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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the Senate stood up and called on the Prime Minister to establish a royal commission to clean up the banking and financial sector. Earlier this morning I met with victims who have suffered hardship and distress as a result of widespread rorts and rip-offs in banking—victims including Michelle, spoken of in the last question, who specifically want the Prime Minister to establish a royal commission. Will the Prime Minister now explain why those victims who have tried all the mechanisms outlined by the Prime Minister are wrong to demand a royal commission?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition continues on what the member for Lilley would describe as a crass populist campaign, one which offers nothing to Michelle—no compensation, no restitution, nothing. And yet, with all of his years as the financial services minister, buttressed by the shadow Treasurer with all of his years in the same portfolio, they come to this parliament and they come to the case of Michelle with not one practical idea that would deliver her or others similarly situated the compensation that they are seeking. There is no justice—simply a populist campaign for a royal commission which would sit for years, run up hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and then write a report, at the end of which—and throughout all of that time—action and reform would be delayed.

The difference is we are getting on with the job. We are getting on with the job of ensuring that there are better mechanisms for Michelle to resolve the challenges she has with the financial services industry, with the banks and with planners, ensuring that there is better regulation, better supervision and better means of mediation and resolving small claims. That is why Professor Ramsay is undertaking his review of the various small claims ombudsman agencies, with a view to bringing them together into a more effective tribunal that can achieve better outcomes for people like Michelle.

I said yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition is like a latter-day Jack Lang, taking on the banks—a heroic advocate for the people, taking on the big end of town. I think he is getting so carried away with himself he sees himself rather like the image of Liberty in that great Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People, the tricolour in one hand, the musket in the other. There he is, trampling over the barricades, freeing the people from their wrongs, taking on the banks.

This is a hopeless, hopelessly populist political campaign.

He is exploiting the suffering of people like Michelle; exploiting the suffering of people who have been done badly by the banks; exploiting the suffering of people who were ripped off, for example, in the big financial collapses that occurred during the last Labor government. Timbercorp, Great Southern Group, Willmott Forests—all of these failures of these managed investment schemes occurred during the Labor government. What did that minister do when he was the minister? He made no attempt to set up a royal commission and he said it was well-regulated. The reality is that populism will not help Michelle; action will, and that is what we are undertaking. (Time expired)