa is a great example of a successful multicultural community. People may not know that Mount Isa actually has a substantial Finnish community. A lot of Finnish miners came out from Finland when Mount Isa started and were part of opening up Mount Isa. Going back to the early seventies, there were workers in Mount Isa from over 50 different nationalities, who came to Mount Isa seeking a better future for themselves and their families and worked together on the project that we call Australia. It's a great example of a wonderful community, and my heart goes out to that community and to those workers. I desperately hope a pathway is identified to keep the copper smelter open and the refinery in Townsville open. As a Queensland senator, I really do hope that. I'm sure all my colleagues from Queensland and, in fact, from across the country have similar sentiments.

I'd like to make some comments in relation to the answers that were given to Senator Bragg's question about the Housing Australia Future Fund. Senator Wong, as she does so well, managed to avoid answering the direct question that was put to her by my colleague Senator Bragg. It was the obvious question: how many houses have been built by the Housing Australia Future Fund? You couldn't get a more simple question. We've had this $10 billion fund set up that was announced two years ago. The question was, 'How many houses has it built?' and the answer we got was quite clever but avoided answering the question. The answers provided a number of houses that were either constructed or planned—not built; constructed or planned.

I'm sure there was some planning that went into the construction of that answer, but we weren't after how many houses were or are planned. We were actually after how many houses have been constructed. We received an answer in Senate estimates earlier in the year that indicated that, at that point in time, only 17 houses had been constructed two years after the Housing Australia Future Fund had been established—not 1,700 or 17,000 but 17, one-seven, houses constructed by this $10 billion fund. Perhaps more disturbingly, we heard that the fund had acquired 20 times as many houses as it had constructed. Three hundred and forty houses had been acquired.

I don't remember it ever being the intention of the Housing Australia Future Fund to go out into the market and compete with everyday Australians to acquire houses. It was all about building future housing supply. We got no answers from the Labor government with respect to giving us an update on the number of houses constructed. Very disappointing. (Time expired)