Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen in the Westpoint collapse precisely what happens to ordinary investors when corporate fraud and inadequate financial regulation mix. Indeed, the Westpoint fiasco is a perfect and terrible example of the need for the reforms that Labor introduced. Individuals were encouraged to invest in the Westpoint Group, a Western Australian property development outfit, on the basis of advice that was negligently given and as a result of large commissions paid to financial advisers by Westpoint. There were more than 4,000 people who invested in the company, including many Western Australians. Together their losses have been estimated in excess of $300 million. It is no good to simply say that the relevant advisers have been banned as a result of the Westpoint collapse. It is no good to say, as the Prime Minister has said, that you should not regulate for 'ethical givens', when there has been a steady flow of savage and large-scale losses as a result of shonky corporate and financial industry operators who are completely impervious to basic ethical considerations.

The whole rationale for effective regulation, for Labor's carefully designed and consulted financial advice reforms, is the need to prevent disasters from happening in the first place. It is so much easier and better to have a system that works to keep the frauds out and to resist the creep of self-interested advisory negligence than to come along afterwards when millions and millions of dollars have disappeared and thousands of people have suffered severe financial loss.

Today, the Prime Minister talked about the need for decency. It is not decent for this government to remove sensible protections for consumers and investors—many of whom are elderly, vulnerable people. It is not decent for this government to abolish the charities commission, which protects donors and acts as a watchdog against scammers and dodgy charities. The treatment by this government of consumers, patients, orphans of war veterans, asylum seekers, low-paid workers, unemployed people and people with disabilities is simply not decent. So please do not talk to us about decency, Prime Minister. If saving senior Australians from losing their life savings to financial spivs is what the government calls red tape, then we say, 'Bring it on.' It is only those barriers and disincentives to improper conduct in an industry with serious inherent risks that keep ordinary Australians and their investments safe. This government wants to throw away those protections and wants to leave investors in the dark. What is worse, it wants to do so without scrutiny by Western Australians as they approach the ballot box.

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