Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday, I was proud to attend a special event: a financial services oath-taking ceremony in my electorate. Vern Fettke is a justice of the peace, a bail justice and the principal of Homestead Financial Group. Vern is a member of our community who gives and at all times acts with integrity. When Labor introduced the FoFA legislation last year, Vern related to me that he was insulted because he knew that his financial service always acted in the best interest of the client, alerted their clients of all charges and had a continuous relationship with clients—exactly what the changes implemented by the previous Labor government were designed to ensure. But Vern also knew there were some in the industry for whom that was not the prime motivation.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in recent media reports, not all financial services did have their clients as their centrepoint. After the current government changed regulations earlier this year to wind back the FoFA laws, Vern Fettke could see the impact on the industry. The changes meant that other providers, perhaps driven by commissions, would not necessarily have the client's best interests as their motivator, that they could just revert to unscrupulous practices citing 'buyer beware' as the justification.

It is now apparent that the majority of our senators could see that too. It has been said that sometimes the Senate saves the government from itself, and I think we can safely say that that is what the Australian Senate did last week. So when the regulations were changed, when the consumer protections were removed, this small western suburbs financial service led by Vern and his team decided to innovate. This company had always been proud of their work, lived their values and operated with integrity. They wanted to ensure that their values were public, that the clients could rely on their integrity. So Vern and his team developed an oath—the financial services oath—and last Saturday I joined a gathering of many of their clients and leaders in our community to witness the people who work for Homestead take that solemn oath. That oath was a statement of integrity—not a marketing ploy but a solemn oath, a statement of honest intention and service. Like Vern, I hope this initiative will be adopted more broadly and good people working in financial services will be supported by their communities when they take this oath. I congratulate Vern and his team for taking the oath and for having so many people present to witness them do so.