16 News

Today’s disappointing final report into the banking and financial services industry will slow, but not end decades of money grabbing and unethical conduct, the Australian Greens have said today.
“The enthusiasm from the Liberal and Labor parties to accept these recommendations tells you all you need to know. The financial services industry is one of the biggest donors to both old parties, and they will all be laughing all the way to the bank tonight,” Leader of the Australian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale said.
“Accepting all of these recommendations will go some way towards improving the system, but the system needs more than a tweak, it needs a complete shakeup.
“People have not only suffered from unethical conduct, they have been hurt as a result of limited competition and protected by a toothless watchdog. Under these recommendations people will continue to be locked into that rotten structure, and bankers will only be forced to rein in their profit forecasts.”
“This Royal Commission has shone a welcome ray of light on the practices of the banks, and there is undoubted political momentum for reform – but we cannot consider the job to be done,” Greens Banking spokesperson Peter Whish-Wilson said.
“The Greens would like to have seen more focus on structural reform, rather than just conduct reform. The Commission’s failure to resolve the issue of vertical and horizontal integration is a notable example of an inquiry that has been constrained.
“Sadly the Commissioner’s brief was limited from the outset, as was his time to consider detailed policy issues.
“The historical significance of today’s report depends on what unfolds from here. Will long suffering victims of financial misconduct now be appropriately compensated? Will the regulators take up Justice Haynes challenge and pursue criminal charges against the banks?
“The Greens will be watching closely and won’t be taking a backward step in holding the next government to account, and leading on the push for reform and policies that transform our economy”.
The Greens welcome the thrust of the recommendations, and are particularly pleased to see some of the Greens’ recommendations adopted, including:

• Ending bank commissions for mortgage brokers
• Ending grandfathered commissions that involve conflicted remuneration
• Expanding the scope of the executive accountability regime to all APRA regulated institutions
• Establishing a ‘regulator’s regulator’ to ensure they are doing their job properly
• Establishing a last resort compensation scheme

However, the Greens proposal to fix Australia’s banking sector would:

• Establish a people’s bank that offers basic products at a competitive rate, putting people before profit
• Break up the banks, by separating retail banking, investment banking and wealth management arms
• Cap the obscene pay packages that banking executives receive
• Replace a weak and compromised ASIC with the ACCC to fight for the rights of banking customers

Every asylum seeker child has now been removed from Nauru or has had their claim processed and has a clear path off the island.
Our strong border protection policies mean we’ve been able to stop the boats and work through the backlog of cases Labor created when 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats on their watch.
There were 109 asylum seeker children on Nauru at the end of August 2018 at the time we took on our respective roles as Prime Minister and Minister for Immigration.
Since then, and as was made clear at the time, we have been working quietly and methodically through this process without compromising the integrity of Operation Sovereign Borders. There are now only four asylum seeker children on Nauru and they have all been approved for departure to the United States of America with their families.
We have got all the children Labor put in detention centres out, and we have shut down all the detention centres Labor opened, including on Christmas Island.
Australia has one of the most generous humanitarian immigration programs in the world, but we can only do it by maintaining strong borders and insisting people come the right way.
We have secured our borders, we stopped the boats and the tragic drownings at sea. And we have been supporting children compassionately without putting our strong border security at risk.
We have got the balance right.
You don’t get all children off Nauru by putting more on. That is why we must maintain the integrity of Operation Sovereign Borders. Labor’s policies will unravel the strong border protection framework we have put in place.
Labor’s laws currently before the Parliament would end offshore processing as we know it, tearing apart our strong border policies. This would only see the horror start all over again.
On our watch we will never let Australia get back into the mess Labor left us when they locked up nearly 8,000 children in detention.

The report of the Senate inquiry into the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) has been marred by the revelations that vested interests including RoundUp patent holder Bayer and industry body CropLife have collectively donated $139,000 to the Labor, Liberal and National parties in the 2017-18 financial year, say the Australian Greens.
“Exactly a year ago Bayer made a $22,000 donation to the Labor party and today, the Labor-controlled committee for the APVMA inquiry report states they have confidence in the APVMA’s review of glyphosate,” said Senator Janet Rice, Australian Greens agriculture spokesperson.
“The report calls the APVMA’s review of glyphosate ‘robust’, even though the agency decided not to conduct a formal reconsideration of the chemical despite the APVMA’s CEO agreeing that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen.”
“The ad-hoc nature of our current regime for chemical review, as demonstrated by the approach of the APVMA to community concerns about glyphosate, is clearly not up to the task of keeping our community and environment safe.”
“It’s also clear from the donations data released today that the independence of this Senate inquiry and indeed the APVMA is under a cloud.”
“We need donations reform right now, to ensure that big business can’t continue to shape outcomes at the expense of the best interests of the Australian people.”
“The Greens are calling on the Coalition government to immediately order an independent, transparent and science-based inquiry into glyphosate to give Australians certainty about its safety, and call on Bayer to release all internal science. We are also calling on the government to immediately introduce legislation to reinstate the APVMA re-approvaland re-registration scheme that was repealed in 2014.”
In the 2017-18 financial year, Bayer donated $40,600 to Labor and $42,540 to the Coalition, with CropLife donating $34,271 to Labor and $22,300 to the Coalition. Information can be found here.
The committee’s final report, including the Greens dissenting report, can be found here.