Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Wentworth rightly points to the fact that finance companies in recent times are experiencing considerable difficulty. The Treasury currently has task forces dealing with a whole category of market linked investments—finance companies, mortgage trusts, property trusts as well as cash management trusts, including finance companies—to deal with the particular dislocations which are flowing to those companies as a consequence of the global financial crisis and the global economic downturn. For the benefit of the honourable gentleman, he should know that motor vehicle finance companies—car finance companies—are experiencing challenges in every Western economy at present. I would suggest to the honourable gentleman that, rather than seeking to make a cheap political point, he should understand that this is a global problem affecting the car industry and affecting finance companies associated with the car industry, not just here but in the United States and Germany as well. The government systematically is working its way through each of the challenges affecting each sector of this economy and we will continue to do so through the task forces we have established with the Treasury and our consultations with the major banks and with the Australian regulators, as we have been doing in recent weeks.

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