Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

In acknowledging issues that have been raised around the use of Centrepay by a number of providers, the government announced in May this year a series of changes and an expansion of services for which Centrepay could be used to include, for example, no-interest loans, low-interest loans, lay-by and a number of other things. The Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Josh Frydenberg, announced just last week that there will also be a review of the small amount credit contract laws that will consider in fact whether those laws should be extended to apply to regulated consumer leases. That is a suggestion that has also been made by a number of stakeholders in this area.

What the government has endeavoured to do in the changes it has made—and I have discussed this in the chamber and elsewhere with Senator Cameron previously—

Senator Fifield interjecting—

In estimates, Senator Fifield. The government is endeavouring to strike a balance between strengthening protections for customers and not interfering unduly with existing means of urgent access to necessity goods. One thing we have to be acutely aware of is that the broader products to which Senator Cameron refers are not as immediately widely available as we would like them to be before we can contemplate, in my view, the sorts of suggestions Senator Cameron is making. The alternatives to consumer leases for which we have expanded Centrepay are ones we hope that our customers will take up. Until they are available through on a much larger scale I do not want to close all use of Centrepay for regulated leases. We have gone out of our way to inform customers and providers who have a consumer lease about these alternatives. While fixed term consumer leases do typically involve higher costs than outright purchases, they are regulated and that provides an important level of protection. (Time expired)