Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I want to return to some of the questions that are immediately before the House in schedule 1 of the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Supporting Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, which seeks to overturn the very first recommendation of the Hayne royal commission, recommendation 1.1, in which the royal commissioner, Commissioner Hayne, made it very clear that the responsible lending laws—those provisions within the national consumer credit protection legislation that the bill now before us proposes to amend—should be left alone. He did this for a very good reason, and I want to return to some of the history that led to the royal commission and to these provisions which are before the House at the moment.

I want to particularly focus on the circumstances facing bank customers in rural and regional communities, because in speeches given at the second reading stage I heard the member for Mayo, the member for Corangamite and the member for Indi give very moving addresses which went to examples from their own communities—examples from consumers and from consumer groups. Members in the House may not be moved by examples that have been given by the member for Mayo, the member for Indi and the member for Corangamite, but I was. Perhaps, however, members would be moved by the story of a gentleman who dedicated the latter part of his life to having a royal commission established and to having these laws improved and protected. I'm talking about a farmer, originally from South Australia, by the name of Williams. This farmer walked into a Commonwealth Bank branch in Inverell looking for a loan of $200,000. When he walked out of that bank he ended up with a loan, denominated in Swiss francs, of $675,000. Of course, given the fact that the loan was denominated in Swiss francs, very quickly, when the Australian dollar was dramatically devalued against the Swiss franc, a loan of $675,000 blew out to $1.5 million. The farmer lost his farm and his marriage, and he ended up living for a considerable period of time in a caravan.

The gentleman that I'm talking about is well known to all members on that side of the House because he used to sit in their party room. His name was Senator John 'Wacka' Williams. He was absolutely passionate about his experience and the experience of farmers like him not being repeated. So he campaigned for a royal commission. The royal commission found that these laws were absolutely critical to ensuring that inappropriate loan products were not sold to unsuspecting farmers. You see, the loan that was sold to Mr Williams—Senator Williams as he was—was done prior to the introduction of these provisions within the national consumer credit act. Had these provisions been included, that loan probably couldn't have been sold to him, and, if it was, not only would he have been entitled to personal compensation but the bank would have been liable to huge fines for breaches of this provision.

So I guess the questions that I have for the minister are: has he consulted with members of the National Party, and do members of the National Party give the minister full support for these changes to the national consumer credit laws? Does the National Party support rolling back the consumer protections that have been so important to protecting the livelihoods of the rural families that they pretend to represent? Does the National Party back the Liberal Party, or does the National Party keep the spirit of John 'Wacka' Williams alive? It's an important question, because I'm sure that there are members and constituents in rural communities all throughout the country who are looking very closely at their National Party representative. The minister responsible is not a member of the National Party—

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