Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The last time the Senate considered a motion to disallow these regulations, the Greens did not support that motion. As we said at the time, this was not to be interpreted as the Greens endorsing the new government's regulations. Our view is, and was at the time, that the previous government's regulations are no good, but the new government's regulations are not much better. In particular, neither the previous government's regulations nor the new government's regulations include dividends or other flows of money for profit within the scope of reportable transactions.

From the outset, the Greens have stepped back and asked this: what would be most useful for superannuation transparency? We spoke to super funds, we spoke to consumer groups and we asked questions of regulators. We've been constructive, and we've done the heavy lifting on this issue. Really, we've done the government's job for it, because the minister didn't do much of a job of explaining the shortcomings of the old regulations when he sought to strike them out, and he didn't propose a solution that put the issue to bed. That left plenty of room for the opposition to attack. It also left plenty of room for Senator David Pocock, who, I have to say, slightly disappointingly took context-free numbers out of annual reports to try and wedge the Greens, which actually had the effect of highlighting the problem, with a binary choice between the old regulations and the new regulations.

To date, the debate about this issue has been superficial and at a volume far in excess of its importance. So, yes, let's have superannuation transparency and let's get it right, but to say that disallowing these regulations would be a big win for transparency, as Senator David Pocock did today, is just not right. We're not going to resolve these issues here today, even though the solution is actually very straightforward. We need an annual super transparency report. It needs to be published by the regulator, APRA, and it needs to include tables of all the relevant expenditure—including for political purposes and for profit—for all super funds in the one place so that consumers of superannuation products can make comparisons across funds and so that other people, including journalists, can easily make those comparisons.

In good faith, the Greens have given the minister the time to put in place this proper solution while this disallowance motion and a motion tabled by the Greens remained on the Notice Paper. I'm here today to say that the time is up, and the minister hasn't sorted this issue out. We haven't seen new regulations that would provide a holistic fix. Instead, what I have is the minister's word that he intends to do so, which brings me to another issue.

As we all know, late last year, the minister reached an agreement with the Greens to include within the financial accountability regime fines for executives who breach their accountability obligations. We had an agreement that that would occur, but within 24 hours of that agreement being made public, the minister reneged. After a day of very overt and, I have to say, shameless lobbying by the banks, the minister went back on his word. I say to the minister today that there need to be consequences for this. If the government expects the Greens to be reasonable, then the government needs to demonstrate that we can work with it in good faith. They need to do better than just roll over to the banks.

Last week we found out that the major banks donated over $400,000 to the Labor Party during an election year. When the minister folded on including million-dollar fines for dodgy bankers in a bill that was supposed to be all about stopping bankers who get paid millions of dollars for being dodgy, that was the banks calling in a favour owed. It was institutionalised bribery, but it was out in plain view—out in the open for the whole world to see—and that's the way the banks wanted it. They wanted to send a message to this parliament that actually they are running the show in here, not the democratically elected senators. It was a shameless and overt display of power that was designed specifically to send a direct message to this parliament and, in particular, to the MPs who are members of a party once led by Ben Chifley.

The message to Labor MPs from the banks was this: if you're thinking about curbing bankers' powers or tilting the scales in favour of consumers, then think again because we, the banks, have you, the Labor Party, on a very short leash. This is the question that I now put to the minister and the government: what is more important, donations from the banks and doing as instructed by the banks, on the one hand, or doing the right thing by the Australian public and consumers of banking products, on the other hand? If the government wants to be confident of the Greens' vote and support on matters like this, in this place, then the government will need to do better than be patsies for the banks, and the government will need to make it very clear and demonstrate that we can work with the government in good faith.

In case anything I've said is unclear, I'll finish with this. The way that I would suggest the government and the minister demonstrate that they can work with the Greens in good faith is to come good on what they already agreed to, which is to include million-dollar fines for dodgy bankers in the financial accountability regime. The Greens will be supporting this disallowance motion.