George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 19 July, I hosted a banking forum in Mackay. It was an opportunity to put bank representatives in front of businesses, industry bodies and locals affected by the decisions made by those banks. The forum was very well attended. I thank the big four banks for sending senior representatives to listen to the concerns of locals. Locals took the opportunity to outline the strength of our regional economy and the upswing that we're experiencing. We hope that area managers that attended my forum—

Ms Lamb interjecting—

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

take the message of economic strength and opportunity back to their state and central managers and feed it up the line to the national management. Leaders of the big four banks need to understand the appetite for growth amongst businesses in regional Australia.

The economic strength of Central and North Queensland belies the high level of risk that the major banks have assigned to the region around the Bowen Basin. If the banks were going to assign high-risk assessments and more lending controls, the time to do it was four years ago, not now when it only stifles recovery and economic growth. The bankers at the forum were quizzed on the policy of putting pressure on riskier loan clients to get them off the books, enabling the banks to divert credit capacity elsewhere. This seemed to be a policy that particularly attacked rural and regional borrowers, which were perceived as higher risk than city based home mortgagees. The banks were asked to make sure valuations are not artificially inflated by valuers who didn't know the area that they were valuing and didn't even bother looking at the places that they were valuing. That is the case in many instances.

The banks were also asked to stop knocking one of our region's economic linchpins—that is, the coalmining sector and, in particular, the Adani Carmichael coal project, which promises so much potential for our region. North Queenslanders were gobsmacked when Westpac was, on the one hand, publicly condemning the coal industry in North Queensland while, on the other hand, profiting from its own investment in the coal industry in New South Wales. These banks have been very easily bullied by the eco-terrorist brigade into taking a position against Adani, publicly stating they have refused to fund the Carmichael project. But they are far less willing to put that statement in context by admitting that they were never asked to fund the project.

While North Queenslanders work hard to make a living to support their families and pay their bills, they see massive profits being made by these banks and obscene salaries being paid to top executives, even when the banks are doing the wrong thing, like with the CBA. It was good to see the Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe, criticising the arrogance and poor service of the major banks, saying: 'It's fair to say that trust in banking has been strained.' His comment on the CBA breaching money laundering and terrorism financing laws adds further fuel to the public's fire. By their continued actions, the banks are spoonfeeding the push for a royal commission. (Time expired)