Territory FM - Indigenous Housing program ripoffs

PETER PERRIN:

And then Nigel Scullion has obviously had a bit of a listen to our callers and has called back. Good morning Nigel

NIGEL SCULLION:

Good morning, Peter.

PETER PERRIN:

Your comments on those responses?

NIGEL SCULLION:

Well, I was a bit disturbed. I understand someone has given me a bit of a tickle up – I didn’t actually hear it – about the quality of the work. I’d just like to make absolutely clear: I’ve got no problems with the quality of the work, someone fitted a perfectly good, perfectly fitted $80 fan, they’ve fitted excellently an $872 oven and they’ve done a great job of fitting the $1560 stainless bench in the kitchen including a couple of $18 light switches. My problem is not with the workmanship. My problem is that it never will equate to $200,000. And if the guy who’s been working out there has got some idea of how he can break down the amount of work that’s being done equal to $200,000 please get him to give me a ring.

PETER PERRIN:

I’m sure he’s listening.

NIGEL SCULLION:

I would love to get to the bottom of that.

PETER PERRIN:

Now Nigel I didn’t actually detect that they were saying that you were critical of the workmanship. They were saying can’t you put some of the costs to the extortionate amount of money it’s costing to get goods, vehicles, people to these locations.

NIGEL SCULLION:

Well, you can as I said, I think that’s less than $5,000. So let’s make it $20,000. You double the number you first thought of. You multiply it by two again and we’ll double it again, that gets you to $20,000. I’m just wondering what happened to the other $180,000.

PETER PERRIN:

It seems like a lot of money to me.

NIGEL SCULLION:

It’s not a lot of money. This is theft. This is grand theft housing. It is nothing else. And look I appreciate – and I’ve lived for a long time, I mean I lived in Arnhem Land for nearly twenty years. I lived on a boat. I got everything by air, I had to buy everything on a, I know what it’s like to live out there. I know how expensive it is. But, you know, they’ve got some critical mass. I’ve actually got to the bottom of exactly what these cost and you can add any amount you thought of. Somebody is still stealing from the taxpayer. Now with that amount of money, if you actually wanted to spend $200,000 on those houses, you could completely furnish, you could paint them inside and out, there would be nothing that would be not replaced. And I have in fact recently seen some houses that have been rebuilt in Maningrida. They’re restumping them, they’re doing it completely. And of course in Alice Springs where people go, and Tennant Creek where people visit, we’ve got the sort of display home rebuilds. And they are proper rebuilds. And they’re the sort of things we need. But when you go over the horizon to places like Ali Curung and to places like Wadeye, where we don’t get the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister or Ms Macklin visiting too often, it seems that where we get our Clayton rebuilds. And that’s where the daylight robbery is occurring. So, you know, I just wanted to perhaps make sure that people understand that I do understand the situation. And it doesn’t matter how you then shift the numbers, this is still daylight robbery. And as I said, if anyone’s out there on the ground who can explain to me and provide me with some numbers in fact how a coat of paint on the inside, three tiles – that are the wrong colour, a bench, a stove, two light switches and three fans can possibly come up to $200,000? I’d love to hear that.

PETER PERRIN:

Nigel, I will encourage Chris and Jim to give you a call at your electorate office.

NIGEL SCULLION:

Come and have a cup of coffee, or if it’s a bit later in the day, come and have a beer with me.

PETER PERRIN:

Lovely. Thanks for calling in mate, I appreciate it.

NIGEL SCULLION:

Thanks very much, mate.

PETER PERRIN:

Now that’s one good thing about Nigel, he is hot off the mark when it comes to putting his hand up. And as he said, he’s prepared to be criticised if you can give him some legit figures. Senator Nigel Scullion on Territory Talk this morning with Peter Perrin.

Date:

Friday, August 12, 2011