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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 557 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

the underlying principles of the discrimination legislation that is such a feature of Australian jurisdictions and a hallmark of human rights legislation in Australia.

I understand from the Attorney's introductory speech that the Discrimination Commissioner nevertheless has acknowledged that the amendment that the government is proposing does not prevent a complaint being made and being fully investigated. She acknowledges that the onus of proving there was no discrimination lies with the credit provider. I believe that the Discrimination Commissioner has indicated in any event that she can only recall one instance of discrimination by a credit provider on the grounds of age and that that was quickly resolved in favour of the complainant. Of course, that really does beg the question as to why it is that the government thinks this particular amendment is necessary. There is no clear answer to that. I do not believe that the government has provided any justification for this amendment to the Discrimination Act to allow discrimination in these eventualities on the ground of age.

I did raise some questions about the bill with the former Attorney-General. He replied stating, amongst other things, that the proposed amendments would not make it any easier to discriminate against those persons at either end of the age spectrum and explained advice from the Australian Finance Conference about how credit assessments are made. The Attorney-General went on to state:

I do not accept that argument. The argument seems to be that the credit industry wants to apply a generic assessment of the credit worthiness of certain people by age group. The credit industry believes it appropriate to devise a system whereby they are empowered to discriminate against, in particular, older people or younger people-people at either end of the potential borrowing spectrum, perhaps young people just out of school or older people after they have retired-and in terms of the generic assessment of the credit worthiness or credit status of people within a particular age cohort to be then able to discriminate against them on the basis of some generic actuarial advice that people between, say, the age of 18 and 21 are more likely to default in relation to the credit than people, say, from 25 to 30. Therefore, you can take into account the general credit worthiness of 18 to 21-year-olds in refusing a particular application for credit, irrespective of that person's particular or personal circumstances.

So the credit provider is no longer required to assess each application for credit on the basis of merit but is enabled by this particular amendment to look more broadly at other criteria applying to the age cohort generally and to say, "Look, we have actuarial data or actuarial information that indicates that this particular age group are very poor credit risks. Despite the fact that you seem to have a good steady job and a very sound income, we are able and entitled to discriminate and to take this factor into account when deciding whether or not to grant you credit."

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