Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The committee is considering the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023 and a related bill and amendments (1) to (13), on sheet 1913, to the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023, moved by Senator McKim. A division was called for after 6.30 pm yesterday and was therefore deferred. The question before the committee is that the amendments on sheet 1913 moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does any senator wish to make a further contribution at committee stage? Senator Roberts.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I spoke on Senator McKenzie's matter of public importance regarding the decision by Minister Catherine King to give Qantas a substantial commercial advantage in the Qatar Airlines application for more flights to Australia. I pointed out that the Qatari government owns Qatar Airlines, while Qantas's most influential shareholders are the merchant banks that invest money on behalf of the world's richest predatory billionaires. I raise the question: who does this government represent? Is it everyday Australians or foreign wealth?

Here we are again, the very next day, debating the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023—a bill devoid of financial accountability. A financial accountability regime bill with no accountability is a bill that could more rightly be called the 'Letting bank executives do whatever they want bill 2023'. Banking executives in Australia are a protected species for the same reason Alan Joyce and Qantas are protected: crony capitalism.

The big four banks have almost identical major shareholders. They have the same owners as Qantas, including Vanguard with $15 billion in shares in the big four banks, BlackRock with $5 billion, and then the usual suspects with smaller holdings, such as State Street, JP Morgan, Charles Schwab, HSBC and others. With these common owners making up a controlling share, it means we do not have four big banks. We have one monstrous bank with four divisions working under four logos. Why would the banks compete with each other when that competition will lessen their profits and, in turn, reduce the flow of dividends to these investment funds?

Our banking legislation, our checks and balances, were not written for an eventuality where investment funds with A$40 trillion in funds available bought controlling shareholdings in all the big four banks and used those shareholdings for their own financial benefit in a way that reduces competition and has reduced competition. Investment funds get assistance from complicit executives. Those complicit executives know the deal when those same investment funds elect directors who then employ the executives. The same executives know that they have to follow orders to keep their jobs and their fat pay cheques. The same executives then pursue the now infamous ESG measures to ensure that a bank lends only for projects that meet so-called environmental, social and governance standards. ESG is shorthand for using banks to enforce political objectives, like enforcing net zero by defunding coal, gas and most mining while lending for speculative investments in hydrogen and similar unproven fantasy technology.

Why would banks take a course of action that puts shareholders' funds at risk? It's because these big investment funds own the companies that profit from those investments. ESG is nothing more than the billionaires who run the world using their ownership of our banks to lend to themselves for risky investments that, if they fail, will reduce their equity. It will reduce the equity of mum and dad investors more. They carry the risk. Everyday Australians are shouldering the risk of these misinvestments that benefit only the world's most wealthy individuals. As George Carlin famously said, 'It's a club, and you'—everyday Australians—'ain't in it.'

I wonder if whoever made the decision to take personal financial penalties out of the financial accountability regime is in the club. Are you? Those penalties were in this legislation when the Turnbull government introduced it—although, of course, it is not being used, because nobody in the Liberal Party or the Labor Party has the guts to take on these investment funds—least of all, it would appear, Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, who authored this bill.

Everyday Australians are feeling the pain from the failure of this government to govern without fear or favour. Bank branch closures and de-banking are hitting everyday Australians hard, and the banking cartel just sit back and count the profits—record profits. The most glaring exclusion from this bill is the absence of civil penalty provisions such as fines for bankers. To translate that into plain English, it means that senior bankers who behave badly will not, under this bill, face personal fines—no fines at all.

Making bad bankers pay big fines isn't an idea One Nation and the Greens pulled out of thin air. The Treasury department was the one that initially proposed it. The proposal paper for the financial accountability regime that Treasury published in 2020 included civil penalties for bad bankers. The big bank lobby circled the wagons, mustering all of their high-powered lobbyists and industry groups to browbeat Treasury into removing the personal civil penalties. When the Morrison coalition government introduced the 2021 version of this bill, civil penalties had disappeared. Labor had a chance to fix that when they introduced their versions of the bill, first in 2022 and now with this one in 2023. Instead, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen 'I love the bankers' Jones, has joined Labor at the hip with their crony-capitalist banking suck-up mates in the coalition.

This bill's time line is a glaring example of what's wrong with our country's governance. In 2017 I chaired the inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers, while at the same time we called for a royal commission into the banks. The horror stories we uncovered in that Senate inquiry were enough to make my skin crawl and my stomach churn: banks stealing land and even livestock straight out from under farmers' feet, cattle rustling, foreclosing on properties where there hadn't been breaches of loan repayments, preying on vulnerable people, stealing whole farms, and rewarding mates amongst insolvency practitioners and other farmers. Rabobank, after being fined hundreds of millions of dollars for serious breaches in America, was destroying families in our country. It was all under your watch.

The evidence of banking practices we uncovered during that inquiry forced the government's hand. With the testimony of those victims, the government had no option but to call the Hayne Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. The bill now before us supposedly implements recommendations of that royal commission. What a joke! It's been more than six years since the Senate select committee I chaired was established. At the end of that long road not a single banker has been thrown in jail for their criminal actions—not one. To my knowledge, not a single banker has paid any civil penalty for the outright fraud uncovered in the royal commission—not one. At the end of the long road to this bill we have something that still will not impose personal civil penalties on bankers who breach their accountability regimes. And you guys just let it continue. If you want to know who holds all the power in this country, look no further than the fact that civil penalties have been dropped.

One Nation supported Senator McKim's amendment to insert civil penalties back into the bill, but, alas, it failed. If that amendment had been successful, we would have supported the bill. Without that amendment this bill does not go far enough to place accountability on misbehaving bankers, and we cannot support its passage. Minister, why does this bill not contain civil penalty provisions for senior bankers who fail their accountability obligations?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge Senator Roberts's speech. I don't agree with large parts of it. In this bill, within the legislation before us, there are penalties. Individuals can lose deferred remuneration and can be disqualified from being able to work in the industry, and there are individual civil penalties for assisting an entity's contravention of obligations.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, are you aware who owns our big four banks? Let me read the list of shareholders of those banks right now so that you may have some idea of where I'm going. Shareholders of National Australia Bank Limited are the Vanguard Group, with 3.3 per cent; BlackRock Fund Advisors; Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd; Norges Bank Investment Management; State Street Global Advisors; Colonial First State Investments; Goody Capital; BlackRock Advisers; Netwealth Investments; and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec. Let me read them for the Commonwealth bank: Vanguard Group, BlackRock Fund Advisors, Vanguard Investments Australia, Norges Bank, Goody Capital, Australian Foundation Investment Company Limited, BlackRock Advisors, Netwealth Investments, FIL Investment Management and Vanguard Global Advisors. Westpac: the Vanguard Group, Vanguard Investments Australia, BlackRock Fund Advisors, Norges bank, State Street Global Advisors, Goody Capital, Advance Asset Management, BlackRock Advisors, Australian Foundation Investment Company, Netwealth Investments. ANZ group: the Vanguard Group—is there an echo in this room? BlackRock Fund Advisors—there's that echo again! Vanguard Investments—it's still here! State Street—another echo! Goody Capital—another echo! BlackRock Advisors—another echo! This place is an echo chamber, and that's probably very appropriate. There's Netwealth Investments—another echo! Dimensional Fund Advisors—they're only in ANZ. There's Vanguard—another echo! BlackRock investment—another echo! Minister, are you aware of this?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm certainly aware that there are millions of shareholders in Australia's big banks and across Australia's financial system, yes.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you allow it to continue with no accountability. It seems we don't have four big banks; we have one monstrous bank working under four logos and with four divisions. There's no difference between their primary products and services and their ways of operating. Their products, services and operations are so similar that I recognised, as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers back in 2017, that they operate as one. They're a cartel. Are you aware of the common ownership and common products and services of these banks?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That information is available to all of us. In Australia we're transparent around shareholding in big companies. I am aware and you are aware, and you're aware because that information is available.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The difference, Minister, between you and me is that I want to do something to fix it. What will your government do about protecting Australians from these parasitic predators?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't agree with the language that you've used, Senator Roberts.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister says, in effect, that she agrees they're parasitic predators. Legislation needs to have teeth. Without teeth, massive regulation protects the big four from accountability because of the complexities needing deep pockets for lawyers. A farmer or a small-business man or woman cannot afford the lawyers that the big banks resort to at the drop of a hat, because they're protected by deep, complicated legislation. These barriers are barriers to accountability. Are you aware of that, and what do you plan to do about it?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I don't agree with that. The bill we completed debate of yesterday is the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023. So, no, I don't agree with that, and I do believe that, since the royal commission, there has been a significant increase of protections through legislative reform like this to make sure that we get a properly regulated and accountable financial system. This is one piece of that. So, no, I don't agree with you.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These regulations provide barriers to entry of new competition to the big four—or the 'big one'. Are you aware of that, and what do you plan to do about it?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If your question is about whether I think it's a barrier to competition, the answer is no.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That wasn't my question. The massive amount of complex regulations are protecting the big four banks, and they're a barrier to competition.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I've answered that. In a sense, you're arguing in a circle, because we are putting in place legislative protections and regulations to make sure there is a stronger financial system in this country to deal with some of the problems that we saw come through in the lead-up to and during the banking royal commission. We're putting those in place to protect consumers and to make sure that we have a strong, profitable, well-led banking and financial system in this country. This legislative response is part of that. The regulations are there to offer that protection. They're not to limit competition.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're effectively working as such. The government's bank deposit guarantee scheme is worthless. Firstly, it's not automatic, because the Treasurer has to invoke it. If he doesn't, there's no guarantee of bank deposits. Secondly, it covers only a maximum of $80 billion out of $1.3 trillion in bank deposits. For example, the Commonwealth Bank, I understand, has 30 million deposit accounts, meaning an average of $670 per deposit. Meanwhile, the previous government passed a bank bail-in provision that your party, Minister, supported. These are other ways in which banks avoid accountability for their mistakes and greed. They take none of the risk and all of the profit. They have no penalty for excessive greed causing failure, because government bails them in. When will your government start protecting Australian citizens and revoke the bail-in, for example?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The work that has come out of the royal commission, which this is a part of, is precisely about that, Senator Roberts.

Bills agreed to.

Bills reported without amendments; report adopted.