Another day, another hospital pass from Prime Minister Turnbott to Treasurer ScoMo, via the AFR:
Australia’s banks will pay $121 million over the next four years to fund sweeping new powers and resources for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The funding, which puts backs the $120 million the Abbott government took from ASIC in the 2014 budget, will enable the regulator to both respond better to misbehaviour as well as try and head it off in the first place through improved surveillance.
Mr Morrison said he would be “furious” if the banks sought pass this cost onto customers and he had told them so.
“I think it’s easily digestible by the banks and must be and should be and I would be furious if I thought this was being sought to be passed on to the banks and you can be absolutely assured they…would already have got that message from me,” he said.
But the package has failed to appease the Opposition which said the banks will be popping champagne corks.
“We will not let this issue go,” said Labor leader Bill Shorten, confirming banks will be come a political football over the next 10 weeks in the lead-up to the election.
“If just funding ASIC was going to stop the problem we wouldn’t have the problems we’ve got. No, it’s not enough. Asking the regulator to investigate themselves isn’t going to fix anything,” Mr Shorten said.
Mr Morrison said Mr Shorten was “cynically exploiting the concerns and fears of Australians when it comes to how that’s been impacting on their daily lives”.
“He’s politicising their pain and I think this is a reckless way for a Leader of the Opposition to behave who pretends to think that he can be responsible for a $1.6 trillion economy.”
As well, Greg Medcraft, star of The Big Short as founder and head of the American Securisation Forum, as well as the man that oversaw the last few years of banking malfeasance as a failing regulator, hasn’t been fired or demoted or even sanctioned, he’s been rewarded with an 18 month extension to his contract.
Seriously, a Royal Commission versus unscrambling their own egg and begging the banks to not pass on costs? Why can’t the Libs see how weak this looks?
They should have listened to the back-benchers calling for support of Labor’s policy. They should have been stealing Labor’s policies all along, they’re election winners.
Poor old ScoMo is ducking into a career ending coat hanger.
