Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is actually a very good point you make, Senator. He has confidentially given me some information—and I certainly will not be disclosing his name; I will make that very clear—that he was at risk of losing his job because he did not meet sales targets, and, when he explained to his boss that he did not necessarily believe that some of the products were in the best interests of the clients, he was told that that was not what mattered; what mattered was meeting his sales targets and making money for the bank. That was only a week ago. He was also told that ASIC was seen within his organisation as being a toothless tiger.

In a few months time, your own government driven Financial System Inquiry will be making recommendations about critical aspects of the FoFA changes to regulations. Why are we rushing this through? Why did you rush these through? Why did you do this on the afternoon before 30 June, on Sunday, when none of us were in the Senate? That is exactly what we expected because the Australian Bankers Association had said that you would deliver for them. You have delivered for special interests here. You have shown who runs this country, who dictates legislation in this place.

Well, we are taking the power back. The Australian consumer, the Australian senior, is taking the power back. This is about us holding you to account, bringing the legislation back into this place and getting it right. It has been a long process, and you should have understood that what the industry needs is certainty. It was very clear—not the Greens, not Labor and not the crossbenchers but the key seniors groups in this country and the key consumer groups in this country were saying, 'It's not good enough.' You have altered something that was put in place to bring back trust in the financial services industry in this country.

I have met with a lot of good financial planners and a lot of people working in the financial services industry. A lot are in my home town. They want trust back in their industry. We need to give this a go. The FoFA regulations had barely even come into force before you changed them to suit the big end of town. The Greens made a very sensible recommendation in the Senate inquiry in our dissenting report that we give these FoFA regulations five years and then we take an evidence based approach as to whether they have increased red tape and put extra costs onto the business models of the big financial services companies. But you did not want to listen to that sensible recommendation.

I have met with the banks, with large financial services companies and with financial planners in the past two months and I have discovered that the big banks have actually gone overboard on the original FoFA recommendations. Take opt-in, for example—something you insist they need to see gone because of red tape problems. Westpac have two opt-ins a year now amongst their clients because they can see the benefit of contacting their clients and saying: 'How's it going? Are you happy with the performance?' This is exactly what FoFA was designed to deliver. So much for this being a piece of legislation that is going to bankrupt them and lead to unnecessary cost. They see the benefit of this.

We need to bring this back to this place and have a real debate, and have sensible legislation put in place that satisfies all key stakeholders and not just the big end of town. I know your party, the Liberal-National Party, are very good at delivering for your donors, but this is for all stakeholders.