After narrowly holding-off a banking Royal Commission in September 2016, it was reported last month that three Coalition MPs were considering crossing the floor of parliament and voting in favour of establishing a Royal Commission.
Today, The AFR reports that Nationals Senator, Barry O’Sullivan, is pushing ahead with a private members bill to establish a Royal Commission and hopes to use the resignation of Liberal MP John Alexander to force the bill through:
O’Sullivan has… been busy caucusing colleagues and believes he has the numbers to get it through. He told The Australian Financial Review he has at least two and as many as five backbenchers willing to cross the floor.
O’Sullivan said he was angry at the way the same-sex marriage bill had been introduced but that it had done two things. It had given a pathway for backbenchers to initiate legislation to tackle issues such as a commission of inquiry into the banks. Secondly, it had created a situation of isolation for some Nationals, which is a dangerous place for Turnbull as it means they no longer feel they have to toe the line on certain policies such as the banks.
In the past year the government has tried to prosecute the argument that self-regulation, stronger regulatory powers, a streamlined complaints tribunal and bank bosses fronting Parliament twice a year is enough to fix deep-seated problems.
But O’Sullivan believes the various attempts to fix the problems are slow and feeble. He said the banks weren’t afraid of the compliance or penalty regime.
“Australians want a royal commission, they want their day in the sun,” he told the Financial Review. “If it’s good enough for conservative governments to have royal commissions into trade unions, Pink Batts and detention centres then it is good enough to have one for the banks as they are more corrupt than the unions and on a scale much bigger.”
He said he had more than 10 pages of examples of bank wrongdoing, including manipulating money markets and money laundering…
While I don’t support the Nationals using Same Sex Marriage as an excuse for a Royal Commission into the banks, the end does justify the means, given numerous examples of bank malfeasance, including:
- damning evidence of bank manipulation of the bank bill swap rate, which the banks have shown no contrition over;
- the 1000-plus examples whereby borrowers’ loan documentation has been forged by the banks (see here, here, here and here), again with little remorse shown;
- overall dodgy lending standards; and
- the CBA money laundering scandal, which no doubt goes far deeper.
The issue is not going away. Might as well get on with it already.
