Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I addressed a letter to the federal Treasurer concerning a matter of grave importance to many residents in my electorate of Brand and across the wider state of Western Australia. I am disgusted and I am dismayed. Nearly a dozen constituents within my electorate have lost their life savings to a scam investment scheme sold to them by Sterling First. These vulnerable people have lost up to $200,000 each through being sold dodgy financial products by dodgy con artists. The Western Australian state government is currently looking at the state based issues surrounding this murky scheme. I am now calling on the federal government to raise the issue with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a matter of extreme urgency. It is disturbing to hear that the state government, as well as some of the victims of this scheme, notified ASIC of their concerns surrounding the issues quite some time ago, yet ASIC has clearly failed to act upon this information as the company has only recently gone into administration.

One can only wonder how many more people across Western Australia might have been taken advantage of by these white collar crims, the Sterling First group, had they not gone into administration. In fact, some victims in my electorate signed onto this deal as late as January this year. Members on both sides of this House need to realise that we need to work together to stop these dodgy scams rather than keep on handballing these issues to different jurisdictions.

Last Friday dozens of concerned people, dozens of people who were ripped off by the scheme, held a meeting in Mandurah calling on the federal government to act. I join them in calling on the federal government to stop dodgy schemes.