COMMITTEES

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy President and Chair of Committees) (17:56): At the request of Senator Bragg, I move: That the following matter be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 7 June 2027: Mortgage offset accounts, with particular reference to: (a) the establishment of home mortgage offset accounts, including setup and linking of accounts; (b) the implementation of ongoing management and governance arrangements, including policies, procedures and internal controls; (c) the impact of costs and fees versus benefits of offset accounts for customers; (d) the identification of account failures and internal incident reporting and escalation; (e) remediation for customers affected by account failures; (f) compensation for customers experiencing account failures; (g) the impact on mortgagees and implications for home ownership including increased interest costs, effects on mortgage repayments and sustainability of home ownership; and (h) any other related matters.

Mortgage offset accounts are an important issue for the Senate economics committee to consider, and I think this is an issue that has been under discussion for quite a long while. I can remember having this discussion when I was Mathias Cormann's chief of staff when he was shadow minister for financial services, and that goes back a fair way now. I may have even had a chat about this with Senator Bragg back then.

Obviously, I wasn't Senator Brockman, and he wasn't Senator Bragg, but this topic is one that is of interest. It is one that is worthy of consideration, but, given Senator Bragg has now entered the chamber, I'm happy to hand the description of the motion over to him, because he is in a lot better position to talk about it than I am.