After the ruling Liberal party lost a minor skirmish in Parliament over the last few months, they have bowed to political pressure and established a Royal Commission into the Financial Services Sector.
I think we were all expecting the Royal Commission to dig up some dirt on the banking sector in Australia. We've all dealt with the banks, and we know they play dirty. But we've all been a little stunned at how quickly the Commission has hit paydirt - normally it takes a few years for a Royal Commission to get to the truth on any matter, but in this case a few months has been enough for some astoundingly awful stories to turn up.
Examples:
* Banks have been charging people for advice which they have not given, in some cases continuing to charge people long after they have died (I mean, advising dead people is a big deal . . .
* Lending brokers have been in situations where a product that was plainly not in the best interests of the client has been sold to them anyway, sometimes completely against the expressed interest of the client. In one case a couple lost their life savings when their adviser placed their money into a high risk/high returns account when they had ASKED for a low risk/low returns account. The money was lost, and the adviser was uncontactable for over a year!
* Documents are routinely falsified and/or deliberately neglected.
* In many cases, even when caught, financial institutions have not given the money back (one even demanded the right to allow customers to "opt in" to a compensation scheme!).
This is just the beginning. If the Royal Commission has found this much in the first two months of hearings, I shudder to think what it will have turned up by the time it concludes in February (and in fact the Powers that Be are already discussing the possibility of extending the Commission if it needs more time!).
A news report can be found here.
NOTE: For those from non Commonwealth countries, a Royal Commission is one of the last remaining ways that being a monarchy affects our day-to-day lives. Basically a Royal Commission is a special type of parliamentary enquiry in which a specially established court speaks with the authority of the Sovereign. Australians do not have the right to silence in order to avoid incriminating ourselves; there are checks and balances[1], but if the Royal Commission asks a question, you answer it or face charges. So this is an incredibly powerful thing.
[1] When all is said and done, Royal Commissions don't happen for just any reason. They are expensive, and called only when something has become a big enough problem that the public demand them (or as in this case, when the government get outmanoeuvred in Parliament.
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