Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday, I attended a payday lending community round table in Ringwood, Victoria. I was very pleased to join Shireen Morris, the Labor candidate for Deakin, and my colleagues the members for Lalor and Oxley. Whilst I was pleased to be there, I was horrified to hear the case studies from financial counsellors who deal with the terrible outcomes of payday loans and rent-to-buy schemes every day.

The Australian people need to know what the government has done on this. There has been a little bit done but not nearly enough. In August 2015, the then Assistant Treasurer, the member for Kooyong, now the Treasurer, commissioned a review. In 2016, we got some recommendations. It has been over 658 days since this report was given to the parliament. The member for Higgins, another Assistant Treasurer, said the government would support the recommendations in this great review. Draft legislation was released by the member for Riverina, who said they would introduce that in early 2017. The government missed its own deadline. Labor, in 2018, had to introduce the government's own legislation as a private member's bill. The bill was brought forward for debate and not one government speaker turned up to speak on getting rid of the payday lending loan sharks.

The current member for Deakin, Michael Sukkar, then the third Assistant Treasurer, promised to bring in the legislation again. But have we seen it? No, we have not. Now, as of 3 September, we have the fifth Assistant Treasurer, Stuart Robert, doing nothing to stop payday lending sharks in this country. (Time expired)

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