SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES 
SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES
 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2019 
 
SUBJECTS: Banking Royal Commission; strengthening bank penalties; extra parliamentary sitting weeks to address Royal Commission recommendations. 

 
JENNY MCALLISTER, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES: Good Morning everybody – thanks for being here. Commissioner Hayne has finished his work. He has prepared his report, he has released it, and the Royal Commission has made 76 recommendations to protect consumers, to stop the rorts and rip-offs in the financial sector that hurt people so much. Unfortunately the Government is dragging its feet on implementing these recommendations. It's dragged its feet on accepting the need for a Royal Commission and now it is dragging its feet on the implementation. We have the first opportunity today in the Senate to debate laws relating to the financial services sector. Now Labor will be calling for strengthened penalties, we will be calling to increase the jail terms for misconduct from 10 to 15 years and we will be moving amendments that almost double the financial penalties to institutions that do the wrong thing. 
 
Now we are calling on the Government to support those amendments. If they are serious about cleaning up the financial services sector they should not stand in the way of the amendments that we have (inaudible). More broadly, we need more time. This is a part-time parliament and the Senate will sit for only handful of days between now and the budget. There is plenty of time for us to reconvene, to bring the Parliament back and to actually deal with the issues raised by the Royal Commission, by Mr Hayne. 
 
Now the Government is refusing to do so. It is outrageous. There is precedent in just the last Government for exactly this thing to happen. In 2016 Malcolm Turnbull went to the Governor General and recalled the Parliament for an additional three weeks. Not to deal with protecting financial consumers, not to deal with that. He recalled the Parliament for three additional weeks to debate the legislation, anti-worker legislation and to obtain the double dissolution trigger for himself. It's all about priorities, isn't it? You can find time to recall the Parliament to deal with anti-worker legislation to prevent workers from organising in their own economic interests. But you can’t find time to debate the recommendations made by Commissioner Hayne. Well it’s a disgrace. The Government ought not of drag its heels in establishing a commission and it ought not drag its heels now that we have the opportunity to implement those recommendations. 
 
Thanks. 
 
ENDS 
 
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