Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023, the Financial Accountability Regime (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort) Bill 2023, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort Levy Bill 2023 and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort Levy (Collection) Bill 2023, which together establish the Financial Accountability Regime, extend the existing Banking Executive Accountability Regime, the BEAR, and, of course, establish a compensation scheme of last resort. Clearly, I'll be talking to the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Hume, which goes to the very heart of the dysfunction, the distraction and the priorities of the current Labor government and, in particular, our favourite minister, the Assistant Treasurer.

But, first, I go to the substantive bills. I note that, as the Assistant Treasurer admitted in his own contribution, this is not the first time that the House has dealt with these bills. In fact, the Assistant Treasurer introduced these bills last year and, as is becoming his trademark, completely stuffed it up. Just like trying to hide transparency in super, he stuffed up. Just like trying to carve out certain super funds from adhering to performance tests, he has stuffed up again.

It's worth going through some of the history of these stuff-ups, as they pertain to why we're back here debating these bills a second time, and it's worthwhile putting on record not my words but the words of the Australian Financial Review no less and just what they think of the Assistant Treasurer. You could call me biased; it is hard for the parliament to call the Australian Financial Review biased. Remember, the Assistant Treasurer sits on the Expenditure Review Committee. He is the Treasury's righthand man for development of the budget. No wonder Australians should be slightly perturbed at the budget coming up. The headline of the article is: "Steven Jones is out of his depth". I couldn't agree more with the AFR. The article starts:

Across an otherwise competent frontbench …

I don't agree with all of that. But I digress slightly. It goes on:

… the Albanese government's Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones stands out like dog's balls.

I was quoting directly from the AFR. I'll continue:

In the six months since he took charge of the ministry, the Member for Whitlam has chewed up the furniture, rubbed his bum on the carpet and cocked his leg over his parliamentary colleagues, the financial sector and the voters of Australia.

So what was the AFR referring to? It was referring to the last time that the hapless Assistant Treasurer introduced these bills into parliament. And here we are again.

The last time these bills came here we were expecting the bills to go through as non-controversial. In fact, we were supporting the bills. I had informed the Assistant Treasurer of that personally. But, as per the AFR, something went wrong. Something always goes wrong with this Assistant Treasurer. Shock! Horror! The Assistant Treasurer completely stuffed it up. No wonder there's the quote from the AFR that he stands out like dog's balls.

He took initiative. It was very dangerous—I'm quoting, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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