Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Financial Services. The collapse of the Youpla Group in March 2022 caused enormous damage to First Nations communities. What warnings about the conduct of the Youpla Group were ignored, and how would an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice help to avoid such neglect in the future?

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

I thank the member for Lingiari for that question. Can I start by acknowledging the great work you've done in your community. I know that you've done outreach with your community about this issue. More broadly, nationally, I know you've met with the coalition of peak organisations who are making representations to parliament on this issue.

Youpla was a disgrace. It was an absolute disgrace. You had a dodgy company flogging junk funeral insurance to First Nations communities. When it collapsed in 2021, 14,000 First Nations families were left stranded. They couldn't pay for their funerals. We came to government a few months later. There were bodies trapped in morgues, who could not be buried. The Minister for Indigenous Australians and I moved quickly to put in place an interim arrangement. We're standing in the shoes of the insurer, and I'm pleased to report that over $2 million has been paid out and around 250 claims have been made. Funerals are happening. The thing about this that's a disgrace is that the behaviour was well known to successive governments for close to 30 years. This mob had a rap sheet that Chopper Read would be proud of. For over 30 years, regulator after regulator, state departments and federal departments were made aware of what was going on. In 2015, Centrelink took them off Centrepay—an acknowledgement that this was a mob that was doing harm to community. But seemingly it took another two years before that decision was even implemented.

The royal commission handed its report to the former treasurer in 2019. It took another two years for licensing arrangements to be put into place which led to the closure of the fund. The minister for Indigenous affairs, when we were shadows, wrote to the Treasurer in 2020 and said: 'As soon as this happens, the company will collapse and these families will be stranded.' Nothing happened.

The simple fact of the matter is that, for over 30 years, this business was taking advantage of First Nations people—taking advantage of their known cultural practices. Millions of dollars were lost in premiums. It was known by government and it was known by regulators. But nothing happened.

If there'd been a Voice to Parliament, that Voice would have been listened to. And whether it was a coalition government or a Labor Government, we could not ignore the clear call to fix this mob up. It's time to do this differently. (Time expired)