Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I understand the question is about banking competition. This issue has obviously had a lot of focus in the public arena in recent weeks. I think Australians are rightly angry at the major banks for the moves above the official interest rate increase. As we have said a number of times, the approach that we are taking, and have been taking since we came to government, is to try to support competition. There have obviously been calls for re-regulating interest rates and for putting in place different regulatory mechanisms, but we know from history that many of those mechanisms do not do the right thing by Australians. We know that when interest rates are regulated many Australians find it hard to get access to home loans.

We believe the best way of working to ensure that banks offer products at the right prices is to support competition—and the Treasurer has made it clear that we have done that. An example is the investment in residential mortgage backed securities. Other examples include the approach the government has taken on exit fees and so forth. The Treasurer has also said that there is obviously more to be done and that we will work through the issue very closely and carefully with the regulators. This is a sector where we need to take a sensible approach and make sure that the policies put in place deliver the right outcomes for Australian families, the right outcomes for Australian consumers. We need to make sure the banks understand that people can walk down the road and get a better deal.