Labor warns govt off bank 'backpedalling'

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has cautioned the Morrison government it must make a serious response to the banking royal commission.

Royal Commissioner Kenneth Hayne and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne handed over the banks report to and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Friday. Source: AAP

Labor is warning the government not to provide any kind of protection racket for banks in the response to the banking royal commission ministers and bureaucrats are drawing up.

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne QC delivered his report on Friday and the government is spending the weekend preparing a response to the findings before publicly releasing it on Monday at 4.20pm, after the stock market's close of trading.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already said it was important to ensure banks and other players kept lending cash - "the lubricant for the Australian economy" - while also backing in the stability of financial markets.

But Labor leader Bill Shorten said this sounded like the government was already back-pedalling on making the banks accountable.

"Is really what Mr Morrison is saying is the only way to have a solid banking sector is an unethical banking sector?" he told ABC's Insiders on Sunday.

"I don't buy that, nor do thousands of small businesses, farmers and people who have been ripped off by the banks."

He again committed Labor to in principle adopting all the royal commission's recommendations, saying there would have to be a "pretty amazing reason" not to.

The Greens have already put out their wishlist of actions, ahead of seeing the report, which includes breaking up the banks business model, returning oversight to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and establishing a publicly owned bank.

"We need not just bank bashing, we need bank-changing policies," Greens leader Richard di Natale told Sky News' David Speers.

"We want to see the banks broken up so that banks focus on being banks rather than trying to push complex financial instruments down the throats of customers simply so they can gouge them for money."

The commission took more than 10,000 submissions and held 69 days of public hearings.


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Published 3 February 2019 10:42am
Source: AAP


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