On Wednesday morning, Scott Morrison and the Liberals voted against Labor amendments that would have put a stop to dodgy directors crashing companies on purpose.

This means locals like Tara Teo, an Illawarrra resident whose story was featured on A Current Affair earlier this year, will continue to be ripped off.

The Coalition have yet again failed to stand up for the interests of ordinary Australians, who are losing $14.5 million a week to fraudulent phoenixing activity and dodgy directors.

Labor’s amendments would have put in place a system of registering directors – Director Identification Numbers – which would have stopped dodgy business owners from hurting ordinary Australians.

In 2017, Tara Teo was sold a Jump Swim School franchise for $150,000 by dodgy director Ian Campbell.

After a year, nothing had been built and Tara went to investigate.

Tara was shocked to found out that Mr Campbell’s company had been trading insolvently since March 2016.

While the company went into liquidation – costing Tara everything she had invested – Mr Campbell was able to

The court cases are still ongoing – but the damage to Tara and her family has already been done.

It is shocking that this do-nothing Government is refusing to act to address phoenixing. The kind of crooked corporate crime that has left Illawarra locals like Tara penniless should be made impossible.

Instead, Scott Morrison and his Government continue to make it clear that they will let corporate criminals off the hook at every opportunity.

As Mr Jones said in Parliament:

“This is utter madness.”

WEDNESDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2019