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

The reason that standing orders should not be suspended is that these matters need to be addressed in full. The government has sought to ram this legislation through the parliament without due consideration. The Senate report was far from conclusive on this. We had three separate reports. If you read in detail the evidence that is included and adduced in the majority report from the Senate committee, you'll read that all the evidence goes one way and the recommendations go the other. So this matter should not be rammed through the parliament without due consideration. For these reasons, the government's motion should be rejected. We should not be rushing headlong into passing this bill that is before the House.

There are other reasons why we shouldn't be doing this. Anybody who's been reading the papers over the last few weeks, anybody who's been following the news over the last few weeks, would be aware that we are in the middle of a housing price boom. Housing prices are going through the roof. There are a lot of consumers out there who are very anxious, if not heartbroken. They turn up to an auction week after week after week, and they are unable to even meet the opening price, let alone the closing price. When we see that we are at the beginning of a housing price bubble, this is the very last moment and a disastrous time for us to be looking at loosening the lending standards and rushing a bill such as this through parliament. There is no good time to be removing the responsible lending laws. There is no good time to be rejecting the very first recommendation of the Hayne royal commission. But this is the absolute worst time to be doing that. For this reason, the government's motion should be rejected.

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