Mr Shorten was responding to questions yesterday on the Today show about why he was pushing for a royal commission now, when he had the opportunity to do so when he was the Financial Services minister.
The opposition leader said other investigations took priority at the time.
“I think most governments have one royal commission in them and we chose to act on the royal commission into responses to child abuse. I think that was the right sort of royal commission to do and at the same time we really shook up the financial planning industry,” Mr Shorten said.
“We thought that going after the financial planners was the right way to go… We decided that the financial planning end of the wealth management industry needed reform and we had to fight with the opposition then, law after law and it came to vote after vote.”
A statement from Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison issued yesterday said the “measures will equip ASIC with stronger powers and funding to enhance surveillance capabilities, better enabling our corporate watchdog to combat misconduct in Australia’s financial services industry and bolster consumer confidence in the sector.”
Despite the surveillance shake-up, Labor is standing firm in its support for a royal commission, with Mr Shorten saying he wants to further scrutinise the financial services industry.
“In the last 12 months, we’ve seen a large bank provide insurance products and then when people who’ve bought these products in good faith and in trust seek to claim upon them, we found the active conspiracy to defraud people and deny them their justice,” he said.
“Enough is enough. We’ve hoped that the banks would improve, we’ve tried legislative mechanism after legislative mechanism but the problem isn’t just the law, the problem here is the culture of banking and financial services in this country.
“So, the Labor Party is seeing this royal commission as a last resort but I tell you what, anything less than that is going to see more people in the future be ripped off and that’s what we desperately want to stop.”
[quote name=”Melinda Houghton”]The large bank providing insurance products does so for the Industry Super Funds that Bill is such a fan of. Why doesn’t he mention that in his ill-informed tirade.
“Active conspiracy to defraud” – strong words, does he have proof of those accusations?[/quote]
Good one Melinda just sticking to the facts, yet we never hear a response to these questions.
What about a shake up into the ISN industry, are they not ALSO providing financial services? I’m currently lodging a life insurance claim on behalf of a widow with an industry super fund and 8 months later we’re still waiting for a payout and have had nothing but delays and merry-go-rounds despite providing all the required information. Unfortunately unions are behind industry funds and industry funds are run by some of these Labor ministers so they are quickly swept under the rug and are allowed to do whatever they want without consequence because Mr. Shorten has them covered!
I’m yet to see one journalist ask Shorten questions about this royal commission that might show they know their topic. For example – “Mr Shorten, do you have a conflict of interest in this royal commission?
Let’s be honest, if this royal commission delves into wealth management and superannuation specifically, then we all know the outcome they are looking for.
The large bank providing insurance products does so for the Industry Super Funds that Bill is such a fan of. Why doesn’t he mention that in his ill-informed tirade.
“Active conspiracy to defraud” – strong words, does he have proof of those accusations?
#Effwit-Shorten ‘Going after’ corruption and fee scamming in Unions and ISA isn’t worth pursuing…?
Trouncing that particularly horrid person in the upcoming election and having his own party then stab him in the back will be a true pleasure.
I think Bill Shorten was focused on “going after” his own colleagues,destabilising the leadership spill of his own party and effectively lying to his party about where his allegiances and support was in order to leverage his own position into the top job.
It was calculated,strategic and manipulated entirely for his own end.
He comes from a grubby and murky background of union based gutter politics and nothing he says can be trusted or taken as given.
The reason he is pushing for a Royal Commission now is again political point scoring, nothing more, nothing less and his opinion is effectively worthless.
Well, now we really know Shortens colours…he is RED through and through and totally unsuitable for PM or leader of Labor. If he has vendettas he is an unsavoury character.
Whilst we know that the unions are driving much of this, and our government in the pocket of FSC who want to divert attention from themselves, we are left high and dry in a leaking boat. It will take the public a while to realise that they have been sold up the road…. paying more for less thanks to greed and power.
Why am I not surprised it’s the planners fault again, everything is always those greedy, deceitful planners fault!
Maybe Mr Shorten (and others on both sides of politics), if you had properly understood the issues in the first place (and stopped listing to the big end of town), you and your political advisers would have realised that much of the rebates, kickbacks, non disclosure and product flogging was from the large institutions and that they were encouraging (expecting) planners (sales people) to behave that way, or they would undergo “counselling” resulting in them being fired.
It is like blaming the bus driver because the bus is unsafe, but letting the maintenance department and management off!
Ahh, if only politicians and the regulators, actually took the time to thoroughly understand the real source of any problem and then took the appropriate action, rather than taking populist grandstanding courses of action instead!
We thought that going after financial planners was the way to go ! (Quote)
Plucking the low hanging fruit and protecting his masters
Humm !