Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The payday lending processes that are currently being used have very little responsiveness to people who are finding themselves in a debt spiral due to having acted in a space that needs further regulation. In 2016 the member for Higgins called for a review, and in 2017, following the recommendations of that review, the member for Riverina drafted legislation around payday lending. These need to be acted on. The Consumer Action Law Centre has revealed that the number of borrowers taking out more than one payday loan in 12 months grew from 17.2 per cent in 2005 to 38 per cent in 2015—that is, on average, the number of loans per borrower is almost four. It is time the government acted on this. I note that the member for Deakin, who's with us in the chamber today, as the assistant minister, and the member for Cook, the Treasurer, now have responsibility for this. I call on them to take action—in fact, to work with Labor to ensure that the legislation they drafted that is being brought into this House gets through.

Finally, in terms of the appropriation bills, I would say that the most important part—the most outrageous part, in fact—of the government's plans for this country is its plan for $65 billion worth of tax cuts for big business. We're in a period of record profits. We have the flattest wage growth on record. Few companies pay the 30 per cent tax rate. Those opposite keep saying that we have a 30 per cent tax rate, but that is almost a fiction if you look at which companies actually pay that. That comes to us from exclusive ABC analysis. One in five Australian companies have paid zero tax in the last three years. Business investment is at historically high levels, despite the 30 per cent headline tax rate that obviously isn't being paid. This is trickle-down ideology and it is a fail for this government. Tax rates don't matter if you don't pay tax.

At the moment, many people in my electorate are doing it tough. In fact, there are families in my electorate who have four payday loans going because the cost of living keeps going up and up and their wages are flatlining. If you think about my electorate and the number of people caught in casual work, that's where we really start to see families in trouble. They cannot plan and they cannot manage their finances if they can't project their salary from one week to the next. In that climate, we are talking about a $65 billion tax cut for big business under the fiction that it will somehow magically drive the economy. The economy in my electorate needs people to get paid their penalty rates. That would be a boost to our local economy. Our local economy needs people not to be paying a wider gap in their health costs. People in my electorate need to know when they are going to go to work and how much they are going to earn this week. They need to be in full-time, permanent jobs. At 17 per cent youth unemployment in my electorate, this government offers very little in terms of hope for the people of Lalor.

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