Bank hold-ups to be certified A-OK?
13 March 2016
Evan Jones
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/bank-hold-ups-to-be-certified-a-ok,8770
Dr Evan Jones discusses the latest in a series of parliamentary inquiries into systemic bank corruption as the victims of fraudulent foreclosures continue to wait for justice.
"Trust is at the heart of banking. It's not good enough if trust or good ethics exist in the vast majority of the organisation, you've got to do your best to get it right across the organisation." ~ Ian Narev, CBA CEO, 18 November 2015
“We will be the ethical bank, the bank others look up to for honesty, transparency, decency, good management, openness.” ~ David Turner, CBA chairman, 18 November 2015
“Today, CBA stands for contemptible, base and amoral.” ~ Letter writer, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March 2016
Yet another bank inquiry because the previous ones were duds
THE PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE on Corporations and Financial Services (PJC for short) is currently engaged in an inquiry titled ‘The Impairment of Customer Loans’. The dominant issue for consideration is the fraudulent foreclosure of close to 1000 Bankwest borrowers after the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) took over Bankwest from its parent HBOS in December 2008.
The inquiry was established following long-term pressure from a small group of foreclosed Bankwest borrowers. Given the seriousness of the disclosures and conflicting claims, the inquiry period has been extended. On Friday, 13 November 2015, the PJC held its first public hearing in Sydney. Some testimony was reported briefly in the media — the ABC, Fairfax, and here, and the Australian. The coverage is welcome, alerting the public to the inquiry and its orientation. But the coverage is cursory and there has been no reportage of the victims themselves — by interviews or by noting the contents of their submissions.
The neglect of this dimension of CBA criminality is in marked contrast to media coverage of the Storm Financial, Commonwealth Financial Planning scandal and the current CommInsure scams. The Parlaimentary Committee Secretariat, as is customary, censors submissions of all references to individuals (the front-line guilty parties?) named by bank victims. Bizarrely, the Secretariat even whites out references to such essential background information as relevant court cases. But even the redacted versions expose the nature of the malaise. My original submission (the redacted submission is no.83) is published here.
A previous parliamentary inquiry in 2012 had been mooted to examine the same scandal. Before the inquiry saw the light, it was hijacked and re-oriented to something else, formally important but amorphous and ultimately – in the context of a visionless political class – innocuous. This was what became the 'post-GFC banking inquiry’. One infers that the Senate (and then Labor Government) re-directed the terms of reference under pressure from the CBA.
The post-GFC banking report was a disgrace. The CBA/Bankwest scandal disappeared from view. This in spite of the fact that the Senate Committee heard testimony from selected victims. One need go no further than the testimony of Sean Butler on 8 August 2012. Butler, a successful West Australian resort owner and hotelier, was brutally destroyed by the CBA and a partner-in-crime liquidator. ASIC told him to bugger off. His and other testimonies disappeared into the ether.
I have previously written an account of this dead-end inquiry, in four parts, here. The regulatory and political copout with respect to the CBA (including with the financial planning inaction) is covered here..........
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