COMMITTEES

Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (16:02): I rise to take note of the government response to the report on financial abuse undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. It's a title that has a little tag at the end that says it's an 'insidious form of domestic violence'. There are a few people here in the chamber, but there are also people who might be listening online.

I want to give you confidence that the democratic project, as much as it's maligned in the public place, is actually working. The impact of financial abuse being perpetrated on people in Australia is worth $5.7 billion. It does happen to some men, but predominantly this is an issue that affects women.

We all know about scams. We know how bad they are. We know how they hurt people that we love.

They take money away from people who need it—illegally. That costs $3 billion. Think about that.

Nearly twice as much damage to the Australian population from financial abuse is often done by somebody's partner. Great Australians—and champions, advocates and lobbyists for those Australians—came into this place and told their stories. We went to Perth, and we heard stories about a woman who was coerced into taking on debt for her partner to buy a car that she didn't want to buy.

He coerced her physically and emotionally into doing that and then, not too long after, beat her to such a pulp that she suffered a permanent brain injury. She spent time in a coma, for six months, and woke up with a debt that had escalated and escalated—and she could not get any relief from the provider of that financial instrument. This is the scale of what's going on.

The government has been listening to much of this evidence and other evidence about the problem with financial products and also with the weaponising of the instruments of government, such as the ATO. In this government, we are really committed to support. This was a unanimous report.

I know the headlines are all about people who hate one another here, but, every now and then, we really get it together—Labor, Greens and the Liberal-National coalition. There were 61 recommendations, with 58 of them accepted. We are committed to preventing perpetrators of family abuse from receiving victim's superannuation and death benefits.

How wrong is it that that has been able to occur? We're fixing that. Coerced directorships are where people's names and signatures are just copied by their partners for 10, 12, 20 different companies, and they don't even realise that they're acquiring debt in their own name because their partners are so deceptive.

We can't allow these things to continue. You won't see the director identification number in a headline; there won't be a whole lot of noise and fireworks about that, but this is real government with really good senators and members working properly in our democracy to give the things that we need to function properly as a harmonious society to the Australian people—where we pick out issues and go: 'That is not okay, that is not fair, and that is not the Australian way.

We are going to do something about it, and we're legislating for change.' The ATO is often the instrument that sees where these debts have been accrued, and many, many women talked abut the ATO arriving at their door and saying, 'Well, look, you've got all this debt'—hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions of dollars!—'the only way you can get out of it, love, is by signing this form, and you will become a bankrupt.' Women who didn't even know they were directors have been saddled with this incredible debt.

The malice of some of the people who are perpetrating this in our economy and in our society is truly shocking. We had evidence from one woman whose husband pulled apart the family finances, loaded it up with as much debt as possible on his way out the door, sold his house—sold their house—to his mate at a reduced price and made sure that his wife and their three children were out of that house two weeks before the daughter turned 18 because he didn't want them to have a party there.

There are awful people who need the law to be a barrier to prevent them from doing what they are doing. This committee has documented this shameful practice. It's no longer in the dark; we brought it out into the light.

This government now has five ministers involved in advancing change to improve the outcomes—$5.7 billion ripped off by one Australian against their intimate partners and their own children. Then, the whole of the public purse has to try and help hold that together. We are talking about women who are suffering debt for decades after they leave a terrible situation.

I encourage you: be confident that our democracy is working, read the report, and watch this government get it done. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned.