Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

     (a) Scandals in the banking and financial services industry have led to:

           (i) retirees having their retirement savings gutted;

           (ii) families being rorted;

           (iii) small business owners losing everything;

           (iv) life insurance policy holders being denied justice; and

           (v) agricultural assets being improperly foreclosed;

     (b) despite several inquiries, new powers, new resources, and a Financial Ombudsman Service, the rorts and the rip offs continue;

     (c) it is clear from the breadth and scope of the allegations that the problems in this industry go beyond any one bank, type of financial institution or group of receivers; and

     (d) Labor, Greens, crossbench, Liberal and National parliamentarians have supported a thorough investigation of the culture and practices within the financial services industry through a Royal Commission which is the only forum with the coercive powers and broad jurisdiction necessary to properly perform this investigation; and

(2) therefore, calls on the Government to listen to the many victims of banking and financial scandals who are calling for the immediate establishment of a Royal Commission.

Australians have actually found something that this Prime Minister stands for: protecting big banks. The Prime Minister and his coalition are running a protection racket to protect the big banks of Australia from the scrutiny and accountability that Australians want to give them. He is putting Australian banks ahead of the Australians who use them. Or, in other words, you can take Malcolm Turnbull out of the investment bank but you cannot take the investment bank out of Malcolm Turnbull.

There are problems in our banking sector. Every Australian uses a bank. Every Australian relies on the integrity of the banking sector. Labor wants the strongest possible banking sector meeting the highest possible standards. We have seen a string of scandals and rip-offs and rorts, and all we get are smirks and protection conduct from the front bench of the Turnbull government. There have been thousands denied life insurance payments, elderly Australians robbed of their retirement savings, small investors ripped off by predatory lending and business loans forged and manipulated.

This is the story of one person I met who went to his bank seeking a loan to buy an investment property. The application form was doctored to increase his income and assets, and rent on the property was factored in even though it was not built. By any honest standard this loan should never have been approved, but it was. When he asked to review the terms of this loan he was told, 'Oh, the documents are unavailable.' In the last five years, this Australian has barely made his interest payments and no-one at the bank takes any responsibility. There are tens of thousands of Australians with similar stories: the stories of CommBank and life insurance, where a claim for a heart attack was rejected because it was the wrong sort of heart attack—outrageous!

These are not isolated incidents; there is a systemic culture of crooked behaviour. And what is the latest revelation? ASIC is investigating rate rigging—the bank-bill swap-rate fixing scandal. What this practically means is that Australians are paying a higher interest rate on their mortgage and getting a lower interest rate on their savings. Every Australian uses a bank, but too many Australians are being used by their bank.

The government knows there is a problem. We have Mr Turnbull, the warrior of the lunchtime lecture, head down to the 199th anniversary of Westpac—long-time shareholder, first-time critic! We are weighing up the royal commission; there have been many calls—

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