Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm a report by Phil Coorey in today's Financial Review that the terms of reference for the banking royal commission were being worked on 'for a long time' because 'we knew this was inevitable'? Can the Treasurer also confirm he was not shown the terms of reference until Tuesday last week? If a royal commission was inevitable, why did the Prime Minister rule one out 48 hours earlier and why was the Treasurer kept in the dark for so long?

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

The announcement of the royal commission into the banking sector and the terms of reference for the inquiry was made at nine o'clock that day. That was the first that the banks and others were aware that this government was going to put a royal commission in place. There is no doubt that the government over a period of time had been aware of the various arguments that had been put in place, including, indeed, arguments put by the opposition over 2½ years. I note over all that period of time they called for a royal commission into the banks they never came up with terms of reference. Not once did they come up with terms of reference, yet they were the ones who wanted to announce a royal commission into the banks.

So it is true that, with my knowledge, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services' knowledge and the Prime Minister's knowledge, the Treasury have been working on a commission of inquiry terms of reference. But, at the end of the day, the decision to go forward with the banking royal commission was made for this reason: the recklessness of the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer for over two years calling into question the integrity and the system security of our banking system and financial system upon which the entire country's jobs depend. That had been brought to such a point of risk by their recklessness that it required that the government take control of this action, and that's what we did. What the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer have demonstrated is that the reckless behaviour towards the economy they would put into practice if they ever got into government would be an absolute shocker.