question re mfs posed to au treasurer in uk, page-10

Podcast of Swan's LSE presentation is now at http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm#generated-subheading1

Questions begin at 29m40s

Question asked from the floor re Octaviar is at 36m33s. She is a unit trust investor, so probably a PIF investor. "... That sounds great for the toxic assets of banks. I'm glad that you - I'm an Australian citizen and an Australian tax payer - I'm glad that you said we're all in this together because I'm I've lost all of my money for the rest of my life in the failed Queensland unit trust MFS, that's your State, that was from January 08. And it was a result of the failure of the oversight authority ASIC and you take government, you take responsibility and I'd like to know what you're going to do about that. A forward looking Senate inquiry looking at future regulation is no good for people like me. I'm asking on behalf of ten thousand people, what are you going to do about it?"

HEAR HEAR

Swan: "Well I think the people who invested in those schemes are right to be disillusioned and angry with what has happened to their money. They made an investment in a market linked investment proposal which didn't have the security that an investment in a APRA regulated institution would have because they were looking for higher returns and sadly the worst has happened. Naturally I think there will be implications that need to be studied for what this means in terms of organisations such as ASIC and the government is very accutely aware of that and we have recently as you have indicated, announced an inquiry principally into the events surrounding Storm but I think it goes to core of your question: How could the regulatory system allow or tolerate these sorts of activities by a number of people in market linked investment schemes? And I don't pretend to have the answer to that, that's what the inquiries will show us. But there is nothing the Australian Government can do for those people who unfortunately lost their money in those market linked schemes other than to try and learn the lessons of that experience and fix the regulatory system."

So there you have it. We are just being brandished as greedy. F that. I was mislead. I didn't go out looking for schemes like PIF. I would never have crossed paths with such a scheme if it wasn't for my financial advisor's recommendations. I was a cautious 'investor' up until then. I would have had to go AGAINST my financial advisor's advice to avoid ending up in PIF.

Anyway, Swanny doesn't make sense. If it was just us looking for higher returns. i.e. our 'greed', then why does the regulatory system need to be fixed? Why the cost of a Joint Committee Inquiry? Answer that!!!