Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. I was employed to read the Murray inquiry and to comment on it. The Murray inquiry was incredibly comprehensive. The government has accepted the overwhelming majority of that inquiry's recommendations, and it also included six additional measures that were consistent with the inquiry's underlying philosophy.

The government response included commitments to unprecedented improvements to consumer protections, to banking stability, to governance and to ASIC powers. And just so far since the Murray inquiry report was tabled, the Turnbull government has enacted critical consumer protection reforms that lift professional, educational and ethical standards of financial advisers. It has limited the incentives paid to financial advisers for sale of life insurance products, to limit the risks that products will be sold to consumers that are not in their best interest. The Turnbull coalition government has also introduced reforms that will ensure that retail client moneys are protected where financial firms become insolvent and it has strengthened the resources and powers of ASIC.

After completing the capability review of ASIC in April last year, you will remember that the government announced a $217 million funding package for ASIC to bolster its enforcement capabilities and to accelerate reform measures recommended specifically by the Murray inquiry. Mr Medcraft was questioned on that funding during the last estimates, and he said that it proved an adequate amount to do what ASIC needed to do to actually implement those reform measures.

The Turnbull government has for the first time called on the major banks to appear, at least annually, before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics to explain pricing decisions and to discuss their progress in responding to various issues raised in previous parliamentary inquiries. This is a process that has been highly publicised, highly successful—