Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the matter asked about by Senator Watt earlier today. It is refreshing to actually speak on something that is of relevance to ordinary Australians, as opposed to the subject matter we covered for most of question time today and a good period of time post question time. I take into account the points that were made by Senator Cameron on the doors—that Australians are sick and tired of talking about things that don't matter to them. It's a refreshing change to talk about something that is relevant to ordinary Australians and how they manage their household budgets.

It is interesting, as always, to listen to Senator Watt make his contributions on taking note. He's a very articulate man. I'm sure he does his research well. But he did make the point that a lot of what he was talking about is based on media reports around a particular supposed friendship group which exists in the parliament and fulfilled certain functions. It is one with which I'm not familiar and one I've not heard of myself but one, nonetheless, Senator Watt refers to in vague terms while trying to claim that this group of individuals who are members of it wield some amazing amount of authority in the party room. I think it may just be salacious reporting, but we'll have to wait and see as time goes forward.

No-one in this place, I think, denies that we need to ensure that vulnerable members of our community are well looked after and protected from predatory entities that may be preying on those who do require certain amounts of cash in short time frame. We've heard reports of this quite often, particularly in communities like those Senator Watt referred to: regional and rural communities, where sometimes work is hard to come by and it is a struggle to make ends meet. So you have families who, maybe in order to buy their kids their school uniform for the beginning of the school year, to pay the power bill or things like that, need to access funds in a very short time frame. And often these payday loans, as they've been referred to, are a product that these people access. It's important to ensure that the laws around these entities are ones that protect the consumer, because we've sometimes seen larger financial institutions and some smaller ones do things that could be construed as taking advantage of vulnerable consumers.

Of course, it's important to point out that there was a review into small-amount credit contract laws and whether these particular laws should be extended to consumer leases. That review was undertaken under the requirements of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. The government was fulfilling an obligation which came out of those laws which was specifically targeted at protecting individuals and ensuring that the rights of consumers were protected.

That report came back to government in March 2016, and the response to that particular report was released in November of 2016. Of course, the government's response supported the vast majority of the review's recommendations, including retaining existing price caps on small-amount credit contracts, extending the small-amount credit contract-protected earnings amount requirement to all consumers and lowering it to 10 per cent of the consumer's net income. It also talks about introducing a cap on total payments on a consumer lease equal to the base price of the good plus four per cent of that price per month and introducing a protected earnings amount requirement for consumer lease providers of 10 per cent of net income for all consumers. Also, it's important to note that the government did release an exposure draft to implement the response in October of last year.

These are all important steps the government is taking. This is quite the contrast to the suggestions being made by Senator Watt, that there's this group of mysterious individuals roaming the corridors of this building—members of this 'friendship group'—trying to dictate to government what they'll do when it comes to consumer protection in relation to credit products. It's important, but, as I said at the beginning of my contribution, it's refreshing to talk about something that is actually relevant to Australians, rather than the matters that we've been discussing in question time. (Time expired)