PETER STEFANOVIC:
And joining us live is Assistant Treasurer and Financial services Minister Stephen Jones. Minister, good to see you. So just elaborate on some of these changes that you would like to see made.
STEPHEN JONES:
Initiating a consultation with industry and consumers over the next month and a half. We've seen a massive growth in Buy Now Pay Later. From a consumer's point of view, they look at this and they think it's just like any other credit product. In fact, one of the good things about Buy Now Pay Later is it's created great competition with the traditional credit cards, but they're not regulated in the same way. In fact, they're not regulated under the National Consumer Credit Act. We want to look at that. We think there's a prima facie case to bring them into the Consumer Credit Act. Things like credit checks, things like ensuring that these products are appropriately marketed at the right group of people. I think is a minimum standard that we can expect, but we're not serving up a cooked meal. We want to have a genuine consultation.
STEFANOVIC:
Sure, Buy Now Pay Later. I mean, it took off during COVID but then there was such an oversaturation of businesses doing it that many of them struggled. And I'm just looking at Zip here. Its share price crashed. Do you think the industry truly has legs?
JONES:
Look, I do. A few years back, we had a couple of operators. We've now got over 20. A lot of the major banks have got into this as well because they can see a new form of credit that they don't want to be excluded from. The cost of - interest rates going up has put cost pressures on some of these very marginal businesses. I think there'll be a shake out, but I think there'll be something still standing there at the end of the shake out. It should be appropriately regulated.
STEFANOVIC:
Okay, so when do you expect that all to be finished by?
JONES:
Look, not putting a firm date on it. I'll take the results of the consultation home from the Christmas reading, but I'd be surprised if we're still talking about whether we're going to do this at this time next year. We want to ensure that throughout the course of next year, whatever changes need to be put in place, we put in place.
STEFANOVIC:
All right, well, speaking of Christmas, this is the last sitting fortnight that you've got now. You want to get IR done before the Christmas break, even if that means extending for a few weeks. Why not if you can't get consensus, why not just revisit it next year?
JONES:
We think we should be able to get consensus. The reforms, when they're all boiled down, are pretty modest. A lot of the noise that's being made around this at the moment, frankly, the people who are making the most noise are the ones who are least impacted by it because they're already dealing with collective bargaining and they're well versed in how it works. The people who are most affected by this are the ones who are not in the collective bargaining system at the moment. They're on award minimum rates of pay and they're excluded from these arrangements because they just don't work for them. They're the people that these reforms are aimed at, some of the lowest paid Australians, and we want them next year to be planning on how we can collectively work on a pay rise for them, not whether Parliament's still squabbling about how we change the law.
STEFANOVIC:
The business groups are the ones who are making the most noise at the moment and they represent thousands and thousands of businesses with deep concerns that this will lead to job losses and it will lead to increased strike action. Can you guarantee that it won't?
JONES:
It's absolute hogwash. It really is absolute hogwash. When I talk to businesses at the moment, you know what their number one concern is? I can't get enough workers. How is government going to help me get the workforce that I need, because right across the economy, we don't have enough workers. So in the very next breath they're saying, oh, but if we have got to change collective bargaining laws to enable lowest paid workers to get a pay rise, all of a sudden there's going to be job losses. It just doesn't stack up. It's rubbish. It's hyperventilating. The organisations that are making the most noise, I've seen them. The miners groups out there making a fair bit of noise, they're already covered by collective bargaining arrangements. This will have not one iota of impact on them. So, come on, let's be genuine. Let's have a genuine debate about this and not throw up a whole heap of hogwash. But it's just not credible. If there are adjustments that need to be made, surely we can do that over the next two weeks and get a bill through that meets everybody's needs.
STEFANOVIC:
Okay, Stephen Jones we'll leave it there. Appreciate it.