David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how the government is acting to make our financial and taxation systems fairer and more accountable? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for his question and for his leadership of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, which has done such an excellent job in raising the many issues that were addressed in this year's budget when it comes to saying yes to protecting the interests of Australian consumers in our banking and financial system.

The government in the budget announced a new banking executive accountability regime. This regime will introduce stronger powers for our regulators to disqualify senior banking executives and directors who do the wrong thing by their shareholders and by their customers. The new powers will enable the regulator to deregister senior banking executives who have been found to be not doing the right thing within banks, and to prevent them from going from bank to bank inflicting the same sort of havoc on their customers and shareholders. This is an important process that ensures integrity in our banking and financial system.

We are increasing the penalties to ensure that banks are following through on monitoring the suitability of their executives and their behaviour in their banks. Where they fail to do so, they can face penalties of up to $200 million—genuine, real fines impacting on ensuring an accountable banking regime. We want our banks to be unquestionably strong but we want our banks to be unquestionably accountable to ensure that we can have integrity in this system. It has served us well, but we must always be vigilant when it comes to the integrity of our banking and financial system, so bonuses can be clawed back and so senior executives cannot profit from where they do the wrong thing by their customers and the wrong thing by their shareholders.

When the Labor Party were in office, they did no such thing. They stood silent as we saw crisis after crisis in that system. They would not even support the Liberal Party's and the National Party's call for a financial systems inquiry when they were in government. They said 'no' to acting on banking executive accountability when they were in government. But this government has said 'yes' to ensure that we do act on these issues. But, also, they said 'no' when it came to acting on multinationals paying their fair share of tax. When they were in government they did absolutely, and when they were in opposition they voted against the government's multinational anti-avoidance taxation laws. The deputy commissioner has said today that the multinational anti-avoidance laws was the game changer when it came to ensuring that multinationals fundamentally changed how they were accounting for income in this country and making sure they paid their fair share of tax. The deputy commissioner said the MAAL, the multinational anti-avoidance legislation, settled the issue. The Labor Party said 'no' to these laws. They said 'no' to acting on banking and executive accountability in government and they just keep saying 'no'. (Time expired)