UPDATE:
You will find the banking royal commission at a glance here.
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Well-known, long-term champion for farmers and regional people against the banks, NSW Senator John Williams, said with the Banking royal commission findings still to be released he thought it had already had a big effect.
“The message is out there to the boards of directors, the CEOs of the banks and the financial institutions that they need to lift their game, clean up their mess, restore their reputation” he said.
“The question is, ‘How long will this better behaviour go on for? I’ve seen better behavour now. Banks not introducing penalty rates for farmers in drought, loans not going from seven per cent to 17 per cent because of penalty rates, so some sensitivity being shown.”
So the Royal Commission has done its job to a certain extent before any of the details are released.
- Senator John 'Wacka' Williams
Senator Williams thought the results would be worth it.
“It’s certainly caused a lot of damage to the banking system and taken a lot of blame for the credit squeeze, but the fact is we had to take that pain to clean the place up,” he said.
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“It will take time for the banks to regain their reputations, but this is my worry; in 10 years time we will have different boards of directors, different CEOs – will they return to that culture of profit before people and wrong doing?
“I hope not. Perhaps we need a [permanent] mandatory code of conduct enforced by legislation to see they do the right thing. We need to get it right so that for decades to come people can have confidence in our institutions and put their faith back in the banks.”
Senator Williams said he thought we would strangle our banks with too much regulation and that we had enough. He said we did neede larger fines for wrong doers and the corporate watchdogs needed to do their jobs a lot better.