Recent new data has shown that there are now 800,000 Australian households which have fallen victim to the pay day lending rip off.
This number has more than doubled in the past decade including 150,000 new households signing up for pay day loans in the last 18 months alone.
With many of the victims residents of South West Sydney, Federal Member for Macarthur, Dr Mike Freelander said that it was time to draw a line in the sand and end the pay day lending rip off.
He said these Australian families continue to be ripped off every day by the loan sharks in this out of control industry while the Morrison Government did nothing.
“It’s now been over 1,000 days since this government called for a review into the pay day loans sector,” he said.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“These families struggling to get by with flat lining wages and insecure work are forced into pay day loans with interest rates as high as 884 percent.[/social_quote]
“The government has known about this growing crisis for more than two years, but are so out of touch they refuse to do anything about it.”
Dr Freelander pointed out that it has now been 1,153 days since the government announced a review into payday loans and rent-to-buy schemes in 2015.
But despite repeated promises and supporting the 24 recommendations from the review, the government is yet to show any action to clamp down on the loan sharks, he said.
With the government unwilling to tackle this crisis, earlier this year Labor introduced legislation to enact the 24 recommendations to stop the loan sharks preying on vulnerable Australians.
Dr Freelander says not one government MP chose to speak on the motion and the “merry-go-round of ministers responsible for the issue now sits with Queensland MP Stuart Robert who is the fourth minister to ignore this crisis.
“Labor calls on the government to bring forward this important piece of legislation to protect vulnerable Australian consumers,’’ Dr Freelander said.
