Page 2907 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 24 June 2009
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appropriately addressed. A subsequent phone conversation with the Genworth risk manager suggested that it was very likely that sign-off would be provided by the Genworth national office but that, because the scheme would require the company to offer a new product, final sign-off from their parent company, located in the United States, would be required.
Subsequently, a letter was received from Genworth declining to offer a lenders mortgage insurance product for land, ostensibly based on a number of concerns regarding risk. While this advice was dated 14 October, this letter was not received by the Chief Minister’s Department until 20 October—after the ACT election.
Mr Seselja’s claim that the government was aware of Genworth’s refusal to back this scheme prior to the election is false. I am in awe of Mr Seselja’s faith in Australia Post, that he believes a letter can be sent, received and logged within 24 hours. Of course, the truth—one surely intuited long ago by everyone apart from Mr Seselja—is that the letter did not reach the ACT government until after the election. Hence, there was no question of notifying the people of Canberra or anyone else of Genworth’s decision before the election.
A second truth, again understood by everyone except Mr Seselja, is that Genworth is not a lender. One would have imagined that Mr Seselja, having pored so diligently over the FOI material made available to him and carefully snipping a half-sentence here and a half-phrase there to suit his argument, would have twigged to this. But apparently not.
In any case, it is unclear just why Mr Seselja is so touchingly concerned about the issue of mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance, after all, protects the lender in the event of a default. It has nothing to do with the borrower. It is insurance for bankers. It is usually considered compulsory where the deposit is below, say, 10 per cent.
So why was Mr Seselja so agitated at the prospect that no-one will protect the lender? I am pretty sure that Community CPS is better placed to judge whether it needs mortgage insurance for land than Mr Seselja. It is, as I say, touching in the extreme to see Mr Seselja’s concern for Community CPS’s judgement. Perhaps he would be better placed to take up his concerns with the credit union than with the government.
I think that safely disposes of the first part of Mr Seselja’s motion. It is wrong in fact, meaningless in content and shows a paltry and quite worrying understanding of both the banking system and the postal system.
In the next part of his motion Mr Seselja goes on to describe the 20 per cent deposit requirement announced by Community CPS Australia as onerous. Onerous means burdensome. Here we go again. Mr Seselja is attacking a fine local institution for daring to agree with the government and not him. He did it to the builders who dared to partner with the government on OwnPlace. His party did it to the senior public servants who have the absolute cheek to try to correct the record and protect their professional reputations and those of their staff. Now he is calling into question the social morality of the members of the CPS board. Where does this end, Mr Speaker?
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