Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Part of the suite of measures that are available to us through the financial counselling mechanisms that occur in Australia are no-interest loans. As part of our COVID response package, we have increased the amount of money that's available to Good Shepherd Microfinance, who have been delivering no-interest loans to Australians for years. But the most important reason we wanted to make sure that we provided this money was to enable them to leverage that money with other providers.

I acknowledge the National Bank of Australia, who have made available $40 million worth of loan capital on the back of the support that this Australian government has put into these microfinance loans to make sure that loans of up to $3,000 are made available to people to pay for such things as essential household products that they may need and the payment of bills. It also gives them the capacity to access an alternative to high-risk, high-interest products— (Time expired)