Last week was a bad week for the banks so far as publicity goes.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull gave the banks a genteel tongue lashing (they hadn’t always acted in their customers’ best interests, he said) at a lunch called to celebrate Westpac’s 99th birthday.
A birthday party may not be the usual place for a VIP guest to give his hosts a jolly good talking to, but the PM’s words were soon followed by a chorus of politicians calling for a Royal Commission into the Banks. Motives undoubtedly varied from the purely political to the more principled. However, nobody has yet spelt out what they want any Royal Commission to enquire into and there hardly seems any point in having a Royal Commission just for the sake of it. The Government, for its part has replied that ASIC already has Royal Commission like powers, and presumably could be relied on to use these powers if they thought it was necessary.
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