Kenneth Hayne no-nonsense to the end with banking report

After 10,000 public submissions, it was all over in a few minutes.

Kenneth Hayne and Josh Frydenberg pose in Canberra with the report. Picture:. Picture Kym Smith

After 10,000 public submissions, the exposure of thousands of pages of documents revealing banking’s inner secrets and 69 days of public hearings, it was all over in a few minutes.

The financial services royal commission formally came to an end yesterday morning when commissioner Kenneth Hayne made a trip to Yarralumla in the front seat of a white Comcar.

At Government House, he handed over his three-volume final report to Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, before heading off for an awkward picture with Josh Frydenberg.

Photographers wanted a picture with the pair shaking hands.

“Nope,” Hayne said, showing some of the steel that kept an at-times turbulent hearing room in check.

While the Treasurer has the weekend to digest the 1000-plus pages of the final report, ordinary Australians will have to wait until 4.10pm on Monday — a time chosen because the stockmarket will be closed, minimising any kneejerk spasms in the share prices of banks that may be singled out for criticism.

On Monday afternoon, members of the media and consumer and industry group representatives will give up their mobile phones and internet for a three-hour lock-up so they can come to grips with the report before the curtain goes up.

In a sign of their unpopularity in Canberra and the community, the banks have been locked out of the lock-up — a move that has left executives extremely unhappy.

Meanwhile community groups and industry bodies are to be physically separated from the media for the duration of the lock-up.

The Financial Sector Union, which represents frontline workers in bank branches and superannuation companies, has been granted admission to the lock-up after being knocked back in an eleventh-hour misunderstanding between the union and Treasury.

The Australian Bankers Association, representing the interests of the major lenders, the Financial Services Council, the lobby groups for the wealth management industry and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees have also been given access to the lock-up.

Treasury believed the lawyers representing the FSU wanted to access the lock-up, rather than the FSU itself, and once the misunderstanding was sorted out the union was allowed in.

The FSU was given leave to appear at every round of the royal commission and made submissions after each fortnight of hearings so as to explain how frontline staff were being pressured to shunt customers into loans and products due to the use of extreme key performance indicators.

The FSU proposed overhauling conflicted remuneration, ensuring customer interests were given precedent above banks’ own economic interests.

The Labor Party, the ACTU and consumer advocacy group Choice have also been given access to the Treasury lock-up.