The Royal Commission into the banking and financial services industry being pushed by the Federal Opposition leader, Bill Shorten, is “an inquiry looking for something to inquire about”, according to the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Kelly O’Dwyer.
Addressing the Financial Services Council’s (FSC’s) Leaders’ Summit in Sydney, O’Dwyer sought to push back on the announcement by the Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen that a Federal Labor Government would use such a Royal Commission to then generate a thorough a review of the financial services regulatory framework.
O’Dwyer suggested that the worst of the scandals in the financial industry were in the past, stating “Trio Capital, Great Southern and Storm Financial happened in the years after the global financial crisis (GFC) and under the former Government. Not caused by them, but certainly on their watch”.
She said there had been a host of actions, inquiries and new bodies set up by the Coalition Government in response to those scandals but the Labor opposition was failing to acknowledge what the Government had done to fix the excesses of the past and prevent them from happening again.
“They are moving the goalposts of their proposed inquiry to new areas such as FinTech and looking at how our regulators work,” she said.
“The Royal Commission has become an inquiry looking for something to inquire about,” O’Dwyer said. “We don’t want to see a repeat of these scandals. But nor do we need a formal, legalistic, endless talkfest following on from the sensible and considered reviews and reforms the Government has already put in place. What we need is the Government to take action now.”
