Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

No; I was more involved in securitised assets and the residential mortgage-backed securities market all those years ago. Covered bonds provide an alternative source of funding for institutions. It is an important part of the range of fundraising tools that are available to financial institutions. Institutions have to raise money either through deposits or the issuance of bonds in global capital markets or domestically in order to lend money to Australians for credit cards, business loans, home loans or whatever the case might be.

There is bipartisan support for what the parliament is debating today. I suggested this more than a year ago. Like so many good ideas I have, the government has chosen to follow. We welcome the Treasurer putting aside for a brief moment his hubris and introducing a bill that follows our policy lead. I am happy to say that all of my ideas are open to the general public and even to the Treasurer to implement.

The bottom line out of this is that previously in Australia covered bonds were not permitted under the Banking Act. This bill will amend the Banking Act to allow banks, credit unions and building societies to raise funds by issuing these securities. I formally proposed this as part of my nine-point plan on banking, which was announced by the coalition in October last year. The Treasurer ridiculed the nine-point plan, as he is wont to do, but then picked up pieces of it and ran with it. We are quite fond of Swanny over here for a range of reasons, some of which I will go into. On this occasion he has shown some alarming common sense. I wish he would pick up the other pieces of my nine-point plan.

I will remind the House and the general public—and I can see those in the gallery are interested—of my nine-point plan on banking. The Treasurer has picked up two of the nine recommendations that I made. The first is giving the ACCC power to investigate collusive price signalling—that is, oligopolistic behaviour. I am glad the Treasurer picked that up after we introduced a bill. My colleague the member for Dunkley introduced a bill dealing with this matter, and then the Treasurer decided to introduce his own bill. It was a bit like the Parliamentary Budget Office. It was the same principle: we came up with the ideas and introduced a bill and then the Treasurer introduced his own bill.

The second recommendation was covered bonds, which I have referred to. But wait, there are more. There are seven other hurdles that the Treasurer can jump over to get a bronze medal in the 110-metre hurdle race in the Olympics.

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