Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Ruddbank is not designed, I say in deference to the member for Makin, to make funds available to small businesses, as he tried to put it—small businesses in the community who are employing people. This is about the big end of town. This has nothing to do with small or medium sized business. Every dollar the government makes available to refinance large commercial projects is money not available to assist other areas of the economy.

The minister also states in the legislation that it specifically authorises the shareholders agreement and the activities undertaken by Ruddbank, its shareholders, directors, officers et cetera to be exempt from the competition provisions of the Trade Practices Act. This is being justified as necessary to remove any uncertainty. In fact, I suggest it creates an enormous amount of uncertainty as to how Ruddbank will operate. The exemption is somewhat extraordinary. It breaches any concept of good governance by having representatives from the four big banks and the Commonwealth, rather than an independent board, making decisions in the interests of the country. No matter how the government seeks to rationalise this, there will always be some suspicion that the bank nominees will represent their own interests rather than the interests of the organisation financing and wearing the risk—the taxpayers of Australia. Worse still, it will be hard to justify just whose interests are being served and, more importantly, who is ultimately accountable for decisions.

Whilst it may seem alarmist, the record of Labor governments in the 1990s when it came to major banking is not exactly the great resume that Labor would like to show. The State Bank of Victoria, under Labor’s watch, lost around $3 billion, mainly through its subsidiary Tricontinental. Other parts of the sorry tale are the Victorian Economic Development Corporation, where the final cost to taxpayers was counted at $4 billion; WA Inc., another great Labor brainchild; and the State Bank of South Australia, which had to be bailed out by the state government at a final cost to taxpayers of $2.2 billion. The Labor Party does not have a whole heap of form when it comes to banking. Then again, what would you expect from the union movement? Royal commissions were conducted into the debacles, and governments fell.

There is nothing positive about this legislation. The banks do not need it; they are just looking for an easy way out. It will cause a rush of foreign investment to leave—why would you hang onto a potentially toxic asset when Mr Dumb-Money himself will take it over for you? The legislation offends every principle of good governance. It is a significant and major retrograde step to put the taxpayers of Australia into a further $28 billion worth of debt just because Mr Dumb-Money was conned by big banking.

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