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2nd September 2019
Leader of the Opposition
and Shadow Ministers: Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP & Hon Bill Shorten MP
Dear Mr Albanese,
I am writing to you in desperate need of your help for all the victims of the Sterling Group collapse with my mum being one of them. She has become a victim of a crime, so called PONZI scheme and has lost $244,000 of her life savings and will potentially become homeless if this issue is not resolved quickly. We are appealing to you in the hope that you can raise this matter in the Lower House ASAP, by way of a Matter of Public Importance and Senate Inquiry.
My mother is a 79 year old self-funded retiree who immigrated 15 years ago to join their children and call it their home for the rest of their life. After the death of my father in 2015, and her ageing years, last year my mother had to make the decision to downsize and she invested her money with Sterling New Life in October 2018.
We were not naive in looking at Sterling New Life (SNL) and their ‘Lease for Life’ product as we did all the necessary steps in getting independent legal & financial advice, researched the company on the ASIC register and ‘companies you should not deal with’ list, but saw no warning published for Sterling Life Group and were constantly being reassured by the salesmen that her investment was safe and secured. Little did we know that SNL were under ASIC investigation for some time, if we had known this, we wouldn’t have handed over her money?
We have already wrote many letters to Mr James Shipton, Mr Josh Frydenberg & Mr Scott Morrison, but have only received pass the buck replies and tough luck responses. NOT ONE of them will take responsibility for this state of affairs that is a FEDERAL MATTER and these types of crimes does nothing for the Australian economy and erodes any confidence in the so called regulators.
The questions that need to be asked of the current Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer are:
- Why is the Treasurer stating the Sterling Affair is a state matter when clearly this is a Federal matter into the long list of breaches of the Corporations Act?
- Why is the Treasurer suggesting victims of Sterling write to the Commonwealth Ombudsman knowing full well that is a devious ASIC TRICK? The same Question relating to sending victims to AFCA that are controlled by the Banks and hand out known dubious outcomes?
- Why did the assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar announce on 6PR 21st June 2019, he had ordered ASIC conduct an internal investigation into the mishandling of its investigations into the Sterling affair? Then why admit 6 weeks later no such internal investigation had taken place?
- Why has the Prime Minister not responded to the 200 letters and not publicly commented on his intentions re the urgent payment demands to cover $28.6 million in losses suffered by elderly people and rescuing them from probable - homelessness?
- ASIC Negligence over 2011 - 2019: this has resulted in devastating consequences to sterling victims.
- Why has the Treasurer not order a Royal Commission into the Australian Securities and Investment Commission over the regulator’s stated (by Mr Sukkar) mishandling of the Sterling Affair?
- Why is the Treasurer tolerating ASIC’s untruths of what it KNEW and when, and also tolerating ASIC’s pathetic attempts to pass blame onto the State of Western Australia, when WA was the first to notify ASIC of its own obligations under Corp Law in 2015?
This matter is critical and urgent, and I appeal to you to help all these hard working retirees that are in desperate need of assistance for immediate and compassionate relief.
Yours sincerely,
JC