00:00 It's concerning to hear this kind of sentiment spoken publicly. Responsible lending laws
00:07 play a really important role in protecting consumers and as far as we're aware, tinkering
00:11 with them is not really on the table at the moment and for good reason because consumers
00:17 at the moment really are experiencing very high levels of cost of living pressure and
00:22 so exposing them to more risk doesn't seem like the right thing to be doing.
00:26 But the banks are arguing that these rules are hamstringing them in relation to giving
00:32 loans to people on middle and lower incomes and so they're missing out on getting credit.
00:39 From your perspective, are you hearing that that's happening or not?
00:44 Well really in addressing the balance between growth and risk, putting the risk back onto
00:49 the consumer is really not the approach that would work at the moment. We think that exposing
00:55 consumers to loans that they can't really afford to pay actually causes much more harm
01:02 than it does any good.
01:04 So how significant were the recommendations from the Royal Commission and how much respect
01:09 should there be for those recommendations considering the amount of evidence it heard?
01:15 The Royal Commission was a watershed moment for this country and let's not forget that
01:18 was only five years ago and one of the key recommendations of the Commission was that
01:23 the responsible lending laws ought to be upheld and enforced. So it's very concerning to hear
01:28 murmurs around weakening them or changing those laws at this stage in the game. We're
01:32 just five years out and those are vital, vital consumer protections.
01:36 But you're pretty confident the government isn't going to move on this?
01:41 Well that's a matter for government, Joe, but we will say that what we see on the National
01:45 Debt Helpline and frontline financial counsellors are seeing, they see the consequences of people
01:51 who are unable to meet their debt repayments and it is devastating. People that are calling
01:57 in or seeing financial counsellors are overwhelmed, they're experiencing extraordinary high levels
02:03 of stress and it has an impact on everything, on your mental health, on your family life.
02:07 People just are going from bill to bill and it's really not a good situation.
02:11 Give us more of an insight into that. Are you experiencing greater demand for those
02:15 services?
02:17 We had quite a substantial increase over the first months of this year to the National
02:22 Debt Helpline in terms of demand. In February and March we had almost 30,000 points of contact
02:29 with the National Debt Helpline and the leading reason that people were calling in was housing
02:34 stress. So that includes not being able to make mortgage repayments. That's really concerning
02:40 because given the way that the housing market is going, we know that people will do everything
02:45 they can, they'll cut every corner, they won't pay other bills in order to meet their housing
02:49 costs. So if they're not able to meet those mortgage costs, you can bet that they're struggling
02:54 in all of the areas.
02:55 So as far as you're concerned, it's the worst possible time for the banks to be talking
03:00 about the easing of responsible lending rules?
03:04 Absolutely. People need support, not increased risk.
03:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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