Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Could I indicate that, as to clause 8, page 6, lines 8 to 11 of Senator Fielding’s amendments, the government very reluctantly will support that. Clause 8, page 6, lines 16 and 17 we, equally reluctantly, support. We welcome clause 8, page 6, after line 17—the amendment that ensures that lending criteria are of a high standard and that the standard is set down in law. As I indicated, we reluctantly support the absolute time limit on time of loans, and we reluctantly support the limit to commercial property. But we do expect the Senate’s cooperation if ABIP is required to lend outside commercial property to support jobs. If that circumstance arises, we will return and we will need to deal with that very speedily because of the structure of the legislation that we are putting in place today. So we would hope that we can expect the chamber’s cooperation on that matter.