Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) and the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Dastyari and Ketter today relating to scrutiny of the banking and financial services sectors.

The unbelievable chutzpah of those opposite in the government and how they have behaved in relation to a possible and necessary royal commission into the Australian banking and financial services sector is shocking. The government were prepared to run political royal commissions into pink batts and trade unions, targeting their political opponents, and at the same time they were not prepared to put up a microscope for investigation into the Australian financial services and banking sector. Enough is enough. There has been scandal after scandal after scandal over the past few years. There is a long list: NAB financial planners, Commonwealth Bank financial planners, the IOOF, Trio, Storm, and CommInsure in the past few weeks. The list goes on and on. There was the potential rigging of the bank bill swap rate. At some point, as a society, as the government and as the parliament, we need to say, 'Enough is enough,' and we have to put some serious scrutiny on the banking sector. More importantly, it has to fundamentally be about the victims and allow the stories of the victims of some of the worst behaviour to be told.

We know some of the stories because of the work of the Senate Economics References Committee's report into the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. We know the stories of people like Marilyn Swan whose now 90-year-old parents were used and abused by: Commonwealth Bank financial planners. We know the stories of people like Veronica Coulston who spent six years fighting the National Australia Bank, NAB, to get her day and justice. In both of those cases, it took the scrutiny of the parliament and the media for their issues to be resolved. We know the story of the Commonwealth Bank whistleblower, Jeff Morris, who spent years going to ASIC raising these issues and what had happened at Commonwealth Financial Planning. It took the media, through Four Corners and Adele Ferguson, a Fairfax journalist, and the subsequent work of the Senate Economics References Committee to shine a light on that issue. Scandal after scandal; victim after victim. We know some of the stories, but there are so many stories out there that we do not know about yet. We know of tens of thousands of people who have been affected by these scandals.

Unless we have a proper royal commission, unless we have an opportunity to shine a light on this dark corner, those issues are not going to be resolved. An argument has been put out repeatedly by the government and others: 'We don't need one because we have a tough enough cop on the beat. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission does a tough enough job.' Let's just dispel that once and for all. The 520-page Senate Economics References Committee report into the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission highlights failure after failure. We know there have been cuts of $120 million to that agency by the government and we have heard from the chairman himself about the impact, but only a royal commission can look at ASIC itself and can look at the powers of the regulators. The regulators themselves have only been looking at individual cases and issues. It is time the victims were able to tell their stories, it is time the victims had their stories properly heard and it is time we had a proper detailed investigation.

I say to those opposite, 'If we don't come to parliament to look after and try to give a voice to those who are powerless, to those who are weak, to those who have been trod on and to those who have been taken advantage of, why go into politics?' If you are simply here to look after the interests of a handful of corporations and larger banks, why go into politics in the first place? The victims deserve to have their stories told.