Media Release

Prior to yesterday’s preliminary hearing, the Government rushed out four items of Terms of Reference for the “Big 4” Banking Inquiry delivered by the Standing Committee on Economics.

KAP Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter thinks the Terms of Reference and the Inquiry itself are limp and not the delivery Australians have been crying for.

Next week, Mr Katter will proceed with the introduction to the House of Representatives, the Banking Commission of Inquiry Bill 2016.

Mr Katter said, “firstly the parliamentary committee who by comprises people who their very backgrounds are singularly inappropriate to tackle even the everyday issues such as unilateral, punitive add-ons in agriculture, the housing bubble, recourse lending (bank sells your $500 000 house for $200 000. The $300 000 makes you a debt slave forever). In America this $300 000 debt vanishes (non-recourse lending).

“I doubt whether a single member of the committee would be able to explain how a banking loan creates money. I refer them to Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul A. Samuelson’s famous textbook on the basis of learning an understanding of economics on the last half of a century.

“So much for the banking inquiry that was supposed to delve into why people eg in farming industries are doing away with themselves 1 every four days in Australia… or why when the average income after tax is $50 000 and this when an average house repayment is over $40 000 p.a. in NSW -- Newcastle/Sydney/Wollongong.

“Decent, honest bankers would have loved these issues to be fully exposed and many others, so that rules would be developed to eliminate the competitive imperative that forces decent people in banking to do things they rightly hate to do.”

--

4 responses to the “Big 4” Banking Inquiry’s Terms of Reference

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Economics/Four_Major_Banks_Review/Terms_of_Reference

Domestic and international financial market developments as they relate to the Australian banking sector and how these are affecting Australia

Mr Katter said, “This is the pro free market chorus line of the ALP and LNP. I’m sure they tell us how wonderful it has been in bringing foreign investment which the rest of us understand to be sale of our country to foreign corporations.”

Developments in prudential regulation, including capital requirements, and how these are affecting the policies of Australian banks

Mr Katter said, “They don’t have to have an inquiry into this. We know the answer now:

“Few people will sleep peacefully at night knowing that a quarter of our super funds are going into overseas shares.

The GFC saw share prices shares dropped nearly in half drop in half, similarly in the crash of 1987.

“A quarter is going in to bidding up the property market in Australia,

“The rest is in money because the banks are afraid that any of the other three investments could collapse at any moment. Virtually nothing is going into government secured investment loans.”

The costs of funds, impacts on margins and the basis for bank pricing decisions

Mr Katter said, “I don’t understand that and those who do would consider it imbecilic.”

How individual banks and the banking industry as a whole are responding to issues previously raised in Parliamentary and other inquiries, including through the Australian Bankers' Association's April 2016 six point plan to enhance consumer protections and in response to Government reforms and actions by regulators.

Mr Katter said, “Three cheers for the Govt. Give yourself a pat on the back Mr Government.”

##ENDS##