Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Financial Services. Minister, the banking royal commission's report was tabled more than four years ago, but still at least 18 recommendations are yet to be implemented. Obviously this is unacceptable and out of step with community expectations, not least because the misconduct discovered by the commission and the harm it caused was extremely alarming and is likely continuing to some degree. Minister, when will all 76 banking royal commission recommendations be implemented in full?

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I thank the member for Clark for his question and acknowledge that since he entered this place, in the same year that I did, he has been an advocate for these issues and consumer issues more broadly. He was also a passionate campaigner for the introduction of a royal commission into financial services, something that the Labor Party supported in opposition and the coalition voted against 26 or 27 times.

There were 76 recommendations from the royal commission. Of those, some 54 were to government, another 12 were to the regulators and 10 were to industry. I am very pleased to be able to report to the House that in the first 12 months of the Albanese government we have implemented a key recommendation that was outstanding from when we came into government, and that was the implementation of the compensation scheme of last resort. I say it's important because, upon coming into government, there were around 2,000 people who are owed an award of damages that was unable to be paid and would have otherwise been paid by the compensation scheme of last resort. About $230 million worth of compensation payments will now flow because in the last month that legislation passed through the Senate.

I can also inform members of the House that, of the six outstanding recommendations to government, five can be passed this week if the financial accountability regime passes through the Senate. I believe it's on the Senate's Notice Paper to be considered this Wednesday, and I'd urge the Senate to ensure that that does occur. The final recommendation to government that I haven't dealt with so far deals with point-of-sale exemptions in relation to certain credit products. I propose to deal with that in the context of the buy-now pay-later reforms that I hope to bring into the parliament if not late this year then early next year. I think that would be a very important reform.

If I could point to the other recommendations, my understanding is that there are two recommendations to the regulators that remain unresolved. Both of them require other processes to be dealt with. For example, one of them requires the implementation of the Quality of advice review and other associated processes that I'm busily dealing with the regulators, the department and the regulated industry on. In relation to the industry, my understanding is that there are three outstanding recommendations. One's a bit hard to measure because it deals with the change of culture within the industry. The other two deal with not yet time expired reviews of codes of practice within the industry. I can inform the member and the House more generally that we're committed to ensuring that all of this is done. (Time expired)