I had a conversation with a former colleague of mine in the office of the Shadow Assistant Treasurer about the draft legislation.
No formal decisions have been made and a formal decision will not be made until legislation is introduced, but the opposition is not currently disposed to support the draft legislation or the principles behind it.
Along with many posters here, they have concerns that actions that risk shutting down licensed operators will leave the unlicensed operators as the only ones willing to make the kind of short term loans that CCV currently makes. Unless the Government is willing to radically expand the support it offers to individuals through avenunes like Centrelink, the only option for people who currently patronise CCV would be to visit their friendly neighbourhood bikie gang or other similarly unscrupulous lenders.
There was also concern that the size of loans to people who can ill afford to take on debt would increase.
So if the opposition doesn't support the legislation, how will it get through?
The Senate is not where this will be won or lost. The Greens are all over this draft legislation, and in fact would be happy for it to go further, so passing the upper house will not be a problem for the Government.
In the House of Reps they will need to get support from the Crossbenches. The Greenie will go with them, and I suspect Andrew Wilkie (of the "blow up the pokies" crowd) is likely to also. That leaves, Katter, Windsor, Oakeshott, and Crook. They will need two of them and there is no guarantee which way any of them will go.
CCV is participating in the public consultation and individual citizens (and investors) are welcome to do the same. It is encouraging to see that CCV is putting together a petition signed by customers who frequent their establishments for short term loans and are happy with the service they provide.
It will be important for principled and reasonable objections to this draft legislation to be registered. The Government has bigger fish to fry and I suspect it has little desire for a fight on this if it can be avoided.
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Making a submission
Interested parties are invited to comment on the exposure drafts. While submissions may be lodged electronically or by post, electronic lodgment is preferred. For accessibility reasons, please submit responses sent via email in a Word or RTF format. An additional PDF version may also be submitted.
All information (including name and address details) contained in submissions will be made available to the public on the Treasury website unless you indicate that you would like all or part of your submission to remain in confidence. Automatically generated confidentiality statements in emails do not suffice for this purpose. Respondents who would like part of their submission to remain in confidence should provide this information marked as such in a separate attachment. Legal requirements, such as those imposed by the Freedom of Information Act 1982, may affect the confidentiality of your submission.
Closing date for submissions: Monday, 5 September 2011
Address written submissions to: The General Manager Retail Investor Division The Treasury Langton Crescent PARKES ACT 2600
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