Australia’s big four banks should be made to detail the social and economic impacts of their aversion to investing in coal in return for continuing to receive the taxpayer-backed bank guarantee, says Whitehaven Coal chief executive Paul Flynn.

In his submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the prudential regulation of Australia’s export industries, Mr Flynn accuses the banks of being spooked by activists into demonising one of the nation’s biggest exports and, in doing so, getting too far ahead of national policy on climate change.