Malcolm Turnbull has a political and a policy problem with misbehaviour and outright criminality in Australia’s financial system.
His political problem is that he desperately wants voters to focus on what is normally, for the electorate, a lower-order issue — trade union scandals, and Labor’s links with unions like the CFMEU. The business sector and his own party, however, persist in producing far greater scandals, usually with several more zeroes on the end of the sums involved than anything produced by the rrade union royal commission.
His policy problem is that the succession of banking scandals will, like the ongoing problem of corporate tax-dodging, further undermine voter support for any economic reform that looks like it will benefit corporations. Voters will wonder why they are being asked to support more economic reform when large corporations refuse to pay their fair share of tax and can gouge customers with impunity.
His response, so far, has been wholly inadequate. Yesterday’s admonishment of the banking sector by the Prime Minister was irrelevant. We are long past the stage where words will help with the finance sector — if the big banks haven’t yet worked out that there is a problem with their internal cultures, problems identified by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority and the Reserve Bank itself, they never will.
It is time for action, not more words, and the appropriate action is a royal commission into the banks and their practices in relation to treatment of customers across everyday banking, financial planning, wealth management and insurance, including the structural problem of vertical integration of banks and their wealth management arms.
For a government increasingly looking indecisive and out of touch, a royal commission in this crucial area would be a positive step.
The off shore haven minimiser of his own tax scolding the banks..
I wonder how long he’s going to keep wearing the panama hat for..?
Listening to Talcum’s plaintive plea to the banksters yesterday, all I heard was “please be just a little less wicked, or at least less visible!”.
The problem with banks seems to be they can’t see past their profits – and Spitbull can’t see past their sponsorship deals.
If Labor go to the election with a promise of a Royal Commission as outlined they will far outweigh any attacks form the LNP about connections with trade unions and the CFMEU.
If they then promise to enact legislation to make it illegal to set up rubbish companies in untaxed offshore havens then that will wedge the LNP mightily, and could just give a signal that Labor aren’t in the pockets of big business.
Do they have that sort of courage?
Government is their’s for the taking, if they have the courage.
Culture in an organisation comes from the top. If a CEO is strong, models ethical behaviour and makes it clear that s/he expects the staff to behave ethically, then that is how the organization as a whole will behave and bad eggs will be weeded out and got rid of. Ian Narev at Commonwealth is either incompetent or complicit/encouraging of unethical behaviour. I suspect the latter.