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(Image via therealnews.com) Behind the glitz and glamour of the Brazilian World Cup lies a seedy underbelly of corruption, waste and inequality, writes Alexander Swift.
THIS YEAR’S FIFA World Cup has brought to light many things.
With it, of course, the glitz and glamour of the world’s most popular
sport on a global scale, which will undeniably decide the next popular
haircut.
For some, the world has stopped for three weeks. The regimentation of
everyday normality discarded for the incomparable festival of the aptly
titled joga bonita.
Pundits, punters and patriots emerge from the depths of obscurity as
overvalued idols of the masses take centre stage for 90 minutes at a
time.
Amidst the chaos on the pitch, many have turned their eyes to the
abhorrent scenes in Brazil’s underbelly. To many, this would be inherent
knowledge, whilst others seem blissfully unaware that South America’s
richest country has a gap between rich and poor that is as vast as the Amazon’s breadth.
Anyone who has travelled to, read about, or even seen pictures of
Brazil would be unambiguously aware that years of corruption, foreign
domination and natural disasters have left Brazil and its poorer
population in desperate poverty.
The 2002 feature film Ciudade de Deus (City of God)
is a tumultuous example of the relocation of masses to form ghettos
who, left to their own devices, with no system of government, no welfare
or health, no rules or legislation, become what most westerners would
consider the inner reaches of Hell on Earth.
But again, this is nothing new.
FIFA’s resounding corruption
further fuels a fire lit many years ago. In a way not to dissimilar to
the law the applies to the inhabitants of the City of God, FIFA has strangled the Brazilian government, using its power and privilege over the rubber arm of a desperate ‘democracy’.
But again, this is nothing new.
Of course, a romantic notion of The World Cup would be that the majority of the billions of dollars made in Brazil will return to the government, and systematically into the community.
However, this will not be the case.
Much of the money raised will go straight into the crevasse-like pockets of FIFA (approximately $4 billion), whilst revenue generated by the Brazilian government is still entirely speculative.
Vinicus Lages, Brazil’s tourism minister, has predicted an increase of $13.5
billion as a result of frivolous penny droppers and thirsty supporters,
offsetting the $11bn costs of what is now the most expensive World Cup
ever. (The income generated by local pick pockets, who by all accounts
are doing a roaring trade, has not been estimated.)
With major sponsors to reap huge benefits, and not to mention the
building contractors who have supplied stadiums containing 50,000+
capacity, for cities without major football teams, the money will again be parried away from the hands of those who need it most.
But again, this is nothing new.
What will the future bring for Brazil?
Of course, before the event, there were campaigns to boycott the
World Cup. People taking notice of the poverty and corruption that
exists in one of the world’s most popular countries and not to mention
the farcical arrangement that governs our beloved ‘beautiful game’.
Three weeks later, this has been forgotten — like Haiti, like Rwanda, like the Nigerian schoolgirls, even like MH370.
Those ‘passionate’ advocates of a better world will find another trendy
cause and propose more armchair ideals that will become ever-so popular
on social media.
But again, this is nothing new.
The risk of hypocrisy is riddled throughout this article, so in turn I must propose a solution.
If the individual wishes to make a difference – just a slight
difference, akin to turning off a light-bulb to slow down the once
popular ‘global warming’ phenomenon – go to the country.
Take some money. Spend it at non-global, non-conglomerate,
non-franchised outlets. Eat the food, buy the crappy shirts, wear the
fake sunglasses, become truly immersed in the culture.
At the risk of staining your underpants or spiriting away a few of
your hard-earned dollars, support those who have nothing. Simply by
staying in a hostel, where locals are employed, you are making a
difference. Employment leads to opportunity, opportunity leads to
education, education leads to life beyond the status quo.
(Image via @EdHusic) In the most comprehensive outline of the financial planning scandal anywhere, Dr Evan Jones
explains why the Commonwealth Bank was never in danger of a Royal
Commission being called into its systematic criminal behaviour.
FOR TWELVE MONTHS, the Fairfax press has been reporting
on the skullduggery at the heart of the Commonwealth Bank’s subsidiary
Commonwealth Financial Planning Ltd, where another swathe of retail
investors were generated whose savings were fraudulently plundered.
The financial regulator ASIC was initially nowhere to be seen.
Belatedly, ASIC has intruded gingerly and inadequately into the scandal,
giving little comfort to the bank’s defrauded clients.
However, current commentary devoted to reforming the financial
planning sector misses the deep origins of the scandal, and the
political impasse that inhibits a comprehensive assault on finance
sector malpractice and criminality.
Simply put, the last 25 years has seen constructed an elaborate
financial regulatory apparatus but one staffed by ill-trained and
accommodating personnel, attenuated by ‘revolving door-ism’. The
political class has evolved along comparable lines. Cowardice and
complacency are endemic in those who we rely on to serve the public
interest in an ethical, competent and assertive manner.
This piece will look at the events that led to the financial scandal,
details the institutional responses and failures and then reach some
conclusions and recommendations.
The Conmenwealth Bank racket
On 4 June 2013, a regular meeting of ASIC senior personnel before the
Senate Estimates Committee transcended the conventional formalities.
ASIC deputy commissioner Peter Kell displeased several senators in his convoluted answer
to a question. Thus on 20 June 2013, the Senate agreed to an Inquiry by
the Senate Economics Committee into ASIC’s performance. The Report of that Inquiry was published on 26 June 2014.
The spark that ignited the inquiry was the debacle at the CBA’s subsidiary Commonwealth Financial Planning Ltd. The spark was provided by a whistleblower trio led by financial planner Jeff Morris, beginning in October 2008.
Fanning the combustion was the Fairfax press, led by journalist Adele Ferguson, with the first article appearing on 1 June 2013. The 12 months coverage by Fairfax of the issue has been exemplary.
The CBA promised those nurturing a nest egg expert advice and
consummate husbandry if the said nest egg was committed to CFPL’s
keeping. Instead, the customers were sucked into a racket.
The Senate report is a mammoth 553 pages in length. There were 474 submissions,
some in multiple parts. Many submissions are designated Name Withheld
or Confidential — a tangible reflection of power imbalance, skullduggery
and victim fears. Kudos to the Secretariat staff who had to master the
material and write the bulk of the report.
Morris joined the CBA as a financial planner in April 2008 for
personal reasons. He soon smelled the dead fish. Morris came with wide
experience that gave him the skills to discern the internal problems and
the detachment to confront and expose them.
Rogue ‘advisor’ Don Nguyen, operating from the Sydney suburban Chatswood branch soon appeared on the radar. His entire modus operandi
was corrupt. Fabricated client ‘risk profiles’, translated uniformly
into ‘hyper aggressive investment portfolios’. Purloined client files,
bribes to fellow staff to hide his procedures, false billing of the bank
itself, and so on. A very rotten apple — and there were more.
But this story is not about rotten apples. It is rather about the venality of the CBA itself.
Nguyen was suspended in September 2008. He was reinstated in October
precisely in order to quarantine his victims. Nguyen was retrenched in
mid 2009 on ‘health’ grounds and given a pension. Thus, he was protected
by his superiors.
Morris labeled CFPL ‘nothing more than a low rent sales channel’, driven by a bonus-centred culture right up the hierarchy.
The role of CFPL ‘planners’ was to shovel clients into CBA products, within the ‘wealth management’ Colonial First State subsidiary and an insurance subsidiary CommInsure, in the meantime charging fees both unnecessary (one could access CFS directly) and spurious (for non-existent advice).
A lot of these clients would be ‘harvested’ (Morris’ term) from the
CBA existing deposit base, who would be seduced out of their de facto preferred position of cash or term deposits.
The plot thickens.
The Customer Experience (sic) section blamed the clients. Group Security
was more interested in tracking down the whistleblowers. Nguyen’s
replacement was similarly directed to quarantining Nguyen’s victims.
Meanwhile, Head Office had sent in a huge team, under the rubric ‘Project Hartnett’,
to clean up or reconstruct client files. Morris made offers to the CEO
and the CBA Board to fill them in, but his offers were declined.
The bank aimed to isolate each client victim and compensate them as little as possible — preferably nothing.
Morris notes:
‘No more revealing illustration of the sheer immorality of the
CBA corporate machine can be found than their contemptuous treatment of
the victims of Nguyen from 2008 to 2010 when they thought they would be
left completely to their own devices to determine what was ‘fair’. That
this continued even after the public exposure of Nguyen’s activities in
Investor Daily in mid 2009 is remarkable and in itself a telling
indication of the contempt in which they held ASIC: they felt, with good
reason that they had nothing to fear from this regulator.’
The ASIC cover-up
Confronted with evidence that senior management were implicated, Morris et al faxed a document to ASIC on 30 October 2008.
Receiving no immediate response, they followed up with emails.
At some stage ASIC claimed to be investigating the matter, but they hadn’t claimed any files.
In April 2009, a document discovered accidentally confirmed the
complicity of CFPL senior management. Contemplating that ASIC were not
merely incompetent, but perhaps too ‘palsy’ with the bank, the
whistleblowers decided to go public.
Thus, a series of articles were published in the trade journal Investor Daily in May-June 2009. One article names Nguyen, which sets in train the resignation of Nguyen. But there is no response at ASIC.
The whistleblowers eventually have a meeting with ASIC staff in February 2010, 16 months after Morris et al had raised the alarm. ASIC declines Morris’ offer to help decipher the CFPL files.
In March, ASIC demands CFPL files but gives the bank two weeks to
produce them. By this time, the bank has long been massaging the files.
Morris notes that the CBA has never produced a single original document, only photocopies and ASIC hasn’t demanded any.
Belatedly, the CBA and ASIC contrived an ‘Approved Compensation Scheme’ in November 2010. ASIC claimed that the CBA demonstrated ‘a cooperative and consultative approach’.
Morris again:
‘Sadly, it just demonstrates how ASIC was deceived, or deceived
itself. Unsurprisingly CBA continued to behave with the same lack of
good faith, though forced to operate with greater subtlety to conceal
the fact.’
A reflection of the CBA’s brutal approach was its refusal to
negotiate with the client if the latter wanted their own adviser. Yet
ASIC left the administration of the scheme to the CBA.
Morris sums up his initial submission with this summation:
My own belief is that ASIC’s soft approach with major players is
largely to blame for the state of the financial advice industry. I would
suggest that their approach is diametrically wrong. ASIC had the
opportunity here, by doing a thorough job, to send a shockwave through
the industry. Instead of which, perhaps for the reasons set out in my
opening remarks or perhaps just influenced by their history of failures,
ASIC chose to strike a fairly paltry plea bargain: an EU and 7 dodgy
planners offered up after, in some cases, years after, they had left
CFPL. …
… ASIC did virtually no investigative work of their own but
basically just added what CFPL gave them to what the whistleblowers did.
I have no doubt that a proper investigation would reveal at least 100
current or former planners of CFPL [of a revolving population of 750]
whose clients should be compensated for dodgy/and or just plain
incompetent, advice.
The Senate Economics Committee report: Good, bad and ugly
First to the good part.
The Committee recommends a follow up Royal Commission. This is a rare
event and deserves plaudits for its courage. Here is the reasoning
(from the Executive Summary):
At this stage, the committee's confidence in ASIC's ability to
monitor the CBA's implementation of its new undertaking regarding the
compensation process is severely undermined. Furthermore, the CBA's
credibility in the CFPL matter is so compromised that responsibility for
the compensation process should be taken away from the bank. The
committee considered five options to finally resolve the CFPL matter.
But, given the seriousness of the misconduct and the need for all client
files to be reviewed, the committee believes that an inquiry with
sufficient investigative and discovery powers should be established by
the government to undertake this work. To resolve this matter
conclusively and satisfactorily, the inquiry would need the powers to
compel relevant people to give evidence and to produce information or
documents. The committee is of the view that a royal commission into
these matters is warranted.
The report provides substance behind this summary position.
But the report is a disappointment on some key fronts.
Early in the Executive Summary a key finding reads thus:
‘... consumers have unrealisic
expectations of what ASIC can do and the extent to which the regulator
is able to protect their interests or investigate their complaints.’
What? On the contrary.
The Committee notes that no investor has the right to be protected from loss per se. But consumers have every right to expect that ASIC
should fulfil its mandated responsibilities. Indeed, ASIC was expanded
from its forerunner, the ASC, for precisely this purpose.
The major fallout in Australia from the 2008 GFC has been the huge
losses incurred by family retail investors with their life savings,
disappeared within a wide range of spiv investment schemes — a list that
included some operated by Australia’s formally most respected financial
institutions. ASIC has manifestly failed these people.
In spite of its length, the Report concentrates on ASIC’s failings in
only two arenas — the CBA’s CFPL debacle (the catalyst for the Inquiry
itself) and the banks (and brokers') dubious, and often predatory,
retail mortgage lending practices.
With respect to the CFPL issue, coupled with the CBA’s lesser subsidiary Financial Wisdom Ltd,
the CBA’s and ASIC’s cynical response to the Senate Committee in their
misleading submissions tipped the normally sedate Committee over the
edge into its Royal Commission recommendation.
Passages from the Report’s Chapter 12 reflect the Committee’s frustration and disgust:
12.12 This obfuscation by the CBA has further undermined the committee's confidence in the integrity of the process. …
12.14 From the very beginning of the inquiry, the committee has
been troubled by the CBA's attitude and the information it has provided.
…
12.25 The committee's confidence in ASIC's ability to get the
process right this third time is severely undermined and the committee
is not convinced that the regulator should be left to manage this matter
any longer. ASIC has shown that it is reluctant to actively pursue
misconduct within CFPL and FWL; rather, it appears to accept the
information and assurances the CBA provides without question. …
12.27 The committee is of the view that a judicial inquiry is
warranted. The CFPL scandal needs to become a lesson for the entire
financial services sector. Firms need to know that they cannot turn a
blind eye to rogue employees who do whatever it takes to make profits at
the expense of vulnerable investors. If this matter is not pursued
thoroughly, there will be little incentive for Australia's major
financial institutions to take compliance seriously.
Amen to all that.
Apart from the two ‘case studies’, the Committee report diverts to an exploration of the functioning of ASIC's ‘External Dispute Resolution’ schemes, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Credit Ombudsman Service (Chapter 7). Given the parameters of the report, even FOS is discussed purely from a retail customer perspective.
The report is much too kind to FOS. It does recommend that the
dispute value limit for FOS treatment and its compensation limit be
increased (marginally), but it is weak on the six-year ‘statute of
limitations’ limit.
Worse, it accepts meekly everything proffered by senior managers Shane Tregillis and Philip Field,
who unstintingly defend all current arrangements — including the
funding arrangements, the claimed effective analysis of systemic
malpractice (a joke), the non-naming of financial institutions found
wanting, and the existing value limits on dispute handling and
compensation.
The Committee had submissions from financial service provider victims highlighting FOS’ lack of independence.
Here’s an extract from a CBA victim’s email to a FOS staffer (copied to me and various bigwigs), of 26 June:
I digress to one of the original complaints with regard to Bank
West and note that when the question of the offer made by Bank West as
supported by written communications from Mr David Veal, Bank West's
response was something along the lines of "… Mr Veal is no longer with
our bank and therefore anything he has said is not relevant ..." This
was and still is a critical point which your office conveniently chose
to ignore. This alone brings into question your independence.
It is not acceptable that your office continually side [sic] with the FSP and deliberately withhold [sic]
evidence and information which is critical to our claim and or simply
dismiss things as being out of your procedures and or jurisdiction. Your
office needs to stand up and take responsibility for what is lodged
with you and deal with it in a truly independent and unbiased manner.
The fact that you are funded by the Banks is in itself questionable and
your blatant bias in these matters is unconscionable.
I can attest that this victim’s experience with FOS is not exceptional.
FOS puts victims through a Kafkaesque hierarchy of multiple
respondents, multiple layers, long delays, artificial deadlines for the
victims but not for the guilty party or themselves, with FOS’ frontline
staffed by ignorant youngsters. The Committee has failed to confront the
manifest dysfunctionality and complicity of FOS (on all but minor
complaints), and to make strong recommendations accordingly.
The Trio Capital trickery
A brief word is warranted on Trio Capital.
This scandal is mentioned in passing several times in the report, not
least in Appendix 5 where some key past ‘enforcement’ actions of ASIC
are usefully summarised. The Committee feels justified in passing over
this and other issues because of coverage by other inquiries or reports. But the Trio Capital case deserves special mention.
Yet the Wollongong community, in particular, remains devastated by the losses.
ASIC has dropped the case, claiming (ludicrously) that there was ‘insufficient evidence’
to pursue the American-based mastermind. The inaction on Trio Capital
is a significant indictment of the gutlessness of ASIC and of the
Australian Federal Police.
The Senate Committee report’s major omission
There is nothing – zero, zilch – on bank corrupt practices against
SME and family farmer borrowers. The Committee flagged its preoccupation
with the CFPL issue, but the Committee missed the opportunity to
reinforce its case.
The report cites my submission (#295) several times, but omits to pursue the substance behind the sentences cited.
In particular, there is not a single mention of the CBA’s BankWest scandal.
This same Committee’s previous inquiry (The post-GFC banking sector) was instigated by the BankWest scandal, but the Committee’s Report bizarrely ignored the issue, a cynical and cowardly process that I outlined in an April 2014 article. The BankWest scandal has thus been doubly interred.
If the Committee had acknowledged the CBA’s (and other banks’)
corrupt practices in the SME/farmer domain and ASIC’s comprehensive
inaction, in spite of its legislated mandate, the Committee could have
enhanced its argument regarding ASIC’s failings with respect to the
report’s designated emphases and enhanced its leverage regarding the
failings of ASIC.
ASIC’s negligence and complicity is, thus, more comprehensive and profound than that proposed in the Senate report.
If the media is readily covering the report’s findings and
implications, the report’s silence on SME/farmer malpractice facilitates
an ongoing non-coverage by the media of this latter issue. This arena
of dense corruption simply ceases to exist — by construction.
Worse, by ignoring the SME/farmer arena in this report, the Committee
effectively ensures that ASIC’s complicity will not merely not be
exposed in the immediate future but will, effectively, be further
legitimised.
The broader context
What does this financial planner imbroglio mean? What is the problem?
The public debate hovers on the superficial and a localisation of the malaise, as exemplified by a recent Fairfax article by John Collett:
‘CommBank findings mean banks must do more to regain trust in planners’.
Collett is a competent and ethical columnist, and he does highlight
the structural conflict of interest built into bank-employed financial
planners. But the problem is not going to be solved by better training
of financial planners and signing on to a industry ‘code of practice’,
pushed by the Financial Planning Association.
No-one is asking the big questions. How did we get to this parlous
situation? How does one eradicate the structural conflict of interest?
What and who are the forces inhibiting substantive reform? And so on.
The backdrop to the malaise should be self-evident.
It started with the comprehensive deregulation of the finance sector, unleashed by the 1981 Campbell Report.
No-one then in authority thought of how to generate a corporate
culture for this socially vital sector, in a backdrop of increasing
global integration, that would continue to serve the public interest.
Instead deep veins of both incompetence and venality quickly developed
within a cowboy mentality that suffered no internal restraints —
classically embodied in the 1980s foreign currency loans scandal.
With respect to the CBA, in particular, this trend is outlined in my March/April 2012 series: ‘The Dark Side of the Commonwealth Bank’, here, here and here.
Thus the current failings of the CBA have deep roots and have been long in gestation. They are not an aberration.
In the crucial transition period to a new regime during the 1980s,
the pundits crudely offer up ‘competition’ as the universal elixir. The
prescription was, of course, always mythical. But no-one in authority
took competition seriously anyway — least of all the competition
regulator.
Through the process outlined here and here,
the rise of the Big Four – through a long process of amalgamation
(coupled with demutualisation and privatisation) – produced the most
protected and profitable cartel in global banking.
The rush to amalgamation transcended banking per se. The law
of the jungle prevailed. The trading bank, traditionally a narrow
specialist institution dealing in short-term liabilities (deposits) and
short-term assets (overdrafts), in octopus fashion became the allfinanz
conglomerate that we enjoy today. The narrow talents within the trading
banks were never enhanced commensurately. The separation of banking and
insurance disappeared. ‘Wealth management’, launched on a sea of
superannuation and retirement savings, was unthinkingly integrated into
the mix.
We arrive at a situation in which everyone who matters is committed
to the current dysfunctional structure. To step back and unwrap the
package would involve an inevitable excommunication from the Club of
Respectability. Thus the present impasse and pursuit of ephemeral
‘solutions’.
Thinking laterally, how about a clean separation between banking and
wealth management, with divestiture forced upon the banks? The
structural conflict of interest would be thus readily addressed. Not the
whole solution, but a good start.
Alas, those in authority or who command ‘respect’ cannot see the
obvious remedy. In short, the problem is not rogue or poorly trained
financial planners. The problem is the system itself.
And it is unlikely that that system will be questioned in its essence by the current Murray Financial System Inquiry because, to date, its Chairman David Murray has been an integral component of the process that has delivered us to the present impasse.
The CBA consistently tried to bury CFPL victim complaints and to pay
as little compensation as it could get away with. All of the CBA’s
actions for the recent past point to a consistent strategy — dig in, and
never admit wrongdoing.
The CBA is the unrepentant corporate Alpha Male. Nobody amongst senior management has fallen on their sword or been sacked. The CBA Board is silent, inactive and complicit.
The CBA is still trying to brush aside unfinished business with Storm Financial victims.
The CBA is still brutally attempting to destroy on a case-by-case
basis the hundreds of BankWest customers that it defaulted after the BankWest takeover.
The CBA settled with BankWest victim Rory O’Brien in May because of the probability that it was going to lose in court, thus preventing the disclosure
of incriminating evidence and the establishment of an ‘adverse’ legal
precedent. Even then, the CBA ludicrously claimed the settlement to be a vindication of its stance,
claiming that it had nothing to hide on the nature of the BankWest
purchase. Well why then has the CBA not disclosed fully the BankWest
purchase terms?
Finally, the CBA is still ruthlessly defaulting and/or pursuing
through the courts individual SME or farmer victims of its own lending
managers, or those of its BankWest subsidiaries.
Fairfax’s gossipy CBD
column recently disclosed that the CBA is seeking to employ a new
‘government relations’ liaison officer, who will be part of a team that
‘... advances and protects CommBank's interests by
engaging with federal and state politicians and senior bureaucrats to
adopt policies that are aligned with CBA's strategic and commercial
interests and to minimise the risk of adverse regulatory change.'
The CBA’s slip is showing and it seems oblivious to that fact.
When the NAB was hammered for a dysfunctional culture in 2004 by the
APRA report on the bank’s trading desk scandal, NAB responded not by
correcting its culture but by upping its advertising and public
relations budgets.
The CBA clearly intends to pursue a like strategy. It will be
business as usual. And no doubt, as below, the CBA is confident that it
will succeed towards this end.
Confront also that nobody has fallen on their sword or been sacked at ASIC.
ASIC will extract a few more million dollars out of the CBA in a
process in which ASIC will effectively be forced into observer status.
ASIC’s inaction on SME/farmer victims continues to be legitimised de facto.
Thus, what Jeff Morris earlier observed will continue to be true — the CBA will continue to act out of habit
‘... with good reason that they [have] nothing to fear from this regulator.'
Political class perfidy
The Senate report recommended that a Royal Commission be established. But Liberal senator and deputy chair David Bushby, in a dissenting report, did not concur.
Bushby claims:
1.3 The balance for government and parliament is to ensure
regulation is sufficient to protect consumers and maintain confidence in
the market but not so onerous as to deter informed risk-taking
investment and thereby harm economic activity.
1.4 On balance, I do not agree that the majority report has got
this balance right and the conclusion drawn cannot be supported in
full.’
Paragraph 1.3 is a programmatic screed lifted from a finance sector
lobbying manual. There is no deliberative consciousness attached to this
statement. The formal balancing of sectional interests is nothing of
the sort.
Bushby then claims that the Royal Commission would be a waste of resources and, in any event, inappropriate:
‘1.36 … existing institutions have already been at work exploring and driving wide-scale reform in the financial sector.’
Any residual problems, claims Bushby, would be more appropriately
handled by the Murray FSI review, which has comprehensive terms of
reference.
Well, Bushby’s confidence in the Murray review is unfounded, and his
claim regarding ‘wide-scale reform’ is pure hocus pocus. This part of
Bushby’s dissenting report reads as if it was written at the behest of
the Government and with the CBA’s interests in mind.
Bushby is friends with Finance Minister senator Mathias Cormann who – in conjunction with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey – is playing an unenthusiastic straight bat in the face of the Royal Commission yorker. Simultaneously, this ministerial trio has weakened Labor’s Future of Financial Advice reforms as a favour to the banks.
Why does the CBA need a new government relations staffer when it already has things well under control?
However the Bushby stance is not a partisan strategy. It has been
played by both sides of politics. In the Senate Economics Committee’s
2004 Report, 'The effectiveness of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in protecting small business', the Liberal senators George Brandis and Grant Chapman,
in minority, put in a dissenting report recommending weaker changes.
Brandis, a trade practices lawyer in a previous incarnation, was
protecting his Party in Government (and Big Business).
In the Senate Economics Committee’s 2012 Report, The post-GFC banking sector, the Labor senators Mark Bishop (the ASIC inquiry chair, now retired, and current severe CBA critic) and Doug Cameron
put in a dissenting report recommending weaker change — supporting
their own Party in Government. The historically bolshie Cameron was
decidedly soppy.
Clearly, there is a structural problem of parliamentary committee
members failing to distance themselves from their own Party then in
government.
But there is a larger problem — the natural leverage of corporate
capital. When in Opposition, some Parliamentarians feel free to engage
in a bit of dissenting bluster. When in government and tied to strict
Party solidarity, they go to water.
Probably a key element in the ASIC Inquiry was the fact that Nationals Senator John Williams
(his office knee-deep in bank victim complaints) led from the front for
a Royal Commission. But Williams lacks support from his own Party.
In general, none of the three major Parties have any stomach for
redressing the inordinate power of the banks (and associated hangers-on)
against their customers and for offsetting in any fundamental way the
abuse of that power. Thus, the political class is the third party to the
crime.
Power on its side
The CBA knows that it has power on its side.
A few extra millions in compensation, tens of millions if necessary,
every dollar reluctantly conceded, will buy off the yapping dogs. Some
victims will, by that time be dead or indisposed — and all the better.
And then, for them, it will be back to the same old hunt for new prey.
The current media flurry has a touch of the circus about it.
Those dedicated souls who have brought the criminality of the CBA to
this high degree of exposure deserve the greatest praise. But long-term
success against these bastard banks requires a very long-term commitment
and a different breed of regulators and politicians.
Treasurer Joe Hockey has kept his distance from the government’s handling of the Commonwealth Bank scandal. AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Joe Hockey’s mother-in-law was a victim of the Commonwealth Bank
scandal, in which many people lost savings due to rogue financial
advisers in part of the CBA group.
But Hockey has been keeping his distance from the government’s
handling of the affair (apart from saying the bank has got to “lift its
game”) on the grounds of conflict of interest.
His mother-in-law has been compensated, unlike many others. But you’d think she’d be leery of the CBA these days.
As would anyone who’s looked at last week’s Senate report that
documented not just the misbehaviour but the cover-up by which the bank
tried to deceive the regulator (the Australian Securities and
Investments Commission) about the extent of the problem in its
Commonwealth Financial Planning Limited.
The majority report (including Nationals senator John Williams) has
called for a royal commission or other inquiry, a proposal being
resisted by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who’s chosen to rely on a
dissenting report by deputy chair, Liberal David Bushby.
Bushby (who’s close to Cormann) opposed a further inquiry saying,
among other things, that it “could protract the emotional strains on
victims of malpractice” and raise false hopes of further compensation.
A government that enthusiastically probes union corruption is reluctant to shine such a bright torch on the banking industry.
The government now finds itself in a fresh bad place on the issue of
financial advice and consumer protection. As someone in the financial
planning industry puts it: “Bank bashing is an Australian pastime – why
would the government pick the bank’s side against mum and dad
Australia?”
Why indeed?
It goes back to the Coalition’s pre-election policy to wind back Labor’s Future of Financial Advice legislation.
Cormann, who drafted the Coalition’s policy in opposition, is a
hardline free marketeer, believing in the buyer’s responsibility and the
need to get rid of “red tape”.
In government Arthur Sinodinos, as Assistant Treasurer, had initial
carriage of the changes (until forced to stand aside because of the
Australian Water Holdings affair). Sinodinos was formerly with the
National Australia Bank.
Some believe the government felt obligated to the financial sector
because of the amount of campaign money the Liberals raised from it.
We know the government tilted its changes to FoFA legislation to help
the banks (and that was strengthened in Sinodinos’s version), although
it was later forced to make some modifications.
But even taking everything into account, it’s still hard to fathom
why the government has followed a course that at every turn brings such a
damaging backlash for it. The safety of their retirement savings is one
of today’s critical hip pocket concerns of voters.
Why, for example, did the government not wait until after the report
on the Commonwealth Bank to announce its final position on changes to
FoFA? This would have required administrative rearrangement, because
July 1 was already a trigger for certain things, but it could have been
done.
And why was Cormann so secretive about gazetting the regulations for
key aspects of his changes (on the very day of the report on the CBA)?
The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) is supportive
of Cormann’s revised changes, which strengthened the government’s
commitment to banning commissions and conflicted remuneration (although
there is debate about the extent of this ban – it is partly a matter of
definition).
But the recent events in the CBA scandal have now led to the FPA
calling for the government to convene a summit “with a clear and
independent charter around the changes needed to restore community trust
in financial planning”.
“We would like to see the summit chaired by an eminent, independent
figure. … If we can’t have a summit which commands the respect of the
public, one with genuine teeth that can truly deliver positive changes,
we would fully support calls for a royal commission,” the FPA said on
Wednesday.
Cormann argues a royal commission isn’t needed because the CBA events
were in the past (so was the child abuse under scrutiny at such a
commission, critics point out); the regulatory environment has changed
and is changing; and the industry has made an effort to lift standards.
As has been noted, however, the CBA cover up was quite recent. The
number of victims is still not known, nor whether suggestions of
scandals elsewhere in the banking world are correct.
Cormann says he is waiting for Thursday’s CBA response to the Senate inquiry.
But whatever’s said, as of now the government looks to be on a hiding to nothing.
There will be a move in the Senate to disallow some of the
regulations. Politically, the pressure won’t ease up. Labor’s Sam
Dastyari, who has replaced the just retired Mark Bishop as head of the
committee that did the inquiry into ASIC and the CBA, says: “The concern
a lot of us have is that there could be some systemic problems”. He
adds: “The last thing we need is less regulation and less oversight in
this area”.
The question is whether the CBA’s response will be strong enough to
head off the push for a further investigation that is the last thing
that this bank, the other banks, and their ally the government, want.
**Listen to Michelle Grattan’s newest podcast with incoming Senator, David Leyonhjelm here**.
