Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I am very, very pleased to support the Banking and Financial Services Commission of Inquiry Bill 2017 from the Greens and Senator Whish-Wilson. We have been supportive of this from the start and we commend them for raising it and for seeing it through, and we look forward to it being implemented. The banks do provide a vital service to our country and to people right across Australia—that is fundamental. But as Chair of the Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers, we are now seeing the inflow of submissions from people who are being devastated by banks and who are being devastated by the unconscionable conduct of banks on some occasions. I am told, and I have not checked the figures, that this is the 18th such inquiry in recent times—possibly since the global financial crisis. That tells us that something is not being fixed and that this is endemic and systemic.

We are very dedicated to making sure that this inquiry succeeds. We are being very open. We have already listened to the banks—without formal inquiry; the banks have approached me—and we have also listened to and tried to support people who have been hurt by the banks right across Australia. Having said that and intending to do a fine job on holding the banks accountable and to inquire into primary production customers and the lending to them, we still see the need to go beyond and to support Senator Whish-Wilson's bill.

We know that the public are aware of the need for this commission of inquiry. We cannot understand why the government is so reluctant to have a royal commission. Regardless of whether this is second best or better, it does not matter because this looks to have the teeth to be able to get into it. But I would like to go back to basics for a minute. I am not a finance expert; I am, however, a graduate from the University of Chicago graduate school of business where I did an MBA. That has given me a little touch in finance. I do note that the University of Chicago is arguably the No. 1 financial university in the world. Even there they did not teach us some basic fundamentals, so let us discuss some of them—things that I only became aware of relatively recently.

Another word for money is currency. It enables flow and currency enables the exchange of goods and services in any economy. So the banking sector which influences that is very, very important to the fluid and efficient exchange of goods and services—the efficient economy. Exchange is important. Currency is important. In our society, though, in Australia, and in the major western democracies, currency is almost entirely created out of thin air. It is something that I did not know about just five or six years ago until I started reading in depth. I call upon the works of Murray Rothbard, the acclaimed Austrian School economist—a fine economist, the late Murray Rothbard. He showed how it is created out of thin air. This is very, very important to understand, because that then determines what flows from that creation out of thin air. When this is constrained, as it is in our country and in major western democracies, those who control currency creation control everything and it is that fundamental.

The Bank of England, to my knowledge, was the world's first central bank and it was created in 1694 and was a privately owned bank. In looking to create the United States constitution, the forefathers of the United States constitution looked at Europe and saw that that continent had been devastated, despite being civilised, by war after war after war. They pointed the blame at two things: central government and private central banks. They made sure in the constitution of America that there would be no dominant central government, and that is why they had a federation of sovereign independent states—the first 13 states.

They also made sure that only the congress could issue currency. Within 20 years of the formation of the United States of America, contrary to the constitution, the first privately-owned central bank was created. I think it was the first bank of America. That lasted only 20 years and the charter was not renewed, because it had been so destructive to the economy. It was not long, however, before the major international banks formed the second central bank of America, and that was ended in 1832 by a speech by Andrew Jackson—which I commend to all senators—to the American congress in which he itemised the destruction caused by the central banks—the all-powerful, privately-owned central banks. He ended that in 1832. Thereafter, the major banks, not just American but also European banks, embarked on their crusade to form the third privately-owned central bank, and that is the current United States Reserve Bank. It controls interest rates, it controls money supply and, therefore, it controls just about everything indirectly. That is very important to understand. We also see the major multinational banks such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Rothschild Australia having in their clutches carbon dioxide trading—a scheme they have created to make money out of thin air. It gives them enormous power. These banks rule over so much of our lives, our economies and our nations.

So I checked this bill to make sure that the terms of reference would encompass the creation of currency and the behaviour of the central bank and also the behaviour of the major banks. I commend Senator Whish-Wilson for making sure that the terms of reference were sufficiently broad to capture all entities in the financial services sector. The banks, as Senator Dastyari said, seem to be a law unto themselves. We note that in the global financial crisis the banks actually socialised the losses, yet they retained the profits. In times of profit, profits are privatised; in times of losses, losses tend to be socialised, because the banks are too big to fail. We see journalists in our society like Robert Gottliebsen and Terry McCrann being outspoken in highlighting some of the things that the banks are doing that are at times destroying our economy or limiting our economic efficiency. Robert Gottliebsen recently wrote a series of articles in which he said that the banks are a law unto themselves—and that must end.

I make further reference to the terms of reference in Senator Whish-Wilson's bill that ensure the systems that drive behaviour are understood and investigated, because systems drive behaviour and behaviour shapes attitude. The combination of behaviour and attitude is culture, and that goes to the heart of any industry or sector. I again commend Senator Whish-Wilson for recognising this fact and the need to investigate the culture of Australia's financial system and the culture of Australia's banking system.

Finally, as chair of the Senate select committee into lending to primary production customers, I want to reassure people across Australia, especially in the rural sector—farming, fishing and forestry—that we are onto their plight at the moment. We are doing everything in our power to do a thorough job of investigating that, inquiring into it and making clear recommendations to the government. We are also turning our attention to supporting Senator Whish-Wilson's commission. In the meantime, we urge all senators to vote in favour of this bill.