Media Release

13 September 2017: KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has criticised the decision to appoint three CEOs to head up the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) panel, assembled to review CBA, labelling the decision to be a classic case of Caesar judging Caesar.

Mr Katter questioned the track record of those appointed to the panel arguing that it is a case of the people that have created the problem, now judging themselves and their own class of people, and committed to raising it in Parliament.

“Each of these people comes from a CEO class, the new power group that runs society and pays themselves absolutely obscene amounts of money - the sort of Enrons and Goldman Sachs of this world. They are from the group of people they are now going to judge.

“All three have the same background. One of them served on the Qantas board. Qantas privatised all its jobs out. Thanks to that now notorious expose, we know the pay and conditions are so bad that their staff /contractors are reduced to sleeping in blankets and living at the airport. That’s what Qantas has reduced us to. And these are the people on this watchdog panel.

“Another particular person (one of the three) he was head of APRA, and APRA was presiding over what was going on with the Commonwealth Bank at the time.

“Mr (Graeme) Samuels, head of the organisation he was with did the Woolworths and Coles inquiry where we presented evidence that the two big wholesalers were doing 300% mark-ups and were responsible for the complete destruction of the dairy industry.

“When they were under arbitration commissions, all of these agriculture industries had an 80% mark-up, then we introduced the free market (of course which Samuels was one of the great advocates for in Australia). As a result of his advocacy we went from an 80% mark-up on food to a 300% mark-up much to the detriment of the farmers and most certainly to the detriment of the consumers.

“He had all this evidence and he decided there was no problem.

“So we’ve got one from the Qantas board, one that presided over the destruction that has ruined so many areas of Australia, and the other one was supposed to be the watchdog.

“The performance of APRA establishes clearly the identity of APRA, not as a watchdog, but as a fawny lapdog”, Mr Katter said.

Mr Katter maintained confidence that George Christensen would cross the floor for a Royal Commission into the banks should the Deputy PM be ruled disqualified to sit in Parliament due to the citizenship debacle.

“There are no restraints or restrictions on the banks whatsoever.

“Our proposal, which Christensen backs, appoints six people, three of them judges, plus three others from the community.

“We will maximise publicity on this. In this case, every single person not aligned with the Liberal party has been tenacious in their determination to secure an inquiry into the banks. And the Liberal party is doing themselves untold damage.

“Mark my words, this APRA inquiry will protect the maggots where a Royal Commission will shine the light on them and the maggots will shrivel up and die.”

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