Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Centre Alliance will not be supporting these late-landing amendments. These amendments do carve out the banks. Of course, we understand the politics of that. The royal commissioner has found the conduct of not only banks but also other financial institutions to be poor, if not abhorrent. But the best way to deal with that conduct is directly, not indirectly by saying, 'We're going to carve you out of something else.' You need to take that on directly, and that means you need to have much tougher laws and regulations around the banks. You need to have very strong whistleblower laws so that every executive inside a bank understands that someone inside their organisation will call out misconduct and that, when they do so, they will be protected and those protections will be strong. It also includes having good enforcement. That's how you deal with misconduct in the banks: solid, strong enforcement. That includes criminal proceedings against executives that have breached criminal law. It also means stronger regulators—so making sure that ASIC, APRA and the ATO do their jobs properly. That's the way in which you tackle misconduct inside the banks. So that's the reason we won't support this. It's not good policy. You need to take on the banks directly in respect of their conduct.