Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite seem to have forgotten this proposition: the removal of exit fees is about pressuring lenders to compete on upfront price and customer service or face the risk that people will walk down the road and go to another bank, go to another lender to get a better deal. Unfortun­ately, there have been some who have suggested that the ban on exit fees should only apply to the big banks and that all other lenders should be exempted. However, the fact is that unfortunately it is some of the smaller wholesale lenders who are actually those who charge mortgage exit fees as high as $7,000 to lock their customers in. Exempting those lenders, as the opposition is calling for, would mean Australian con­sumers who take out loans with those lenders could be locked in. They would not be able to move even if it were otherwise financially sensible for them to do so. (Time expired)