Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

There was a range of questions in there that went to, firstly, the bona fides of the government's arrangements that have been made in order to collaborate with colleagues on the crossbench to ensure the support of this legislation. The government has been completely transparent about those matters, entirely consistent with the government's approach on not just a range of issues that you raised there but on all the issues. Senators and the public can be absolutely confident that the arrangements that the government has reached are entirely public and entirely transparent. That stands in contrast to the efforts that were made in the passage of pieces of legislation over the course of the last three unhappy governments, and it stands in contrast to the secret arrangements that the Liberals have with the Nationals, which is never revealed. It is kept locked tight in a crypt somewhere over there in somebody's office. So we won't be lectured about transparency in relation to the arrangements here. There will be a series of amendments that will be dealt with by the Senate. The government's voting decisions on that will be entirely public.

I think your second broadly grouped set of questions, Senator Ruston, went to the nature of the fund itself. This is not an unusual arrangement. It's a very similar arrangement to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the National Reconstruction Fund, the medical research fund—I'm not calling it by its proper name, but I think we know the fund that I mean—and the Future Fund established by Mr Costello and Mr Howard. These are all allocations of funds that are designed to earn income in perpetuity, essentially—unless the parliament changes its approach to those funds—and to provide a source of income that is dedicated to a particular public policy purpose. The public policy purpose that is set out here is to build affordable homes to lift the supply of housing for low-income Australians who are experiencing housing stress. That is the public purpose. That is what that income will be allocated to.

In agreement with the crossbench, in order to be absolutely clear about what is going to be provided here, there is a minimum $500 million disbursement. As I've discussed, it may, of course, be more. If the income of the fund is higher, it is open to the fund to allocate more. There are arrangements that are dealt with in the second reading speech that go to the reviews and the capacity of those amounts to be adjusted over time for indexation purposes and other purposes.