Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Victims of bank rip-offs support a royal commission, the Senate has voted to establish a royal commission and even members of the Prime Minister's own backbench are still threatening to cross the floor to support a royal commission. When will the Prime Minister stop running a protection racket for the banks, stop insulting and lecturing victims, telling them what they want, and finally establish a royal commission?

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

Does the honourable member really imagine that a royal commission is something the banks would be afeared of? Does she really imagine that the banks, with all of their resources, with all of their lawyers, will not be equal to a royal commission? Does she really imagine that Michelle, from Newcastle, and Dwayne and Jenny will be able to afford the legal representation to defend themselves, to make their claims in a royal commission? A royal commission will be a forum for the legal profession. It will go on for years, it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and it will not tell us anything new.

Take the case of Dwayne and Jenny. The honourable member made only a brief question, but I gather that Dwayne and Jenny were given poor advice by a financial planner. Well, we know what happened there. They were given poor advice. That is what a royal commission would find. So what are the issues? Can Dwayne and Jenny recover compensation from the financial planner? That is a matter of law. Is it likely to happen again? Should we change regulations? Yes, we should, and we are doing that.

So the fundamental problem is that the Leader of the Opposition and his deputy present us with these cases where we know precisely what happened. We know there was poor advice. Sometimes the advice was conflicted. Sometimes banks were careless or reckless. Sometimes they knowingly acted wrongfully in giving that bad advice. But we know all of that, and what we are doing is setting in place the measures to ensure it does not happen again. What we are doing is setting in place the structures that will ensure Dwayne and Jenny and Michelle will be able to resolve their differences with the banks, notwithstanding that they do not have the armies of lawyers and barristers to defend themselves and press their case.

What we are offering is practical solutions. It is extraordinary that here the Labor Party is so cynical, so populist, that it wants to exploit the real problems of Michelle and Dwayne and Jenny and say to them that the solution is a royal commission. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars—not paid to Dwayne and Jenny, not paid to Michelle, but paid to the legal profession—and it will go on for years and years. And then what will it tell them? It will tell Michelle that she got bad advice from a mortgage broker. It will tell Dwayne and Jenny that they got bad advice from a financial adviser. And it will not compensate them one cent. What a cynical racket the Labor Party is running, exploiting the misery of others! (Time expired)