Tony Abbott slams banks for virtue signalling ahead of scandal

If banks had of stuck to the subject of banking instead of making political statements they may not be where they are now.

A composite image of signage of Australia's 'big four' banks. Picture: AAP

Tony Abbott says the big banks should have focused on treating their customers ethically rather than spending time “virtue signalling” on “politically correct subjects”.

The former prime minister attacked the financial services industry for the revelations unearthed in the Hayne royal commission, declaring the boards and executives should have kept the focus on their core businesses rather than making political statements.

The big four banks publicly supported same-sex marriage in last year’s plebiscite and have all ruled out providing funding for the Adani coal mine.

“I’m very disappointed in the banks and you wonder how much better the banks would have been if they had been focused on doing their core business honestly and ethically rather than running around the place virtue signalling on any number of politically correct subjects,” Mr Abbott told 2GB radio.

Mr Abbott denied his decision to cut $120 million of funding to the corporate regulator in the 2014 budget was a reason the bad behaviour was rampant in the financial services sector.

He questioned why bad behaviour was not stopped before the cuts in 2014 as he issued a fresh call for the sacking of executives from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

“What I regret is that the regulators appear to have been asleep at the wheel,” Mr Abbott said.

“I mean what is the point of having ASIC, what is the point of having APRA, what is the point of regulating the banking system if all of these bad apples in banking have been getting away with ripping people off for years?

“The conclusion that I draw from this royal commission so far is the unsurprising one that if you let people get away with murder they will.”

Mr Abbott said he would issue a “please explain” to the regulators if he were prime minister.

“It is all very well for the chairman of the AMP and the CEO of the AMP to resign, many bad things have happened under their watch, but self-evidently there has been a failure of regulation,” Mr Abbott said.

“They should be giving a good account of themselves, if there are these obvious problems why weren’t they aware, if they were aware why didn’t they do something and if there was some other problem that was preventing them from doing their job why didn’t they ask about it at the time rather than now?”

On next week’s budget, Mr Abbott said the 2014 budget was a government’s last attempt at getting Australia to live within its means.

“Had that budget not been sabotaged in the Senate much would have been so much different and better, our economy would be structurally much sounder, government programs would be structurally much sounder,” Mr Abbott said.

“But the Coalition premiers went to water on health and education, the Senate was bolshie on just about everything and eventually some of my own colleagues decided that it was all too hard.”