Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister representing the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. I refer to the Westpoint scandal—one of a string of property investment structures that have collapsed over the past two years, costing 20,000 mainly elderly investors up to $1 billion worth of their savings, much of it superannuation. Wasn’t the Westpoint collapse in part due to a loophole exempting promissory notes greater than $50,000 under the Corporations Act? Can the minister confirm that the figure was set in 1981 and some 26 years later has not been increased? Why did the minister, in her answer of 22 June last year, deny time and again that any loophole existed? Can the minister now indicate, almost a year after being questioned on the matter, what action has been taken to close the loophole?