Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Much of my statement will be very much aligned with and in support of the member for Fraser's contribution. I'll start by thanking the secretariat. The member for Fraser was quite right to point out the difficulties we went through, both in production and personally. So, Jeff, I'm very grateful to you and your team. Thank you for working so well with my staff, who I also want to thank for their work in making sure that these reports were attended to in the best way we could. I thank the committee members who are here and previous committee members as well. I will, given his warm comments, thank the chair. It's a pity that a group of schoolkids just walked out of here and probably didn't get to see—

An honourable member: They're still here!

They're still here? Good! There are some still here to see this. Question time draws all the attention in this place and the fighting. What's not shown is the amount of working together that goes on in committees. I entered into this role with the view that, where there were opportunities for us to get ahead on matters that we agreed to, I should focus my attention on those and support the chair as much as I could. Throughout these reports, I think that came through very well. This is a very important committee for the government, for the parliament and, I think, for Australia.

One of the outcomes that I was most grateful to see achieved—it was through another set of reports—was the establishment of the regulatory grid. I commend the government for listening to what came through our committee, and I'm very proud that that is a result of the work of this committee. It shows what can happen when we find areas that we both agree on and work together to get that done. I commend the chair for that. That is an outcome that he can carry onwards. I know, having spoken to many members of the banking industry, that they see it as a great step forward. To the chair: that's something you get to carry on from this term and your role. So congratulations on that.

Directly to these reports: for this term of government, the focus was always going to be entirely on the decision-making of the RBA. I think it drew so much of our attention. Our review of what was happening in insurance, particularly in relation to flood insurance, drew so much of our time and attention. It is my belief that the next term of government, whatever shape that may take and however quickly it may form a shape, will focus more on the regulators. I think that is going to be where the next Standing Committee on Economics sends its attention.

There are a couple of areas that I think are brought out in these reports that I'll raise now because I think they should get further consideration. The first one is following through on how we establish a banking industry in Australia that has the level of competition that we want, the strength that we want and the ability to ensure that access to capital remains there. Whilst that is outside the scope of these reports, it does remind all of us watching the actions of APRA when talking about capital and liquidity requirements how quickly a regulator can step ahead of the public mood. That's something that this committee needs to keep at the forefront.

The second—and the chair raised this one—is the issue of greenwashing. I'll bring in debanking. The AFR recently ran a very confronting article showing the hoops that have been put in place for legitimate businesses working on legitimate projects in Australia that have already passed through approval levels at state, council and federal levels, yet the banks were making it extremely hard for a gas operation to get finance. I think we need to draw attention to that, and I think we need to accept that some of those hurdles are actually a response to positions that regulators hold. So these reports will form part of that future conversation.

Once again, I want to thank the chair. I want to thank the secretariat. It might hurt both of us, Member for Fraser, to reveal to the parliament that we regularly lunched together and discussed these things. I'm not sure how that plays out for you in your electorate, Member for Fraser; it may hurt you. I'm not sure how these things work. But we wanted to get some things agreed on, and I think that was a good step that we took. I appreciate the way that we worked together.

I commend these reports.

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