Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to refer again to the most successful house-building operation in Australian history. The other two people involved were the heads of the department, Eric Law and Lester Rosendahl, who was one of the famous Rosendahl family. Eric Law, from Cherbourg, was very high up in the education department. He was deputy principal of the biggest high school in Queensland and was an outstanding rugby league player, as was his cousin Steve Renouf. Those two decided that all houses would be built by exclusively First Australian labour. Not only was I not in favour of this but I was very much against it, because about 30 per cent of those people can't read or write and about 30 per cent of them can't speak English. And they're going to build the houses, are they? I emphasise the point that I had nothing to do with any of these decisions. The people themselves made that decision, and Rosendahl and Law were backing themselves in on a very controversial decision, to impose upon all of the councils in Queensland that houses would be built by exclusively local blackfella labour, not whitefella. That was the fifth rung in the ladder of creating the greatest success story in the nation's history, from where I sit.

Question agreed to.

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