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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-12-04 Daily Xml
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Enforcement of Judgments (Garnishee Orders) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 November 2014.)

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (10:57): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): I declare it carried.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Divide!

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): I will put the question again. The noes have it. I have declared it in the negative. Do you wish to divide or not? The motion has been called in the negative; if you would like to divide, I will call a division.

Mr GARDNER: Sir, as I understand it, we have not adjourned because you called—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): In favour of the noes.

Mr GARDNER: Therefore, we are looking for an opportunity for another member to speak.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): So you do not want to divide?

Mr GARDNER: Nobody has called, 'Divide,' sir.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): I thought you called a division.

Mr GARDNER: There seems to be an argument as to whether we should divide on a matter that you have called for him. Given that we are not dividing, there surely needs to be attention drawn to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:00): The member for Hartley has brought a very important matter to the attention of the house and one on which I often get representations to my electorate office. It concerns the problem of small businesses and not just people in small businesses but people who have rental properties—and I am not absolutely certain whether this would cut across the Residential Tenancies Act. There is a whole range of people out there who seem to make an art form out of not paying their debts. There is a whole range of people who think that it is okay to go out and obtain a service, whether it be from a tradesperson or on some sort of credit account or for a rental property, and not pay their debt.

As a society, I think we have to recognise that somewhere somebody always pays. Somebody has to pay, and if the person who obtains the service does not pay surely it must be the person who provides the service who has to pay. What we need to recognise is that the person who provides the service generally has costs of their own. They have a family they have to look after, they have a table which food must put on, and they have children who have school fees and school uniforms and who need to be clothed and shod.

They have costs, but also, if they are running a small business, they have their creditors. They may well have had to purchase equipment and materials to undertake the work they have done. They have obligations and, by and large, if they stay in business, they meet those obligations, so the money comes off the table that provides for their family. This happens all too often, and we see the statistics about the failure of start-up businesses in this state, which are incredibly high. In many cases, those statistics reflect the problem of bad debtors.

Bad debts are one of the most difficult things to manage when operating a small business. I run a small business in another part of my life, and I have experienced this very problem. Somebody comes along—in my case, the business where I am selling a good—and picks up the good in their truck and takes it off to their place of business, where they probably on-sell it and get the money for it, but they fail to pay their due for the good they have taken possession of. It is a very difficult thing to manage within a business.

I know that in the case I referred to in my own circumstance—and it was a substantial amount of money a few years ago—that came off the bottom line, and I can inform the house that my banker was not very sympathetic. My banker was very forthright in saying that I could not pass on the bad debt to him, and that is the case for any other small business operator.

The member for Hartley is endeavouring to give some relief and some justice to the party who is doing the right thing. He is trying to give some relief to the party who has fulfilled their part of the contract. We know that the economy of this state is built on the back of small business. The wrong that this bill is trying to correct is perpetrated, by and large, against small business.

Large businesses, I would argue, generally have both the wherewithal and the facilities to manage bad debtors. I am not saying it is an easy process, but they generally have a better ability to manage bad debtors. A small business operator, who might be a sole operator running his carpentry or plumbing business, literally does not have the time to chase up the bad debts. He has to continue to go out and generate more income to keep his business going and to feed his family.

This bill would give some relief to those people who find themselves at the mercy of bad debtors, to have a court give them some relief. I can also cite the case, and I am sure many members of this place have had such circumstances brought to their attention, where bad debts arise in the rental property sector, when people move into a house or a flat and refuse to pay the rent. The process of getting an eviction order is incredibly tedious and the bad debt just accumulates. In the laws of this state, the parliament seems to have ignored the impact that has on the other party, that is, the party providing the service.

This is but a small measure to correct some of those ills, and I certainly will be supporting it. As I have said, it is a small measure in the right direction, and it is one that I think the house should support. I think there should be fulsome support for this measure. Let's put it into operation and let's then monitor the situation and see how it pans out in the real world and whether it achieves what the member for Hartley is seeking to achieve correctly and fairly. Maybe, if we need to tweak it a little bit, we can come back in the not too distant future and have another look at it, but we need to take that first step, in my opinion.

We all know—and I think even the members of the government know, when they go home at night and put their head on the pillow—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: They do go home pretty early—that the economy of this state is in a mess. As I said, about 85 per cent of the economy of this state is reliant on small business. Let's give small business a bit of a break. I commend the bill to the house.

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