THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND CRIMINAL BREACHES

Today the Royal Commission heard explosive evidence that Clearview breached anti-hawking provisions more than 300,000 times with its direct phone selling of life insurance products. This carries a criminal penalty – a fact confirmed by Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission Rowena Orr QC.

 

Some of the people targeted by this conduct included vulnerable, low-income Australians. It is an enormous, appalling breach – and yet another example of sickening misconduct in the financial services sector.

 

Most shockingly, this misconduct could’ve been stopped so much earlier. These potentially criminal breaches were occurring up until mid-2017 – while the Liberals were blocking the Royal Commission.

 

The Liberal Government did everything to avoid shining a light on misconduct in the financial sector. They ran a protection racket for the big banks over 600 days and Prime Minister Scott Morrison voted against setting up a Royal Commission 26 times. Then they spent the past year trying to give the big banks a $17 billion tax cut.

 

All the while, Australian families suffered at the hands of dodgy financial service providers.

 

Given what we’ve heard so far, the Liberals’ opposition to the Royal Commission was unconscionable.

 

Scott Morrison must apologise to every single person affected by Clearview’s conduct, and to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have been ripped off by the big banks and other financial services providers.