Page 2002 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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But the point is what Jon Stanhope said prior to the election, when he knew there were concerns. We had seen the concerns over a period of years. They had raised the bar in those last couple of months, with all this email correspondence. It is interesting—and it puts it into a bit of context, I think, as to where things were at and in terms of what the goings on were behind the scenes—that the next day, after Jon Stanhope made that statement, we had an email from Westpac to Elisabeth Judd:
Following on from my discussions with Elisabeth Judd we have put together some of our concerns. I understand there is some political pressure being applied to issue a press release regarding the scheme.
So the political pressure was coming from the government. “We need a lender. We need a lender to endorse this scheme so that we can take to the election that we have a scheme that is workable, that we have something that is worth supporting, that we have put something new and novel that works.” They were doing this behind the scenes. And when he gets pinged on 28 August, he says, “Concerns? No, we do not have concerns. There is no reason to believe that there is anything other than that the institutions will support land rent,” because a couple of institutions had once said to him, “We will look at land rent. That sounds okay, in principle, I suppose. We will need to look at the detail.”
As they looked at the detail, the concerns continued to mount. And they put those concerns to this government in numerous ways. Many of the banks and financial institutions rejected it; many continued to raise concerns, saying, “We have concerns. We are not sure about this. This provides us with some real challenges, some real risks that we are not sure about.” And yet he went out there on 28 August and misled the community. It is as clear as day. It is as clear as day that he went out there and misled the community. And it goes on.
We see, even on 29 August, the owner/manager of Mortgage Choice asking:
Would it be possible to provide me with a list of lenders who will be providing construction?
He says that someone from Treasury was able to provide him with the name of one lender; however, that particular lender is not in a position to support the scheme. He goes on to say, on 4 September, that he cannot find lenders. This is a mortgage broker who is looking for lenders under this scheme. He has clients, people who want finance under the scheme. Jon Stanhope, with his department knowing this, with his department running around trying to find these lenders, with his department getting this correspondence, says “No, we have got no reason to believe anything other than that they will support the scheme.”
I put it to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, I put it to the Assembly, that any reasonable person faced with these facts would have cause for significant doubt. They would at the very least have cause for significant doubt. They might be hopeful; they might be optimistic. You could put the best possible spin on it and say, “Jon Stanhope is an optimist and he was hopeful that someone would.” We suppose he still is. And perhaps they will.
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