Tuesday, 14 November 2023

Australian Securities and Investments Commission

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:07): (435) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Assistant Treasurer in the absence of a minister for finance. It concerns an issue whereby I asked the minister to contact the federal Assistant Treasurer and federal Minister for Financial Services the Honourable Stephen Jones, and I request he follows up on that – and I will be specific at the conclusion of the adjournment. I have been contacted by a number of constituents and further by a number of groups of people about the actions of Mr Anton and Mrs Melinda Wilson. I understand Mr Wilson has been the subject of a previous ASIC investigation, which ASIC advises me has currently concluded. I make no judgement on their findings or on the allegations except to place them on record and then to seek further investigation. I understand these individuals are accused of owing more than $45 million to many, many people, and I have personally spoken to some of these people, who have lost millions. Indeed I saw in a recent media article in News Limited in the last week or two that there is apparently an unpaid tax bill of more than $20 million. While conducting investigations I have been informed that ASIC looked at these matters but has, bizarrely, concluded them, with no serious attempt to seek financial redress or assist those who are seeking to obtain justice or the Victorians who have lost money. I note media reports of the daughter of these individuals, who is currently overseas competing in the Miss Universe contest and is the director of a number of companies linked to major unpaid debts which also link to her parents, which she says she has no knowledge of, yet she is the listed director of an active construction group of her own family, despite that same family owing millions of dollars.

While these matters are complex, and I will not comment on people personally, I do note that there is a lot of money in this issue that is owed and has been at play, and many Victorians have been financially hurt and seek rightful redress. It has gone on for too long. It is not right that a number of companies linked to these individuals continue to operate while tens of millions of dollars in unpaid debts remains outstanding. How can it be that our federal regulatory authorities cannot commence or reopen investigations into people who owe so much money to so many, including as reported in the media, to the Australian taxpayer via the taxation office? How can it be the federal government is owed so much money yet cannot open and sustain a simple investigation or reply to basic correspondence to people like me seeking redress for constituents that have been badly financially and emotionally hurt? I am not sure what AFSA, the Australian Financial Security Authority, actually does, but I will save my issues for them for another time.

Tonight my issue is simple: I ask the Assistant Treasurer to please write to the federal Assistant Treasurer, who has ministerial responsibility for ASIC, and request they immediately reopen an investigation into these two individuals I have named, and for the Victorian minister to tell the feds to do it promptly for the sake of the Victorians involved who have been financially hurt.