More than half a million dollars’ compensation for a Liberal Minister’s mistress, but nothing to save elderly victims of ASIC from eviction?
To make a political problem go away, the Morrison government has expedited the payment of more than $500,000 to compensate a former Liberal Party staffer who had an affair with a senior government Minister.
On 4 April Labor’s Shadow Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones met with some Sterling First victims in Mandurah, WA. Before he arrived, one of the victims wrote on Facebook in anticipation: “Senior politicians do not invite over 100 people to a 2 hour meeting a few weeks out from an election to tell them ‘sorry I cannot help you’.”
The final report of the dramatic Senate inquiry into the Sterling Income Trust fiasco reveals how the federal corporate regulator and WA consumer protection agency betrayed 130 elderly and vulnerable victims. They have been left financially ruined, 20 have passed away and many others are terminally and chronically ill, and they all face eviction and homelessness.
The advocate for the more than 100 elderly victims of the Sterling First scam has written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and WA Premier Mark McGowan demanding they compensate the victims immediately.
On 16 December (yesterday), the day after the third hearing of the Senate inquiry into Sterling Income Trust and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Sterling tenant Freda Stevens became the 19th victim to pass away since Sterling collapsed in 2019. She was one of around 140 vulnerable, elderly people who were left financially ruined by a managed investment scheme (MIS) they didn’t know they had been sucked into.
