Labor will use the final day of the Turnbull government’s bank hearings on Thursday to push National Australia Bank to explain why the corporate regulator has banned five of its staff from working in the industry recently.
It will also pressure Westpac to explain why it is generally the slowest of the big four banks to pass on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts.
The Greens plan to ask the banks why they’ve passed their post-crisis liquidity costs to their customers rather than absorbing them, and how much exposure they have to fossil fuels.
The Greens will also pressure Westpac to say whether it will continue making political donations to the major parties, given NAB stopped making donations earlier this year.
Andrew Thorburn, NAB’s chief executive, and Brian Hartzer, Westpac’s chief executive, will face the 10-member parliamentary committee, set up by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in response to calls for a banking royal commission.
As the hearings near an end new polling reveals huge support among Australians for a super profits tax to be levied on the country’s biggest banks.
A poll commissioned by the Australia Institute, run by Research Now between 16 and 28 September 2016, found 61% of those polled supported a super profits tax, with only 19% opposed.
The poll asked: “A bank super profits tax would collect a higher rate of tax from banks on top of existing taxes, but levied only on especially high bank profits. Would you approve or disapprove of a banking super profits tax?”
The national opinion poll of 1,442 people found 36% approved, 25% strongly approved, while 14% disapproved and 5% strongly disapproved.
The results were comparable across most states, all voting intention groups and all income brackets.
Other polling, commissioned by ethical super fund Future Super, and conducted by Lonergan Research, found 73% of those surveyed believed the big four banks did not behave ethically.
The poll of 1,002 people, conducted between Thursday 29 September and Monday 3 October, also found 68% believed it was not appropriate for ethical super funds to invest in the big four banks.
Simon Sheikh, the founder of Future Super said:“The repeat ethics-based scandals have driven the majority of the population to hold negative views about the big four.”
The chief executive of Commonwealth Bank, Ian Narev, faced the committee on Tuesday, and appeared unfazed by three hours of questioning, prompting Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite to criticise the way the committee had been set up.
The head of ANZ Bank, Shayne Elliott, appeared on Wednesday, and seemed to spend more time on the defensive.
