Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move Family First amendment (6) on sheet 5785 revised:

(6)    Clause 8, page 6 (lines 16 and 17), omit “or such longer period as is specified in the regulations”.

To go back through this, the proposal is for the government and the four leading banks to set up a company with $2 billion of our money and $500 million each from the banks to lend to commercial property ventures that may be hit by the withdrawal of foreign lenders from Australia. Ruddbank, or the Australian Business Investment Partnership, as the government prefers it to be called, would be the lender of last resort. The company would also be able to borrow up to $26 billion—and I am coming to my amendment now. The issue that I have had all the way along the line is about prudence, good governance and making sure that there are good accountability and lending criteria, and it is also about how long this is going to be set up and lending this money out.

We have covered a couple of amendments previously from Family First. They were about the lending criteria being no less prudent than the lending criteria of investment grade loans, to make sure that we were not lending for dodgy projects and to make sure that taxpayers’ money was not being invested in areas that might be considered as bad investments. Because of our previous amendment, the words in the current bill are that lending is only to be for commercial property and not for other areas. That amendment has actually gone through and been passed, and it makes sure that the money is for commercial property, not for some other sector that the government may wish to have this money for later on down the track. I think it is prudent that they come back to the parliament to seek approval to go into areas other than commercial property.

This final amendment, amendment (6) on sheet 5785 revised, is to make sure that this is short term and not something that is going to blow out to 20 or 30 years. The amendment is to make sure, as the government suggested, that ABIP is short term and to make sure that the length of any of the loans is no more than three years. It is a pretty simple amendment to make sure that this is short term and that there are not 20-year loans sitting around, with ABIP all of a sudden going on in perpetuity. This amendment is to make sure that cannot happen. I know that there are other restrictions, but this makes sure that they are short-term loans to get through the worst of the global financial crisis. This is just another prudential measure, and it strikes at the heart of the bill and not at secondary issues. It comes down to good governance and prudence. I urge the committee to support this amendment, which will restrict loans to a maximum of three years.