A disallowance motion which would have made it easier for small lenders to compete with the big banks has been defeated in the Senate.

The Nationals Senator for New South Wales John Williams, Shadow Assistant Treasurer Mathias Cormann and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon were signatories to a motion to disallow the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment Regulations 2011(No 2) and the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment Regulations 2011 (No3).

Senator Williams said the disallowance motion was in response to the government’s ban on mortgage exit fees on new loans from the 1^st of July .

“Whilst I agree exit fees should be banned for the big end of town, the fees should remain for the smaller lenders so they can offer competitive rates.

The loss of market share by the non-bank lending sector, the small home loan lenders, is alarming. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 they had 13.6% of the market, but this has been reduced to just 1.9%.

Something needs to be done to address this, and this is what we set out to do.

However, the motion was defeated when Family First Senator Steve Fielding and the Greens voted with Labor. They have shown they do not care about small business despite their posturing.

Senator Fielding has had a bad 24 hours, first abandoning his own Party’s policy on the plebiscite, and now abandoning the sector that looks after families.

For him it has been Family Last”, Senator Williams said.