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

Was he what?

An honourable member interjecting—

Yes, that's right, the former Prime Minister was involved with HIH.

Independent Australia goes on to say:

Nevertheless, Nationals Senator Barry O'Sullivan and MPs John (Wakka) Williams and, to a lesser extent, George Christensen had their ears to the ground and were listening to their electorates, whose members were recounting stories of disgraceful behaviour by the Big Four, and demanding action.

Success has many fathers, but the real heroes of the Royal Commission should be recognised. It pains me to say this, but these are the three National Party representatives who forced Turnbull’s hand.

Barry O’Sullivan, John Williams and George Christensen: take a bow!

That is echoed by Michelle Gratton, the esteemed journalist of The Conversation, who previously had written that while cabinet had considered, and people in it had argued, whether the government should be pragmatic and hold a royal commission into the banks—and Turnbull had refused that. She said:

… the Government was forced to drop its resistance when Nationals rebels threatened to revolt.

Take a bow, Queensland Nationals backbenchers Barry O'Sullivan, George Christensen and Llew O'Brien. You did everyone a service.

Sharri Markson of The Daily Telegraph said of the banking royal commission:

They were facing a backbench revolt led by Nationals MP George Christensen over the issue at a time when the Coalition’s numbers in Parliament were down as a result of the dual citizenship crisis.

She further said that, in effect, the banking royal commission 'was forced on the Turnbull government by the renegade George Christensen'. I distinctly remember the day that there was that grand backflip and the announcement that a royal commission into the banks and banking misconduct would go ahead, but the ABC reported that Malcolm Turnbull had done what he vowed he would never do: call a royal commission into the banks—'If the government hadn't set up its own inquiry, parliament would have forced one.' It would have forced one through the very legislation that I worked on with Bob Katter, the member for Kennedy, and then senator Barry O'Sullivan. This legislation would have established a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the banks. It probably would have been something that would have been greater than the banking royal commission that we got, because it would have looked at so many other areas.

I reiterate the words that I said that were quoted in that ABC News story that night. It's very sad that it took a number of National Party backbenchers to drag the then Prime Minister kicking and screaming to the decision of holding a banking royal commission. I'll leave this part of my comments at that, but to say that if anyone wonders why the former Prime Minister pursues a vendetta against me, it's this.

The banking royal commission exposed so many different areas of misconduct, but it actually didn't go far enough. I think there was a great deficiency in looking at small business, because what we had was a situation where the banks were basically wantonly throwing money at different small businesses regardless of their capacity to pay. They had structured loan deals as such that if a small business ran into a bit of turmoil or, even if it hadn't, if the region, such as the Mackay region, suffered a downturn—which we did when the mining industry had a bit of a dip—the banks would come in and say, 'We're going to set up some sort of emergency measures and put you into management,' to the small business. They would impose on them measures like penalty interest rates. They would impose on them measures like having their books audited, their businesses audited, by major accounting firms, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. They would put on them all of these restrictions and all of these costs, which were what actually crippled the business. It was not the natural economy but the banks intervening that would bring about the harm that would cause a difficulty to make payments. The banks would just bleed and bleed and bleed the business until the business had no more to give. At that point the bank probably got just about all it could out of them, which would have been more than what had actually been loaned to that business, and then they would move to wind them up. That's what happened.

I've got to say, it's not happening so much now but we've got a perverse outcome where because the banks now realise—because of the royal commission, because of the focus on them, because of the regulations that have been put in, because of the regulations that have been coming—they can't enter into these dodgy deals anymore. The banks had no risks. They basically stitched up contracts where they said: 'We will never ever lose here. We will bleed you dry. We will never ever lose.' People, if they had their eyes wide open and saw what their contracts actually said when they entered into those loans would never have signed the bottom line.

Now that situation's changed and banks aren't loaning. They're not providing any money. I think that's a bit of an indictment still on the banks, because any business arrangement has got to be one in which both parties accept some form of risk. You can't have a situation where we just simply don't supply finance because we have a risk. Well, welcome to the world, big banks, welcome to the economy, welcome to business. Everyone starting a business, everyone entering into a business arrangement has got to accept some form of risk and the bank should too. What we've had is the government stepping into that void and providing capitalisation, billions of dollars, through to the non-big banks and the smaller lenders to try and fill that void for small business. Hopefully big banks will see the error of their ways but, I have to tell you, this bill will make sure that they pay for the regulation that oversights those errors.

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