Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, Minister representing the Assistant Treasurer. Can the minister confirm that the $300 million worth of losses suffered by 4,000 mum-and-dad investors in the Westpoint collapse were largely due to a loophole in the government’s laws exempting promissory notes greater than $50,000 from the Corporations Act? Is the minister aware that the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Senator Ian Campbell, said about this issue, as long ago as January 2003:

If there is a vacuum we are making sure it is closed quickly.

Didn’t Senator Campbell also indicate, in May 2003, that ASIC had commenced regulatory action in relation to Westpoint and that the government would consider legislative change should any regulatory gap be identified? Did Senator Campbell ever follow up on his promise to close this regulatory gap or did Senator Campbell simply allow the loophole in the Corporations Act to remain, resulting in investors losing hundreds of millions of dollars through the Westpoint scandal?