Musings from a past chairman revealed at banking royal commission

The shadow of David Turner has hung over the royal commission in recent days.

Former Commonwealth Bank chair David Turner always had his own way of doing things.

At the financial services royal commission, Turner’s replacement as chair of Australia’s biggest bank, Catherine Livingstone, relayed to counsel assisting Rowena Orr what Turner thought of APRA’s damning report into the bank’s culture.

Livingstone said a board colleague told her Turner had said he didn’t recognise his CBA board in APRA’s report.

To go by her withering testimony at the Hayne Show, the regulator’s depiction was much more familiar to his successor.

Livingstone also revealed that Turner was asked by her CBA board to hand back 40 per cent of his final year’s total pay of $437,421, following the bank’s scandalous year.

According to Livingstone, Turner said no.

Seems he felt entitled to the contested $175,000.

Livingstone said she didn’t further pursue the money. The request wasn’t disclosed in CBA’s annual report.

Despite his offshore base, Margin Call notes Turner - who uses PwC partner Sarah Case as the contact point for his communications with ASIC, the mail from which is currently being returned - remains a member of his predecessor as CBA chair John Schubert’s advisory panel to the Barrier Reef Foundation.

That’s the foundation that was controversially given half a billion dollars by the Turnbull government.

New CBA boss Matt Comyn - who was damning of Turner in his earlier appearance at the commission - is also on there.

Turner is also a director of the reef foundation’s corporate vehicle.

Don’t let it be said that he hasn’t given anything back.