John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate and thank Senator Burston for bringing it to the attention of the Senate. As always, I will be very frank. Until a few days ago, I knew nothing about this issue at Salt Ash and Williamtown. I think the problem has been around for years; in 2003 or so it was first brought to light. I do not know if that is true or not. If it was, I question what Senator Cameron did about it in the six years they were in government, but we will not go into the politics of that. But it came to my attention because I had a call from a journalist, who said, 'There are some problems with the residents here at Williamtown because the banks are giving a couple of them a bit of a hard time.' What I mean by that is that this journalist—and I am not going to name people or institutions, banks or whatever—said that people's properties have been devalued because of this contamination. You would be aware of it, Senator Burston. The value of their properties has gone down, so their loan-to-value ratio has gone up and there are some concerns. So the first thing I did was phone Steven Munchenberg from the Australian Bankers Association just a few days ago and explain the situation to him.