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

I am absolutely thrilled to be speaking on this motion brought by the member for Indi today. I'm pleased she has joined this call. This has seriously been a bipartisan position. This parliament has seen a review and, today, I call on the member for Deakin, Michael Sukkar, to bring the draft legislation that we know has been written into the parliament so that we as a parliament can act to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities from shonky payday lenders who are there to maximise their profits at the expense of often the most vulnerable and those under considerable hardship.

The member for Hughes made some interesting points, but he clearly needs a history lesson here. This review was conducted by those sitting opposite. The draft legislation was drafted by those sitting opposite. Those sitting opposite at one point agreed that this legislation should go forward. We stand here today to call on that to happen this week in our parliament. It has now been over 1,000 days since the initial review into the payday lending industry was commissioned by then Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in August 2015. In November 2016, then Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer released the government's review. She said 'the government supported the vast majority of the recommendations, in part or in full', and went on to promise that:

Legislation will be developed subject to the Government’s other legislative priorities, but at this stage is expected to be progressed during 2017.

Well, it's August 2018. Despite these promises, we are yet to see any legislation brought before the parliament by this government.

Labor has led the charge now for some time in bringing forward a private member's bill which is word for word the government's own legislation. Reform could happen right now. The legislation is ready to go. But this government is refusing to act. Instead, those opposite are sitting on their hands or, as we just saw from the member for Hughes, standing up to suggest that somehow what has bipartisan support, what went through a review, will stop people accessing money in times of emergency. That is not what the legislation does. The legislation puts a cap on what can be repaid, not on what can be offered. The legislation puts in place penalties for those operators who seek to give a second loan when someone already has a loan. It puts in place penalties for those operators who would contact people without being asked to try to sell them a loan. It is a sensible piece of legislation. Instead, those opposite are choosing to do nothing.

In my community in the city of Wyndham we know how much this is impacting on people. We have four such payday lenders operating within a 500-metre radius of our railway station. They are there with their doors open and with cups of coffee for people as the vulnerable walk past to tempt them into taking out another loan.

This is what people need to understand. Our CLC often does work in one of our mental health institutions. They found that, on one day, 23 per cent of the clients in our mental health unit had a payday loan and that 25 per cent of those had more than one. These are people who are incredibly vulnerable and who would meet any hardship claim. I would also say that there are already laws in place that protect people and limit them to paying 20 per cent if 50 per cent or more of their income is from Centrelink. I would suggest that, since that legislation was introduced, the notion of hardship has changed in this country. There are many people working full-time and earning what we would consider in this place to be a minimal income, and they need protecting in this situation as well.

Over the winter recess, I experienced a day in the life of financial counsellors locally. I was alarmed, but not surprised, at the copious number of payday loans locals have undertaken. I call on this government to do the right thing—to put aside their friendship with this sector and to protect the vulnerable in my community and across this country.

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