Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer specifically to the case of Mr Bernie Kelly from Melbourne who lost $150,000 from the collapse of Timbercorp and who will, in all likelihood, lose his home as well. Given the Financial Services Council now says more, not less, regulation is required for financial advice and professional standards, why has the government decided to dismantle Labor's FoFA reforms and put even more pressure and risk on millions of Australian investors?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member knows a lot better than that, because he chaired the initial review on financial advice. I actually pay tribute to him for the work he did in that review. The work he did on the Ripoll report formed the basis for the existing laws. Now the Labor Party is complaining about its own laws. That is very interesting. The tragedy of the Ripoll report was that it was not implemented in full by the then Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. The then minister for financial services was too busy engaging in unfair dismissal activity against his own leader to focus on his portfolio at the time. So we had this great sense of embarrassment when the now Leader of the Opposition introduced the Corporations Amendment (Future of Financial Advice) Bill 2012 because he came into this place with a bill that was meant to lay down the future of financial advice in Australia and we kept pointing out that there were some fundamental problems in that bill. When he introduced the bill, even when he had the numbers in this place and the Senate to pass it, he was so embarrassed about the state of it that he had to introduce 16 amendments on the floor of the House to his own financial advice legislation. Because he made such a mess of the entire process of financial advice, he had an original explanatory—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on direct relevance. Occasionally we have questions in this parliament that refer to particular individuals. Here we have an individual who has suffered significant loss. I would ask the Treasurer to be directly relevant.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The now Leader of the Opposition was so embarrassed about his own laws in relation to financial advice that he introduced an original explanatory memorandum and then he introduced a replacement explanatory memorandum and then he introduced a revised explanatory memorandum and then he introduced a supplementary revised explanatory memorandum—and then he introduced yet another supplementary explanatory memorandum for a bill he did not understand, even though he is called 'Bill'. We are the people who have taken action to empower ASIC by simplifying laws and ensuring we go after criminals who engage in this sort of activity.