Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

In making a couple of remarks on this, I first of all indicate that there are many insolvency practitioners who are reputable, honest and very professional and who do the right thing and do give value for money. But, having said that, I congratulate Senator Williams for his pursuit of this particular issue. I know Senator Williams has some expertise in this area, gained over many years, and I acknowledge the work that he did in relation to the Storm Financial collapse which resulted in some relief being obtained from what was otherwise going to be a very unfortunate situation.

I am amazed and horrified at the response that Senator Williams has indicated that the Treasurer has given to this excellent report of a Senate committee. It is fairly typical of the arrogance of the Gillard government, and of the Treasurer in particular, that he should dismiss this in the flippant way that he obviously did. I know Senator Williams and the other members of his committee put a lot of effort into this particular report. They heard a lot of evidence and thought a lot about it. The committee secretariat have been particularly precise in assisting the committee in this rather technical area and it behoves the government to seriously look at this and seriously consider the recommendations that have been made.

Parliamentarians always get complaints—as I did in my former life as a solicitor—when liquidation is concerned, in that the banks involved or the people forcing the liquidation address these things wrongly. They do not seem to care that there could be alternative resolutions. Very often the banks shut down the entity that is involved when it could be allowed to trade out of trouble. Any number of us could give any number of examples where banks could have allowed people to trade out of the financial difficulties they were in. The banks would have been better off and lives would not have been ruined. As Senator Williams has mentioned, the trouble is that very often with liquidations there is no master. That is why some of the more unscrupulous practitioners just charge what they like—because there really is not anyone, apart from the unsecured creditors, who lose out. It is very difficult for unsecured creditors to have any influence over practitioners at times.

I do not want to take up much more of the Senate’s time, but I repeat my congratulations to Senator Williams and the committee on the work they have done. I seriously urge Mr Swan to abnegate his arrogant view of this and to seriously look at it. With the parliament being as finely divided as it is in both houses these days, one would hope that if Mr Swan is not prepared to look at this then the parliamentary process will force him to. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.