Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Earlier today I met Michelle, a single mother with three children who lives in Newcastle. Michelle was talked into a mortgage she could not afford by a dodgy financial adviser. For the last five years, Michelle has worked three jobs around the clock to make her mortgage repayments and to keep her head above water. Will the Prime Minister explain to Michelle and the House why he continues to deny her a royal commission?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Newcastle for her question, and I can well understand the concern and the distress that her constituent has had having been given poor advice by this financial adviser. But I have to say to the honourable member that I imagine what her constituent seeks is compensation or recompense, that she seeks justice and some form of compensation for the losses she incurred. Is the best that the Labor Party can do is offer her a royal commission? What is that going to do? Will that pay her back? No. She will get nothing. The Labor Party has embarked on a populous campaign that does nothing to support the honourable member's constituent. As she got to the end of that question I wonder whether it did not occur to her that the royal commission will be of no assistance to her constituent. It will not repay her at all. She has a debt and she needs to find some financial compensation. She needs to seek justice. What we have in place are ombudsman services. We have legal services. We have ASIC. We have a range of avenues that she can employ. I do not know what measures she has sought to undertake, but the one place she will achieve no compensation at all is in a royal commission. The only beneficiaries from a royal commission would be, frankly, the legal profession.

We all know what the problems are. The member for Newcastle's leaders opposite—the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer—between them held the offices in this government responsible for banks and financial services for the best part of six years. They know all about this. What did they do? Did they order a royal commission? No. To his credit, the Leader of the Opposition brought in reforms to the laws about financial advice. He sought to make changes. He recognised that the answers lay in changing the law. A royal commission can do nothing there. It cannot change a law, it cannot change a regulation, and more importantly—most importantly—the compassion you seek to offer to your constituent cannot be fulfilled by a royal commission, and you know that, and I suspect she does too.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before I call the next question, the level of interjections through the answer, as members well know—I am pointing out the obvious—was far too high. I will take action if it continues. I particularly caution, to my right, the members for Barker and Hume and, to my left, the member for Jagajaga—again—and the member for Kingston.