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From petitions to TV adverts, since February 4 the broking industry has been out in force to defend the third-party channel. But while some have been asserting their influence through petitions, letters and other means, one Victoria-based broker is giving up his day job in order to take the broker cause to the senate.
Earlier this month, mentor and broker Stewart Hine incorporated the Your Voice party, a new political entity aiming to bring a “common sense approach to decision making”. All he needs is 500 Victoria-based members to sign up in order to meet the registration criteria.
“At the very top of my agenda is being the voice for the mortgage broking industry in Australia. It’s all very good to lobby and have advertising but it isn’t the same as sitting in the senate,” he told Australian Broker.
This isn’t Hine’s first foray into politics. Last year he stood for the upper house in Victoria as an independent candidate and, while he received the most votes of any independent politician, it wasn’t enough to take the seat.
Now, after 17 years as a broker and mentor – during which he settled more than $250m in residential mortgages – he is swapping credit policies for politics.
“I can’t possibly do both but also I can’t have any conflict of interest. I can’t be seen to be speaking for an industry of which I am an active part,” he said.
This time, Hine has a bold strategy to shape how the royal commission’s recommendations are implemented by government and prevent what he believes could result in the complete wipe out of the broker channel.
“If the royal commission recommendations are actually implemented, in three years’ time there will be no brokers, there will be no aggregators. Here are some more unintended consequences…. How will the majors cope with the 60% of Australians who use a broker, all walking into their branches?
“People don’t seem to understand that it is a very effective and efficient role that the broker plays,” he says.
Promising to be “the voice” of everyday Australians, brokers aren’t the only thing on Hine’s agenda.
“My perception is that a lot of people look at decisions that are made in parliament and they think to themselves well ‘that’s not what ordinary people think’,” he said.
“I don’t have an immigration policy, I’m not concerned about people wearing masks in parliament. What I am saying that we need to make decisions that ordinary people understand and relate to,” he added.
