The Liberal MP Warren Entsch has rejected backbench Nationals’ calls for a banking commission of inquiry, suggesting that a victims’ compensation scheme to be announced by the treasurer is a better way to deal with rip-offs in the sector.
The Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan has said the Liberal National party’s poor showing in the Queensland state election has reinforced his intention to push forward with his private member’s bill for a parliamentary inquiry.
The Nationals MP George Christensen has said he will cross the floor to support a banking inquiry after the New England byelection on 2 December.
Speaking to ABC’s AM on Monday, Entsch said he would not vote for O’Sullivan’s bill for a bank commission of inquiry.
Entsch criticised O’Sullivan for saying he felt entitled to agitate on the issue because the Liberal senator Dean Smith had introduced a private member’s bill for same-sex marriage. He described that as the “wrong” basis to set up an inquiry.
“It worries me that there is no real terms of reference here. It’s just ‘Oh let’s go and do it’,” Entsch said.
“And worse still, in this particular case, [O’Sullivan] doesn’t just want an inquiry on banks, he wants it on insurance companies, on superannuation companies. It is so broad we could be inquiring into it for the next 20 or 30 years.
“If the inquiry is to tell us that the banks and insurance companies have been ripping us off and doing the wrong thing, we don’t need the inquiry to tell us that we know that already.”
Reports over the weekend suggested the treasurer, Scott Morrison, is poised to announce a last-resort compensation scheme, in which a tribunal would award compensation from a fund that banks could be forced to pay for.
Entsch said he understood the treasurer “will be announcing something this week, in relation to some sort of tribunal for victims under $5m damages”.
He said he would continue to push for victims who had suffered rip-offs over that threshold and to deal with historical cases dating back to the global financial crisis.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, told Radio National the opposition would consider the compensation scheme, but said it would not stop future misconduct like a royal commission would.
He described it as the latest attempt to avoid a royal commission and accused the government of running a “protection racket” for the banks.
At a doorstop Shorten said “nothing less than a wholesale commission of inquiry – indeed a royal commission – will be satisfactory to the literally tens of thousands of people who have been ripped off by unscrupulous and unethical behaviour of the big four banks”.
“Labor will work with people of good conscience and goodwill to support a royal commission into the banking sector and to support a commission of inquiry,” he said.
“For too long small businesses, farmers and consumers have suffered from scandal after scandal conducted by the big four banks.
“Now is the time to have a commission of inquiry. We call upon Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison to stop their stubborn defence of the big four banks in Australia.”
