John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate. Now the politics start. Let me give you a bit of a history lesson. Of course I called for a royal commission many years ago when I got involved with Storm Financial and many other things. But what's happened since then? I'll tell you what's happened. I met with whistleblower Jeff Morris, who will be here tomorrow for my final speech. We got working on the Commonwealth financial planning and worked with Adele Ferguson. It all became public and so on it went.

At Senate estimates one night I said to Peter Kell, the Deputy Commissioner of ASIC, 'Mr Kell, why did it take 16 months for you to react to the whistleblowers when they got in touch with you?' He said, 'We got a great result, Senator Williams—we had an enforceable undertaking'. I asked the question again. Mr Kell did not answer the question. I turned to the then chair, Senator Mark Bishop. I said, 'Chair, how do we get these people to answer a question?' He said, 'I can't direct them how to answer the question.' Luckily, Senator Cameron's staffer was watching. The staffer said to Senator Cameron, 'Dougie, they're belting Wacka up, you better help him.' Senator Cameron came into the Senate estimates—I'll repeat this tomorrow in my valedictory speech—and said, 'Mr Kell, don't give me the run around the mulberry bush like you gave Senator Williams, I warn you.' After that little display of Senator Cameron's front-foot activities, he walked out and said to me, 'Wacka, we should have an inquiry into ASIC.' I said, 'Good point, Dougie'.

We drew up the terms of reference. All the chamber agreed with it. We had an inquiry into ASIC and how it did its job. At the end of the inquiry, a great job chaired by Mark Bishop, the then Labor senator from Western Australia—and a decent bloke, I might add—we recommended a royal commission. Who opposed it? Labor opposed it. The government opposed it. I imagine some of the crossbenchers opposed it. When the motion was put forward by Senator Whish-Wilson of the Greens to have a royal commission, I crossed the floor and sat with the Greens. I remember saying to Senator Di Natale, 'When I join the Greens I will become leader—you watch me and see how I go.' I got a giggle back. Senator Dastyari was sitting over there. He voted against a royal commission. That's where the big force came from—that committee. That's where it was driven from. It was a couple of years later that Labor finally supported it. What really brought the royal commission on, it's all about numbers in here and the other place. We always knew that the royal commission would pass a vote in the Senate, but it would not pass in the House. That is until two MPs, The Nationals' George Christensen and Llew O'Brien, went out public and said, 'If it comes to the House, we will vote for it.' So the numbers were in the House because of the National Party members Llew O'Brien and George Christensen there—make no mistake about that. The banks realised that the numbers were there in both houses to pass a royal commission. They wrote to the government and said, 'Bring it on.' The rest is history.

When we drew up the terms of reference—I commend my colleague Senator Barry O'Sullivan for this—we included superannuation in the terms of reference. If Labor had drawn up the terms of reference, I would have been very surprised if they had included superannuation, because they would want to cover the industry super funds and their friends there. What did the royal commission tell us? It told us that there are a lot of bad doings and wrongdoings and bad behaviour in the superannuation funds, especially the retail funds.

The royal commission has done a great job. The media have done a great job highlighting the wrongdoings. I commend the bank leadership now for saying that they know it's wrong and they have to fix it. That is exactly how it will be. But the question is, for how long? How long will the right activities be carried out? We don't know. In 10 or 15 years we will have different board members in the banks, and life insurance companies like AMP will have different CEOs. Will it still be right then? We've had numerous inquiries: the Martin inquiry, the Murray inquiry, numerous parliamentary inquiries and now the royal commission. The situation of people before profit must be embedded.

There's a new code of conduct coming out on 1 July in the banking industry. It's voluntary. You don't have to join; but if you join, you must abide by it. I think we should lock in a mandatory code of conduct in the finance industry to see that good behaviour and respect carries on not for five or 10 years, but for 50 or 100. It's disappointing to see the banks' reputation being trashed. When I was a young fellow the bank manager was the most respected bloke in the town. There were no women bank managers in those days; they seemed to be all blokes. Thankfully, it has changed now, and they are giving women a much fairer go in the senior positions. But we need to make it last. I commend the government for taking it on. I commend my colleagues Llew O'Brien and George Christensen from the other place, the MPs. They gave the numbers. I commend the banks for asking for it. I don't think they realised how much they were throwing themselves under the bus. Now it's done. AFCA's in place. Let's get the wrongs righted. Let's cement it in for decades to come. That's the big issue: how long will it last? I hope it lasts for generations and generations. I hope that faith is restored in the banking industry, because we need banks. We need good, strong banks. We have good, strong banks. We need them to behave properly with many of the other institutions as well.