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23rd August 2019
Hon Jason Clare MP
Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness
PO Box 6022 House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT2600
Dear Mr. Clare
Re: The collapse of the Sterling Life Group by inaction of ASIC.
This is our story of our unfortunate experience with the Sterling New LIfe Group.
In November 2016 after seeing Sterling New LIfe being heavily advertised in the newspaper and on radio by well known WA personalities we went to a meeting and got all the information. One of WAs best known personalities was there this gave us a bit of confidence as we did not think they would want their reputations tarnished by something that was a con. After doing a lot of homework on this and talking to others that had joined we signed up on the 26th July 2017. We took all our money out of Super and savings to set us up for life, This was $241500. We were also encouraged to spend money to make it more comfortable. We spent over $10,000 on solar panels , security doors, lighting and patio.
This was to pay for our rent for up to forty years (5years x8 =40) and as we are old age pensioners forty years was more than enough to cover us for life. We felt safe and secure in the knowledge we had a roof over our heads, we were set for life. That was until May this year when we were informed that the Sterling Group were in administration, our world just collapsed our life is now full of stress, worry and uncertainty. My wife and I have worked all our lives totaling over 100 years paying taxes without any benefits from Centrelink. I worked until I was 71 years old and only retired because I have a heart problem and needed to have an operation to have a stent inserted. My wife worked until she was 66 years old. We cannot start over again at our age or afford to pay $400 per week rent on the age pension. We are devastated by this and and need your help to get our money back.
ASIC was informed by the WA Government in 2015 that there were problems with this Sterling Group so they knew there were problems two years before we signed up. If the Chairman of ASIC had issued warnings about this group we and others would not be in this situation now. This is gross a neglect of his duties. Not once in the six months that we checked this Sterling Group out did we hear or see anything from any lawyer, accountant or the media that there was a problem because I reckon none of them was sent a warning from ASIC. If they could not stop Sterling from trading at least a warning would have saved all this carnage. This was supposed to be our final place to spend the rest of our lives comfortably and most of all securely ASIC let us down very badly.
Because of ASIC’s absolute negligence we find ourselves in this situation. Our storycan be multiplied by 100 or more in Western Australia as well as Queensland and Victoria as many will have very similar stories some worse as they sold their house to be in this and lost everything. We all need your help to put pressure on the Government to be able to get ASIC to immediately pay out the monies required for all the 100s of victims that now adds up to over $28.6 million dollars. That will allow us to get our money back so we can get some new housing and are not left homeless. It is still a far cry from being set for life.
It appears that Denise Brailey has been warning ASIC for decades about these PONZI schemes that seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Is it because ASIC are too dumb to learn, lazy or dare I say it corrupt to be bothered to at least check it out to prevent this total disaster? It appears that the Government has condoned the work of ASIC over the years as being good enough. How could this be allowed to happen when the then Treasurer thought they were ineffective?
. "Treasurer Scott Morrison told Ross Greenwood financial service companies effectively played ASIC because they weren’t fearful of the consequences."
By the gross neglect of Mr Shipton has cost all these pensioners of their savings, security and so much stress that it will lead to some people having mental health issues as well. We feel that Mr Shipton as chairman of ASIC, with a simple warning could have protected all of us from this pain. Very poor way to look after pensioners that have worked all our lives to pay taxes towards the hundreds of millions of dollars for ASIC’s gross negligence.
I would like you to bring pressure on the Government to order a Royal Commission into ASIC for the way they have handled the Sterling Group. Mr. Sukkar has stated on Perth radio 6pr that ASIC had mishandled this Group. This is an urgent issue because other old age pensioners should not have to go through what we have and without a Royal Commission they will, as ASIC did not learn anything from the past twenty years about Ponzi schemes.
I feel that old age pensioners that have worked paying taxes for fifty years in a lot of cases deserve to be treated with a bit more compassion and respect from the Government for the efforts they have put into Australia’s economy. We only need 28.6 million dollars to get our lives back on track that ASIC so badly let down. The Government has no trouble finding billions of dollars for overseas aid so why not aid for us old taxpayers, now pensioners that so desperately need it after it was stolen from us. It was a Government Department that so badly let us down, it was not our fault that ASIC can not do the job that taxpayers are paying hundreds of million of dollars a year,for them to do.
Please give this serious matter your utmost immediate attention as we urgently need our money back in the next few weeks so we can start to get some sanity and security back into our lives.
Yours sincerely
LL