Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to reports that Australia’s big four banks collectively have over $90 billion in exposure to credit default swaps. In exchange for its promise to guarantee term funding, will the government require that these and other exposures be fully disclosed?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The state of the balance sheets of all Australia’s major banks is available to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. That is already the law. I am surprised, therefore, as to why the honourable member asks this question. Secondly, I already said in response to the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition before that those institutions which are able to access this facility that the government decided upon and announced yesterday are all APRA prudentially regulated institutions. Furthermore, when applications are received from those institutions to use this facility, then they of course will be separately assessed by the regulators as well.

Can I say this to the opposition at this point, when there has been much talk about bipartisanship: this measure has been recommended to the government by the Australian regulators—the Reserve Bank, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Treasury. I would suggest that, if those opposite were serious about bipartisanship at a time of global financial crisis, getting behind the regulators would be a good thing to do.