George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

That's a schoolboy debating trick, Senator Ketter, if I may say so with respect. They're not really inconsistent propositions. What the government has done and the reasons that the government has done it are very clear. It was not our first preference; I've said that to you time and again. It was not our first preference, but, given the way the debate was shaping and given the risk that was perceived, including, by the way, by the banks themselves, to the stability of the Australian financial system, we thought we had to do this. It is the case that there will be transparency and, to use the word you've used, 'sunlight' thrown onto the system, just as there is sunlight being thrown onto the system by all the other measures—more-effective measures—that the government has already taken, like, for example, requiring banks' chief executives to front the House of Representatives economics committee four times a year. (Time expired)