Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have two amendments to move this morning to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Banking Executive Accountability and Related Measures) Bill 2018. The first one I will move immediately. By leave, I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 8342 revised:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 20 (lines 8 to 25), omit section 37G, substitute: 37G Pecuniary penalty for non-compliance with this Part.

  (1) An ADI is liable to a pecuniary penalty if:

  (a) an ADI contravenes its obligations under this Part (other than this Division); and

     (b) the contravention relates to prudential matters.

  (2) The maximum amount of pecuniary penalty is an amount at the rate of 10 penalty units for every $1,000,000 in assets, of the ADI within the control (however described) of the part of the ADI's banking business that is carried out in Australia.

  (3) In determining the pecuniary penalty, the Federal Court of Australia must have regard to the impact that the penalty would have on the viability of the ADI.

  (4) Subsection (3) does not limit subclause 1(3) of Schedule 2.

  (5) This section is a civil penalty provision.

This amendment in a nutshell directly relates any penalties or punitive measures to accountable persons or executives to their size under this scheme. We believe that an ADI, an authorised deposit-taking institution, which is liable for pecuniary penalties, should receive a penalty in line with their company size or their value. So the bigger the bank the bigger the fine. It's pretty simple and it's outlined in the amendment. We believe that the maximum amount of pecuniary penalties is an amount at the rate 10 penalty units for every million dollars in assets for those ADIs that are captured by this legislation. There are some more detail in there, and I presume, of course, all the senators have read it. We think it's pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. I'm not sure why you wouldn't support it.

Just before we put that to the vote, I do need to clarify one thing you said, Senator Cormann, in relation to deferred remuneration. In your second reading speech you talked about deferring the variable component of captured persons under this legislation and you said it was for at least four years. My understanding is that it was up to four years in the legislation. Could you clarify that, please?