Labor will pressure the head of ANZ bank to answer questions about the Timbercorp scandal when he appears before the Turnbull government’s bank hearings on Wednesday.
Shayne Elliott, ANZ’s chief executive, will also be asked about financial planners banned from the bank, and remuneration structures that encouraged staff to offer financial advice unfit for customers.
Elliot will face a 10-member committee for three hours on Wednesday morning, a day after Commonwealth Bank’s CEO Ian Narev faced the same committee.
Narev was the first bank boss to appear at this week’s highly anticipated hearings, which were set up by the Turnbull government in response to pressure for a royal commission into the banking industry.
He emerged unfazed from the grilling, having answered questions easily about controversial incidents at his own bank.
It emerged on day one of the hearings that Commonwealth Bank has recruited former Liberal party federal director Brian Loughnane as an adviser.
Loughnane, the husband of former Tony Abbott chief-of-staff Peta Credlin, stepped down from his role shortly after Malcolm Turnbull toppled Abbott.
“Brian Loughnane is not employed by CBA,” Narev told the committee members.
“It’s a matter of common record that he and a number of other people have helped us generally in thinking through how we best respond to a range of issues but, no, he is not an employee of the bank.”
ANZ is being pursued in the courts – along with NAB and Westpac – by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) over unconscionable conduct and manipulating the Bank Bill Swap Rate between 2010 and 2012.
ANZ has denied wrongdoing and is challenging Asic, as have Westpac and NAB.
Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite says he plans to pursue Elliott over the Timbercorp scandal on Wednesday.
In 2009, two of Australia’s largest agribusiness managed investment schemes (MIS) – Timbercorp and Great Southern – collapsed, followed by other major schemes, including Willmott Forests Ltd and Gunns Plantation Ltd.
A senate report from earlier this year, called Bitter Harvest, found forestry management schemes saw $4bn in investment flow into the sector after special tax treatment was given by the Howard government, only for the schemes to collapse.
As a result, thousands of people lost their life savings.
The principal lender to Timbercorp was ANZ Bank. Investors blame ANZ for its handling of the financing arrangements, and for its handling of Timbercorp’s insolvency with insolvency practitioners KordaMentha.
