SPEECH TO STORM FINANCIAL ACTION GROUP FORUM

_{26 February, 2009}

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Thanks very much Mark and Noel and ladies and gentlemen.

I wish I wasn’t here, and more importantly, I wish you weren’t here. 
The situation in which you find yourselves is just awful.  Why I’m here and why my good mate, Senator John Williams is here and why Desley Boyle and Steve Wettenhall and I notice Wendy Richardson and Joel Harrop and Vic Black also here, we are all here to demonstrate that together you have our support.  I am not quite sure what we can do but we do want you to know that there are other people fighting your cause as well.

In John Williams you’ve got a great advocate, one who’s been through it all before and he knows what it is like to deal with the banks, he gave you a very shortened version of his own history.  If you get the chance to read his real story you’ll know that it is worth fighting.

Ladies and gentlemen, 2 or 3 weeks ago in the Senate we were debating, would you believe, how to spend $42 billion and in the course of that debate I challenged Nick Sherry, the Minister in charge of the Bill to do something for people who had been affected by the Storm Financial crisis and I said to Nick Sherry, as I said to people in Townsville, the Banks, a couple of months ago, were in real trouble and you remember with the sub-prime loans in the United States and that had its tentacles all around the world, the Australian big 4 banks, including the Banks that lent you money, were in a stage where they did need some support. And they got your support.  What the Government did was guarantee their deposits.  Now, Governments don’t have money they only use taxpayers’ money, and the Government committed between 600 and 700 billion dollars to support deposits in the banking institutions and deposit institutions in Australia.  I challenged Nick Ferry then, but as I said in Townsville, the Banks relied upon your support as taxpayers through your Government to continue going, it’s now incumbent upon the banks to help you in your hour of need.  And as John Williams said at 11.30 last night, he and I were questioning ASIC and the Minister and I was delighted to say, and the Minister confirm, that he had spoken to the Commonwealth Bank and no-one had a forced foreclosure from the Commonwealth Bank.  The important thing, forgetting about the nicety of the words though, is that following the challenge that John Williams and I made in the Senate Chamber, the Government to their credit and Nick Sherry to his credit had spoken to the Commonwealth Bank, he is speaking with the Bank of Queensland, he’s going to speak with Macquarie Bank, and any other relevant Bank, to urge them to deal with you to get through these problems.  ASIC claim that no-one has been forced into a sale and if anyone has any problems with the Banks, if any of the Banks are pushing you unreasonably, please report it to ASIC, please also report it to me and John Williams, and if we find that there are Banks being unreasonable, John and I will get up every day in the Senate and name the Banks and relate the experience and by saying that publicly to the Banks, and there will probably be representatives of the Banks in this room tonight, we just want the Banks to know that they should be looking after you.  There are tough times ahead for you, and they know that without me telling you, but it will work a lot better if the Banks work with you, with goodwill and try and sort out your problems remembering that you, as taxpayers, through your Government, have propped those Banks up to the extent of a 600 – 700 billion dollar guarantee.  That is why I have no hesitation in saying you deserve some leniency, some co-operation from the Banks.

Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a Parliamentary Inquiry set up just yesterday.  John had given a Notice of Motion in the Senate to set up a Senate Inquiry next week.  The terms of reference from the inquiry yesterday we will be looking at, we hope that’s sufficient.  Joint Committees include, Senators, Members from all sides of politics.  If they’re not sufficient we’ll extend them to make sure that all of you, should you so wish, have the opportunity of putting your facts on the table, of making your point and hopefully we can try and achieve some justice, and I don’t want to kid you, I don’t want you to think that we’re magicians and that we can get you all your money back, that’s just not possible.  We do hope that we can help you through it and that the Banks will be with you.  We want this inquiry to make sure this sort of thing can’t happen again.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have a great team here with you with Mark and his team.  Some of you and I know people amongst you are very, very depressed.  Please don’t give up, life’s good, although it doesn’t seem like it now to many of you, please don’t give up.  There is a lot of support out there, a lot of agencies that can help you and a lot of people around, particularly the Action Group and they have been through it all before and they know what it’s all about and they can give you assistance.

Can I just conclude on this note, please, if you are being unreasonably hassled by bankers or financial people, or anyone else, would you please let ASIC know, please let John Williams and I know.  The statement by ASIC yesterday you would be interested in.  It will be on their website, if it’s not, it is on my website.  I have put it up there, it is quite a lengthy statement.  I think you will find it interesting and I think it will give you some comfort that ASIC, I think, is heading in the right direction to get to the bottom of this.  I suspect there will be prosecutions.  ASIC talked about yesterday, or last night at Senate Estimates, about investigating the possibility of ASIC actually acting on behalf of groups of people to try and get compensation.  Now, that will depend on everyone’s individual circumstances but ASIC are certainly looking very carefully at that.  What they need to know though, are your circumstances so they can investigate them and put you into this basket or that bucket or that basket and they do really want to hear from you.  If any of you have got a story to tell, please do it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all with you.  As I say, don’t give up, keep in there fighting.

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