Bill Shorten insults Astarra Strategic victims.

Superannuation Minister at the time (2010-12) made Astarra Strategic crime victims feel more distressed when he claimed self-managed investors that lost their savings in Trio were:

• Swimming outside the flags.


Source Sympathy for burnt TRIO capital clients, April 13th 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/13/3190435.htm


"Mr Shorten says the Government has no power to help those people who were not in an APRA regulated fund.

"If you metaphorically swim outside the flags for APRA regulated funds that is a choice that if we're going to ask the whole of the superannuation industry to bear the cost of compensation which we are then the current policy for that is the people that should be eligible for that should be ones who belong to funds which submit themselves to APRA supervision of trustees," he said."

Two ASIC publications show that self-managed investors in Astarra Strategic fulfilled all of ASIC’s requirements of where to invest and how to invest, thus placing them squarely between the flags and at no time were they outside flags. Source Jeremy Cooper, Deputy Chairman ‘Helping retail investors’ 2009 SPAA National Conference, Adelaide 11 March 2009 and Investing between the flags' pub. February 2011 (64 pages) (ASIC publication).

 

Did not do our homework.


Source The Daily Telegraph 'Clean-up time for financial advisers', Bill Shorten May 06, 2011 http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/clean-up-time-for-financial-advisers/story-e6frezz0-1226050709978


"I believe in caveat emptor; Latin for "let the buyer beware". It means you need to take responsibility for your own decisions. If you buy something without doing your homework, well, you're an adult, that's your responsibility." Shorten

 

Placed money in a troubled fund.


Source Washington, Stuart SMH 'Fraud victims get $55m back, but some left empty-handed' April 13, 2011. http://www.smh.com.au/business/fraud-victims-get-55m-back-but-some-left-emptyhanded-20110412-1dcpn.html


Shorten said his union friends' super funds had victims who were victims through no fault of their own.

Shorten said no compensation was available for non-superannuation investors who placed their money directly into troubled funds.

 

Kelly O'Dwyer MP

The Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer, Kelly O'Dwyer MP, in a press release 'Government decision on financial assistance relating to the collapse of Trio Capital' (April 1st 2016) advised two groups of investors in the now collapsed Trio Capital, that the Government will not provide further compensation. Ms O'Dwyer said, 

Trio collapsed in 2009 and there have been five official reviews regarding Trio, or aspects of Trio's collapse over the last six years”.


Source: http://kmo.ministers.treasury.gov.au/media-release/032-2016/

The official reviews referred to are:

  1. the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into the collapse of Trio Capital (2012);
  2. the Richard St. John Report on Compensation arrangements for consumers of financial services (2012);
  3. the Treasury's Review of the Trio Capital fraud and assessment of the regulatory framework (2013);
  4. the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into proposals to lift the professional, ethical and education standards in the financial services industry (2014);
  5. the Financial System Inquiry chaired by Mr David Murray (2014); and the final Report to Creditors (and supplementary reports) prepared by Trio Capital's liquidator, PPB Advisory (2015).

 Two reviews fitted the government’s claim, (1) The PJC Report and (2) the Treasury Review of the Trio Capital Fraud and Assessment of the Regulatory Framework.

However, three of the listed documents are not reviews about Trio or aspects of Trio's collapse. To understand what the government implied by it’s statement VOFF submitted FOI number 428 seeking from Treasury (April 4th 2016) documentation to show that the three reviews in question were indeed reviews about Trio.

 

On April 18th 2016 Treasury said they established approximately 1,000 documents which come within the scope of our request and refuse under section 24 and 24AA of the Act as it is too much work.

 

VOFF reviewed its FOI (April 25th 2016) noting that we only ask for documents pertaining to the:

• Richard St. John Report;

• the Inquiry to lift the professional, ethical and education standards and

• the Murray Inquiry.

 

We seek the document showing Trio Capital was in the “term of reference” of the above three reviews. The “Terms of reference” is expected to be one page in length in each case, therefore totalling three pages. No public available documents can be found that indicate that these three reports in question had anything to do with Trio Capital.

 

Treasury replied (April 29th 2016) saying that no such documents exist.


The following is a snapshot of the number of certain words that appear in each of the five review documents.

• the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into the collapse of Trio Capitol (2012).

(204 pages 66991 words)
fraud - used 314 times across 97 pages

collapse - used 99 time across 60 pages

Astarra - used 122 times across 37 pages
investigation - used 77 times across 37 pages
compensation - used 166 times across 42 pages
Restitution - nill

proceeds of crime - used 7 times on 6 pages
recover - used 26 times across 20 pages
victims - used 11 times across 10 pages


• the Richard St John Report on Compensation arrangements for consumers of financial service, (2012).

(180 pages 88098 words)
fraud - used 102 times across 37 pages
collapse - used 51 time across 26 pages
Astarra - used 17 time across 6 pages
investigation - used 4 times on 4 pages
compensation - used 601 times 152 pages
Restitution - nill
proceeds of crime - nill
recover - used 111 times across 59 pages
victims - used 1 on 1 page.


• the Treasury’s Review of the Trio Capital fraud and assessment of' the regulatory framework (2013).

(24 pages 7089 words)
fraud - used 44 times across 21 pages
collapse - used 5 times across 4 pages
Astarra - used 8 times across 5 pages
investigation - used 17 times across 11 pages
compensation - used 5 times 4 pages
Restitution - nill
proceeds of crime - nill
recover - nill
victims - nill

• the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into proposals to lift the professional, ethical and education standards in the financial services industry (2014). 

(103 pages 31857 words)
fraud used 7 times across 3 pages
collapse - used 9 times across 5 pages
Astarra - nill
investigation - used 1 on 1 page
compensation - used 1 on 1 page
Restitution - nill
proceed of crime - nill
recover - nill
victims - nill


• the Financial System Inquiry chaired by Mr David Murray (2014).
(350 pages 110409 words)

fraud - used 11 times across 7 pages
collapse - used 17 times across 12 pages
Astarra - nill
investigation - used twice in footnotes
compensation - used 7 times on 6 pages
Restitution - nill
proceed of crime - nill
recover - used 22 times across 19 pages
victims - 1 in list of submitters


• the final Report to Creditors (and supplementary reports) prepared by Trio Capital's liquidator, PPS Advisory (2015). 

(32 pages 10892 words)
fraud - used 6 times found on three pages.
collapse - used 4 times across 3 pages
Astarra - used 18 timws on 4 pages - mostly list of the Astarra named funds
investigation - used 31 times across 11 pages
compensation - nill
Restitution - nill 

proceed of crime - nill
recover - used 12 times across 6 pages
victims - nill