Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to respond to a few things that the minister said. Firstly, I made it clear that lobbyists had clobbered moves in Germany that Angela Merkel had put forward. What he is finding is exactly consistent with what I said.

When it comes to this being not about the four big banks but about a range of institutions in Australia, no, that is not so. The ABIP is being founded upon contributions from the four banks. I note that this legislation does not come from this minister; it comes from the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. This minister is simply handling it on that minister’s behalf in this place. I quote from the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, against the background of the international credit situation. He said:

It is against this background that the government and Australia’s four major banks have decided to establish the $4 billion Australian Business Investment Partnership.

ABIP’s purpose is to help fill the gap left by the possible withdrawal of commercial lenders, particularly foreign banks, from Australian businesses.

ABIP will be established under the Corporations Act 2001 and will be a public company limited by shares.

The shareholders of ABIP will be the Commonwealth of Australia (Commonwealth); and Australia’s four major domestic banks—the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank Ltd and Westpac Banking Corporation.

The Commonwealth will have a 50 per cent shareholding in the company and the four major banks will each take a 12½ per cent share.

The government and the four major domestic banks will each provide initial loan funding to ABIP, as well as an amount for ABIP’s working capital.

The government will provide $2 billion and each of the major banks will provide $500 million.

Accordingly, on its establishment, ABIP will have access to $4 billion in undrawn loan facilities, less an amount for working capital (expected to be $4 million).

It is important to note that the financing provided by the four major banks will not be government guaranteed.

If ABIP requires additional financing beyond the initial $4 billion contribution, it will be able to issue up to $26 billion in debt to raise that additional funding.

However, it will only be able to issue such debt with the unanimous agreement of all shareholders.

That means, of course, the Commonwealth. The minister continued:

This could provide ABIP with up to $30 billion in financing.

ABIP will only issue debt when the initial $4 billion loan funding provided by the government and the four major banks has been exhausted.

So the government may end up guaranteeing up to $30 billion in financing.

The move by the Greens here is to simply require some quid pro quo from the CEOs and, in particular, those taking more than $1 million a year were they to draw on this facility. We have said to the Treasurer that we would be happy to go so far as to limit this to the developers who are unnamed, faceless, not specified in here and who would want to be guaranteed by public moneys for their shopping developments, for example, and who we hear are doing very well at the moment, by the way. I simply put it to the chamber—I am not going to get into a further debate because the government has no intention of having the internal fortitude to make a stand on this in the public interest—that those developers ought to have their salaries capped. The minister made the clear point that the Obama administration has been able to put caps on companies that have been bailed out by government loan injections.

We are saying that if that happens under this process where a developer does take government-guaranteed millions to keep finance going then let the cap come into play. There is nothing extraordinary about this. We are simply saying that, if the public largess—money that could be going to hospitals, for example—is going to be drawn upon to help developers who cannot get new financing when a foreign developer, for example, refuses to refinance a loan, let us make sure those developers are not taking home more than $1 million, three times the Prime Minister’s salary, while that loan facility of public money is being offered. The Rudd Labor government says, ‘Oh no, we cannot do that.’ Obama can but Rudd can’t. We are not going to simply say, ‘Oh well, we tried.’ We are making a stand on this issue.

I note, by the way, that the minister said he is seeking an assurance from the Senate that the Senate will move ABIP bills if they are required at some future time. Fair crack of the whip—to quote an authority. The government is now refusing to put any cap on the CEO salaries of developers in this country, many of whom are on the 200 richest list.