Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Out of my great respect for Senator Macdonald, I will keep my remarks particularly short. I will support the suspension of standing orders. There is some urgency in respect of this. The evidence heard by the Senate Economics References Committee in Melbourne on Wednesday 12 November, just last week, was particularly harrowing. There has been massive failure, with thousands of Australians facing losing their homes as a result of very bad financial advice. The concern expressed by groups such as Choice, National Seniors Australia and the Council on the Ageing is that the government's regulations weaken consumer protections. I spoke to Michael O'Neill and Ian Yates from National Seniors Australia and the Council on the Ageing respectively just a few moments ago. Their concern is not a political one; it is a concern based on the fact that their constituents, the people that they represent—particularly senior citizens and pensioners—will be in a much weaker position.

I think we ought to have a substantive debate on this. I urge my backbench colleagues from the coalition to take this into account—do you really want to be part of another financial scandal if we do not deal with this in a very comprehensive and common sense way? My fear is that the government has gone too far with these regulations. The balance, the pendulum, has swung too far to industry to the detriment of consumers. There is a real urgency in this and we need to deal with it in a common-sense, practical way. That will give an opportunity for those who support the disallowance of this motion to sit down with the government in good faith and come up with a compromise to deal with the very genuine concerns by Choice, by National Seniors Australia, by the Council on the Ageing and by a whole range of other consumer groups who I do not see as primarily political but have genuine concerns for the people that they represent.