(4 November 2010 – Australia) The chairman of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Robert Johanson has told shareholders that the bank has called for another parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s financial system in an effort to address its reliance on offshore funding.Mr Johanson said that he hoped the Sentate’s inquiry into banks would result in a better articulation of proper community expectations for the banking system, opposed to the current political uproar over banks’ profits and interest rates.
At the bank’s annual meeting, Mr Johanson said that he hoped it would not become a whinging session.
‘Another Campbell-type inquiry into the financial system we think would also be warranted, not a Wallis-type inquiry into bank regulation where Australia’s system proved so successful over the past decade,” Mr Johanson added.
Mr Johanson hit out at opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, saying he hoped the probe into the system would have a more ambitious brief than a list of nine questions, referring to Mr Hockey’s nine-point plan for bank reform.
Mr Johanson said such an inquiry should be conducted after global banking rules setting capital and liquidity requirements were finalised.