Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

We have canvassed that question on a number of occasions now. The government have acknowledged—the Prime Minister has acknowledged, both in his current position and in his former position as Treasurer, and I have acknowledged and others have acknowledged—that, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have called the banking royal commission earlier.

But what I would also say is that our intentions and our motivations were entirely pure. Our motivation or intention was to take action in relation to the issues that were well understood, which was also a point that former Prime Minister Turnbull made in his contribution the other day. We had the financial systems inquiry, also referred to as the Murray inquiry; we had various Senate committee inquiries into ASIC, into the banks. I mean, there was a plethora of recommendations on how the system could and should be improved, and the government's genuine—and I would argue at the time, legitimate—motivation was to get cracking, to take decisions to improve the regulatory framework to better protect consumers. (Time expired)