In the below detailed interview with Bill Woods at Radio 2GB, I discuss Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ shocking decision to approve ANZ Bank’s takeover of Suncorp, alongside the federal government’s failures on immigration and energy, which are contributing to Australia’s sticky inflation problem.
These policy failures show that Australia’s economy has transformed into a corporate oligopoly.
Interview highlights:
Last year, the competition regulator, the ACCC, blocked ANZ Bank’s proposed $4.9 billion takeover of Suncorp Bank on anti-competitive grounds.
Then in February, the ACCC’s overseer, the Competition Appeals Tribunal, overturned the ACCC’s decision to block the takeover.
On Friday, our illustrious Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave final approval to the ANZ to takeover Suncorp, making ANZ the third biggest bank in the nation.
There are fundamental problems with this takeover.
First, it will reduce competition in what is already one of the most concentrated and oligopolistic banking markets in the world. This is why the ACCC initially blocked the deal in August 2023.
To the extent that it reduces competition, it has the likelihood of making customers pay higher fees and interest rates because banks will have greater market power.
This decision to approve the takeover comes at a time when corporate profiteering has been cited as one of the things that has driven-up Australia’s inflation and cost of living crisis.
This profiteering is why the government launched a separate inquiry into Australia’s oligopolistic supermarkets.
So, while Labor is investigating supermarkets for abuse of market power, it is reducing competition in the banking sector, to allow more corporate profiteering and price gouging.
The approval of this deal also comes about 5 years after the Hayne Banking Royal Commission, which slammed the big four banks for malfeasance.
Treasurer Chalmers has just given the big four Banks even more market power. On anti-competitive grounds alone, this decision is an absolute shocker.
It gets even worse because it also undermines the authority of the ACCC…
The ACCC conducted a very thorough investigation of this takeover and it concluded that it’s likely to substantially lessen competition in the banking sector.
The overrule by the Competition Appeals Tribunal has set a really bad precedent because it has incentivised any firm in Australia with market power that wants to takeover another firm to appeal the ACCC’s block.
This decision has eroded competition policy in Australia and the authority of ACCC.
We have witnessed a gross failure of competition policy and due process in Australia, thanks to the Competition Appeals Tribunal and Treasurer Jim Chalmers…
The Competition Appeals Tribunal basically drunk the ANZ’s Kool-Aid arguments that the takeover is in the public interest, which it absolutely is not.
It doesn’t pass the pub test to have even less competition in the banking sector and making the big four banks even more powerful than they already are when they are already the most powerful banking cartel in the world…
