Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to express my dismay that victims of the Sterling Income Trust collapse have been left out of the compensation scheme of last resort as currently drafted by Treasury. There are a few days to go before the consultations close, so I encourage people to complain. The government dragged their feet in putting this scheme together, yet, in the meantime, they encouraged Sterling victims to lodge complaints with AFCA so they could be considered under a future scheme. They also claimed that the global financial crisis meant they could not make progress on the scheme, yet, in the meantime, while encouraging people to apply to AFCA, they suspended AFCA's ability to assess those complaints.

I know the government's concerned about the system being gamed, and I understand those concerns. But these people deserve redress—the redress that they have won in the courts. They've been encouraged by the government to take their case to AFCA and to the courts; it's what the government advised them to do. The royal commission said there should be a retrospective and prospective scheme for compensation and the determinations that have been made should be honoured. Many of the people impacted by this scheme, the Stirling Income Trust collapse, have had their financial security utterly destroyed. They've seen their housing security utterly collapse. They were promised restitution, and I urge the government to act.