Page 1827 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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the point of view of protecting consumers—not intruding into their privacy, not increasing the costs for these lenders, but looking at ways in which we can make this market a fair one that still assists people who can afford to buy houses to do so.
This is an important issue. Mr Mulcahy, I would like to hear how you would solve it. I am not sure that you have any details there, but I would like to hear that at some point. And I would like to hear a bit more admission here in the Assembly that the credit card administration act is weak. There is a role for the ACT to take interim measures. We can wait—the commonwealth and the states will reach an agreement but the ACT could do this right now. It could take the lead and maybe push them towards acting faster as well.
Question resolved in the negative.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.26): I seek leave to move the amendment to Dr Foskey’s motion circulated in my name.
Leave granted.
MR CORBELL: I move:
Omit all words after paragraph (1) (a), substitute:
“(b) regulation of credit providers which offer low-doc or no-doc loans are already governed by the Consumer Credit (Administration) Act 1996;
(c) ACT Government is working with other State and Territory Governments, through the Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs, to investigate the extension of the general principles relating to responsible credit card lending under the Consumer Credit Code to other forms of consumer lending, such as low-doc loans; and
(d) desirability of ensuring legislative consistency with other jurisdictions on matters of consumer credit.”.
I find it somewhat frustrating that a process which has been deliberately focused on trying to get a uniform approach to what is a national issue is degraded in this place by Dr Foskey because she wants to be the first out of the blocks. That is what it comes down to at the end of day; it is just about who is first out of the blocks. I am not interested in playing that game, but I am interested in getting a good legislative policy response to what is a serious issue: an issue of legitimate concern and one that I acknowledge Dr Foskey is interested in and has concern about, as do I.
The CARE report that Dr Foskey refers to does highlight incidents where people have been taken advantage of by low doc and no doc lenders. According to the CARE report, the incidents of this occurring are not as significant as in other jurisdictions, but that is not to diminish the issue or the problem or the impact that bad lending practices has upon low-income individuals and banks, because they do. There is a very serious impact and it hurts those people directly in a very unfair and often predatory way.
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