Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (16:35): Timing is everything, and it has been no surprise to see the coalition government throw the car into reverse when it comes to their plans to weaken investor protection on the eve of the Western Australian Senate re-run. The Labor government introduced the Future of Financial Advice reforms to ensure transparency and fairness, to ensure best practice and to ban conflicted remuneration. It was a step taken in response to clear evidence of established practices in the financial advice sector which were risky, harmful, improper and misleading. It included requirements that ordinary investors be provided with basic information about the fees attached to the advice they were receiving and a requirement that clients' consent be obtained rather than presumed in relation to ongoing fees. That is what sensible regulation in this space exists to do; it is what good government exists to do; and it is precisely what the wider community expects. The government was clearly hoping that the weakening and watering-down of these long-needed protections could be done quietly, under the cover of the government's bizarre 'war on red tape'. The Senate re-run election in WA has spoiled those plans, and so now, out of the blue, we hear that the weakening and watering-down of financial protections is being delayed because suddenly it is all very complicated and technical. Let me tell you, there is nothing very complicated about it. Financial advisers are not, in essence, salespeople. Their expertise—for which each and every client is paying—goes to the quality of their financial advice, which in turn depends entirely on it being in the best interest of the client, with no interfering consideration such as a separate financial reward that an adviser might receive from the owner of a financial or investment product. Such a scenario presents the very definition of a conflict of interest. The financial self-interest of the adviser is in conflict with the financial interest of the person they are obliged to serve, and that cannot be tolerated as part of what should be a safe, fair and transparent financial services environment. You can walk the streets in any community in this country and ask people whether they think financial advisers should be required to act in their client's best interest, and the only way you will find anyone who disagrees is if you happen to run into a dodgy financial adviser or else a member of this government's economic team. I assure you that in Western Australia there is a good understanding of what happens when the so-called red tape, the regulations that exist to protect all of us in areas of life like investment where we are vulnerable, is ineffective. Mr Pasin: I think they are more interested in the carbon tax. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): Order! The member for Barker will be silent. Ms PARKE: We have seen in the Westpoint collapse precisely what happens to ordinary investors when corporate fraud and inadequate financial regulation mix. Indeed, the Westpoint fiasco is a perfect and terrible example of the need for the reforms that Labor introduced. Individuals were encouraged to invest in the Westpoint Group, a Western Australian property development outfit, on the basis of advice that was negligently given and as a result of large commissions paid to financial advisers by Westpoint. There were more than 4,000 people who invested in the company, including many Western Australians. Together their losses have been estimated in excess of $300 million. It is no good to simply say that the relevant advisers have been banned as a result of the Westpoint collapse. It is no good to say, as the Prime Minister has said, that you should not regulate for 'ethical givens', when there has been a steady flow of savage and large-scale losses as a result of shonky corporate and financial industry operators who are completely impervious to basic ethical considerations. The whole rationale for effective regulation, for Labor's carefully designed and consulted financial advice reforms, is the need to prevent disasters from happening in the first place. It is so much easier and better to have a system that works to keep the frauds out and to resist the creep of self-interested advisory negligence than to come along afterwards when millions and millions of dollars have disappeared and thousands of people have suffered severe financial loss. Today, the Prime Minister talked about the need for decency. It is not decent for this government to remove sensible protections for consumers and investors—many of whom are elderly, vulnerable people. It is not decent for this government to abolish the charities commission, which protects donors and acts as a watchdog against scammers and dodgy charities. The treatment by this government of consumers, patients, orphans of war veterans, asylum seekers, low-paid workers, unemployed people and people with disabilities is simply not decent. So please do not talk to us about decency, Prime Minister. If saving senior Australians from losing their life savings to financial spivs is what the government calls red tape, then we say, 'Bring it on.' It is only those barriers and disincentives to improper conduct in an industry with serious inherent risks that keep ordinary Australians and their investments safe. This government wants to throw away those protections and wants to leave investors in the dark. What is worse, it wants to do so without scrutiny by Western Australians as they approach the ballot box.