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

You guys across there—mostly guys; there are no women there again. These blokes over there, who are capitulating to the big banks and to the AMP, just do not get it. They will be okay. They are living off a big, fat salary. They are doing all right. They have never had to worry about putting food on the table. They have never had to worry about how they pay the mortgage. These are people of absolute privilege over here, and what they are doing is looking after the people of privilege in this country. They are looking after the banks, they are looking after AMP and they are allowing a rip-off of pensioners in this country.

We decided to do something about it, and the Senate is now determined to overcome and to overturn your cushy little deal with the banks, because the Senate is going to put the interests of retirees and investors in this country before the interests of the big banks. And do not fall for the argument that it is all about us attacking small business and not understanding small business. This is not about small business. As I said before, over 80 per cent of the financial planners are associated in one way or another with the four big banks and the AMP.

So this is not about small business; it is about ensuring that, if people invest their hard-earned savings after years of work and toil, it is protected to the best we can provide, that the government protects it and that we make sure the rip-off merchants are not in there carving up these poor people and leaving them destitute, with mental health problems, sick, with no home and having their family broken up. This is not good and this is why the coalition are more and more on the nose in this country—because they put their ideology and they put their financial backers before what is good policy in this country. It is reprehensible.