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Debt Land
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2201740.htm
Reporter: Stephen Long
Broadcast: 31/03/2008
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20080331/debt/default.htm
Mortgages doled out to people on disability support pensions; loans to refugees with no English and no jobs that leave their families with next to nothing to live on; home loans so large they push borrowers below the poverty line…
This isn’t America’s sub-prime meltdown – it’s Australia’s debt debacle, the legacy of a credit binge that’s sent household debt through the roof and lending standards through the floor. Now the hangover is kicking in.
As many as 300,000 Australian households may be at risk of losing their homes. It mightn’t take much – another rate rise or two, a family illness or maybe just the car breaking down – to send people under. And for thousands more who are better off but feeling the pressure, this credit crisis is getting too close to home.
Dianne and her family are frontline casualties. Their home is being repossessed after constant refinancing landed them with two mortgages, one at 10 per cent and another – on terms they didn’t understand - at 20 per cent.
Four Corners meets them as they despairingly pack their belongings and give up the keys. Why did they take out loan after loan? "Because they keep giving them to us," is Dianne’s blunt reply.
It’s not just fringe lenders but also big banks which have pushed unaffordable credit. "We lent to whoever we could and as much money as they wanted," admits a former bank credit salesman.
Four Corners reveals how one major bank dished out unsustainable loans to numerous refugee families in one area. Some had no English and no job. In one such transaction a nine-year-old girl acted as interpreter. Elsewhere a disabled pensioner tells how her welfare cheque and small part time wage were enough for another bank to lend her $200,000. She is now in penury.
These cases exemplify how lending standards have slackened. Not long ago the rule of thumb was that mortgage payments should not exceed 30 per cent of gross household income. Now lenders leave borrowers teetering on the poverty line.
Mortgage stress is compounded by plastic debt. "The banks are just handing out money on credit cards like there’s no tomorrow… It’s quite terrifying to think that the average household… now has three months of their disposable income on a credit card balance," says one analyst.
All the rage now are store-branded cards offering in-house credit with zero to pay for several years – then, typically, punishing interest takes effect. More than 10,000 stores offer these cards and many shoppers have several of them - but behind nearly all of them is one global financial colossus.
Many Australians have gone deep into the red to fund a newfound love affair with the stock market. The amount they have borrowed to buy shares now equals the total they have racked up in credit card debt. And as Four Corners discovers, when the market plunges and a margin call comes, some people are just reaching for the plastic…
Reporter Stephen Long surveys the human wreckage of the household debt crunch and looks at the key players and tactics behind recent aggressive lending. Long’s disturbing report also throws doubt over the data that banks rely on to make crucial lending decisions.
"Debtland" - 8.30 pm Monday 31 March, 2008 on ABC1.
This program will be repeated about 11.35 pm Tuesday 1 April; also on ABC2 at 8 am Tuesday.