Labor has attacked treasurer Josh Frydenberg for falling behind on the government’s promised timetable for turning the recommendations of the banking royal commission into law.
On Friday, to coincide with the first anniversary of royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s final report, Frydenberg said the government was “on track to meet the accelerated timetable” to implement royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s 76 recommendations.
In August, Frydenberg set out a timetable to implement Hayne’s reforms that included introducing laws to deal with six recommendations and four additional government commitments by the end of 2019, and dozens more recommendations by the end of this year.
Labor claims that although six of the recommendations have been implemented, the government has fallen behind the tight timeframe it committed to in August.
“This is a marketing reaction to being caught out with only 6 of 76 recommendations implemented after 12 months,” shadow treasurer Stephen Jones said.
“They are still more concerned about the PR than getting the recommendations legislated.
“They missed their own deadline to introduce this legislation by the end of 2019.”
On Friday, Frydenberg said all the Hayne recommendations requiring legislation would be introduced by the end of the year, and published exposure drafts of legislation dealing with 23 recommendations and additional government commitments made in response to the report.
“Through our actions today and over the past 12 months since the final report was released, the government has implemented 16 commitments, has legislation before parliament to implement another eight and has substantially progressed a further 35 which have been, or are currently being, consulted on ahead of their introduction,” he said.
“There is no understating the importance of implementing the recommendations of the royal commission and the scale and speed at which the government’s implementation plan is being delivered is unprecedented.”
Hayne’s report recommended a comprehensive shake-up of the financial services industry, although he stopped short of completely upending the sector by calling for the banks to be broken up.
In response, Frydenberg committed the Morrison government to implementing all 76 recommendations.
However, under pressure from home lenders, the government quickly abandoned Hayne’s recommendation for a ban on commissions to mortgage brokers.
