Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As in Newcastle, a whole heap of people in my electorate are being preyed upon by payday lenders; and the federal government, in its sixth year, has done next to nothing. Over on that side, they have the 'parliamentary friends of payday lenders'. Are either of you gentlemen a part of the parliamentary friends of payday lenders? They are helping businesses with a poor ethical basis for conducting their business to prey on the poor—those who are not educated or perhaps not financially literate, those who have not had the benefits of, and aren't as entitled as, some of those opposite. When you hear of Australians who have purchased something for $9,000 but end up paying $17,000, how do you sleep at night? It is unconscionable that you would not enact legislation that would put a spotlight on ,and clamp down on, that kind of behaviour.

Let's recap where we are at. Around 8,000 Australian households currently hold a payday loan. For some of those Australian families, a payday loan from an ethical payday lender is appropriate, reasonable and helping them out. But there are approximately 1.8 million households that are under financial distress. If you put those two things together, you will realise that a whole heap of people are being preyed upon by unethical payday lenders who are basically ripping off our fellow Australians who are in financial distress. How un-Australian is that?

Since the government released the payday lending report, almost $2 billion has been borrowed through payday lending. It has been over 800 days since the government announced it would take action against dodgy payday lenders. Eight hundred days—they have been flat out over on that side of the parliament! There have been times in recent sittings when you have run out of legislation. But you can't bring this one forward—this one that will help Australia's most vulnerable people! No, you are too flat out with other legislation, too flat out with other scare campaigns and other distractions to take Australians' minds away from the fact that there is no real plan over on that side.

Labor announced 800 days ago that it would support your proposals. We even tabled legislation affirming the current government's position. But here we are, 800 days later, and nothing has happened. Nothing! Nada! This is while 1.8 million households are under financial distress and many hundreds of thousands of them have arrangements with unethical payday lenders.

As I said, in my electorate, and in the Northern Territory more broadly, we have had many instances of individuals being ripped off by payday lenders and 'rent to buy' operators. In one instance, a payday loan client who borrowed $100,000 was told by a payday lender to repay over $1,000 within six weeks. We had a Centrelink recipient who had four 'rent to buy' payments deducted from her payment each fortnight, leaving her with only $50 to feed her family. That is wrong. If we need to, we will bring back your legislation so that we can get some action on behalf of these Australians. I urge the government to present its bill to the parliament so we can support it and protect these vulnerable people.

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