Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Senator O'Sullivan says Senator Williams has been good up until now. They have got Senator Williams under control. The Liberals have got Senator Williams under control, as they always do with the National Party—the doormats of the coalition, who get stood upon, who the Liberals wipe their feet on day in, day out in this place.

We heard this argument about all the small businesses in the bush. Let me tell you about some of the people who have been ripped off in the bush, ripped off in rural and regional Australia, by people acting for and on behalf of the big banks. They are the people who have lost their house. They are the people who are in hospital because they are crook and sick because their house is being ripped from them. They are the people who have lost every cent they have put together over the years. And the National Party, through Senator Williams, were on the case, but, as the National Party do all the time, they are all talk when they are back in their electorates and when they come back here they do nothing. They are all talk and no action—that is the National Party. They are the absolute doormats of the coalition.

We need to be in a position where we can get back to some proper checks and balances and we can get over this nonsense that we will hear from Senator Cormann about timing, the nonsense we will hear from Senator Cormann about red tape and the nonsense we will hear about unions. This is about ordinary Australians being protected by their government. The people who know what is happening out there—the pensioner groups, the seniors groups—are saying, 'We need protection from these rip-off merchants,' and that is what we have done. We put that in place and when the coalition came in and their political backers and financiers, the banks, sat them down and said, 'This is not on; you must change it,' then Senator Williams was pushed to the side, the Nationals were pushed to the side and the Liberals put their financial backers before the pensioners and the retirees of this country. That is the bottom line. That is what has happened here.

Senator Bushby was on the inquiry. He went there some of the time and heard some of the evidence, but when you have one of the biggest reports ever from a committee of inquiry, which lays out all the problems in the finance sector which have to be dealt with, Senator Bushby does six pages of waffle, six pages of nonsense, six pages of capitulation to the banks and the AMP. So, if you see Senator Bushby on his feet, you know that he had an opportunity to do something about this and failed miserably. He failed absolutely miserably to do anything about it. This is about ensuring that we have proper checks and balances; it is not about red tape and it is certainly not about the CFMEU.