Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to housing.

I asked a question today of the minister with regard to the $4 billion to be spent on housing in the Northern Territory for 0.3 per cent of the population—that's about 76,000 Aboriginal settlers in the Northern Territory—compared to the $10 billion that has been allocated for the rest of Australia in their housing fund. The minister did reply and said there were other programs and work to the value of $20 billion for the other 26 million-plus Australians who are living here. When you compare that, $1½ million is going to be spent on a house in the Northern Territory. It has been known that these houses are destroyed within a matter of months. Either they are burnt or floorboards are ripped up. They are absolutely destroyed, and you put them in remote areas. It's not good for these people to be living so remotely. I know they want the cultural way of life, but they still have their welfare handouts and they still have their clothing. They're not living by their traditional way of life. It's just ridiculous.

I've been to a lot of these remote communities. The housing is absolutely disgusting. They do not look after it. It's completely paid for by taxpayers all the time, to rebuild. We pay maintenance costs up to what you might pay for a house to be built in any other part of Australia. And you're putting them in remote areas. There is no future for these kids. A lot of these kids don't even go to school. There are no jobs. There is absolutely nothing. There's no future for these people at all, yet you continue to build these houses. You don't do it for other Australians. Why do you do it for Indigenous Australians to keep them in poverty and in the conditions that they are in now?

If you want to live the traditional way of life, great. I have no problem with that. But if you want to live by the Aussie way of life, in your houses with your welfare, then I think you should come into the lifestyle of other Australians.

Question agreed to.