Page 1817 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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would be passed on to borrowers. The financial cost would, I expect, have to be calculated for the regulation impact statement, which I hope the ACT government in this case would make available to members of the Assembly. A triple bottom line approach requires that a financial cost be weighed up against social benefit, and I would not be surprised if the social benefit far outweighed the financial impost in this case. In regard to the Greens’ 2002 amendment, Mr Stanhope said in the Assembly:
The bill will help prevent vulnerable consumers from obtaining unmanageable credit. It will protect them from being subjected to aggressive marketing of credit, causing real hardship in many cases.
I hope that he and members of the ACT government can see similar strengths in introducing a similar arrangement for home loan assessments. I commend my motion to the Assembly and seek the support of other members in the interests of protecting some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (10:48): It is always good for the Assembly to debate motions such as this one. Dave Rugendyke, whilst not a predecessor of Dr Foskey, being an independent, was always keen to raise such issues, as the attorney might recall.
I will deal with a couple of points raised by Dr Foskey. She said that section 21 (a) of the act may be vague. She indicated the act may not be providing proper protection. I think the act does provide significant protection and clarity in that financial institutions have to be aware of the circumstances of the debtor, and they need to go into these matters in some detail. I can recall being in this Assembly when we passed some improvements to that section. I cannot recall whether that was as a result of uniform national legislation. It could well be, Dr Foskey, that the Office of Fair Trading needs to enforce that a bit more stringently. I am aware of some problems in the office, such as staffing problems. I think we discussed that during the estimates. Indeed, in relation to the office, there are probably several areas where they certainly have the power under the act, but the enforcement is not there. Perhaps they need to be a bit more robust in that regard.
My colleague Mr Mulcahy has foreshadowed an amendment to the motion, as has the attorney. Fundamentally, those amendments refer to the work being done on uniform legislation. I think it is preferable that it be done in that way. That is what normally happens here. When I was a minister, I attended ministerial council meetings and took issues from the ACT to those meetings on several occasions. I have seen Mr Quinton sitting at the back of the chamber; he came with me to the meetings and no doubt he still goes to them with the attorney. They are quite receptive to ideas from the ACT to improve the lot of consumers. In fact, we initiated some national legislation ourselves; I can recall the Victorians doing the same. Sometimes it does not occur as quickly as you might like. Dr Foskey referred to the 2002 legislation. I certainly recall that, with the noble intentions of Mr Rugendyke, we managed to get some of those matters included in the law, not only here but across the country.
Finance knows no boundaries. A lot of these loans are sourced from various places interstate. In the practice I was in with my old mate Bernard Collaery, I used to do a little bit of this myself. I had a fellow who would get these loans for people, and he
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