Your noon Briefing: Bank chiefs Henry, Thorburn stand firm

Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.

Hello readers. NAB’s bosses are standing firm on fixing the troubled bank’s failings after Kenneth Hayne’s scathing report, and a hi-tech cold war with China looms.

19/12/2018 NAB Chairman Ken Henry and CEO Andrew Thorburn speaking at a press conference after the AGM at Melbourne Convention Centre.Picture : David Geraghty / The Australian.

Standing firm

Andrew Thorburn and Ken Henry are standing firm on fixing the bank’s failings after being hit by scathing criticism. Banks have surged in early trading as investors take a sigh of relief on the release of findings from Hayne’s royal commission. Alan Kohler suggests the Hayne report is an eloquent failure.

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Judth Sloan says Chris Bowen takes the prize for petulence.

Prize for petulance

Labor’s Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen has only himself to blame for the opposition’s largely indefensible tax-grab policies, suggests Judith Sloan.

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The flooded suburb of Annandale is seen from above in Townsville, Monday, February 4, 2019. Hundreds of people still waiting for help and evacuation centres are filling up fast, with unprecedented water releases from the city's swollen dam having sent torrents of water down the Ross River and into the city, swamping roads, yards and homes. (AAP Image/Andrew Rankin) NO ARCHIVING

High and rising

Drone footage released today shows the scale of Townsville’s devastating floods as the search for two missing men continues ahead of more torrential rain.

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The long read: Hi-tech cold war

The West has been too complacent about China’s mix of Big Brother and Big Data, writes Roger Boyes.

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Comment of the day

“Haynes has recommended criminal charges against the corporations but not against individual executives who were responsible for directing the corporations into their dishonest behaviour.

“I’m sorry but it just doesn’t wash with me. If executives have engaged in criminal behaviour then prosecute them and a failure to do so means that:

a) the report will achieve nothing - it will be a whitewash;

b) there will be no deterrent for other executives to behave in the same way in the future;

c) the expectations of the community that the criminal laws applies equally across all citizens will be sorely tested. The community will never regain faith in regulators unless individual executives are prosecuted.”

Robert, in response to Bank greed deemed ‘criminal’.