
29 August, 2012
BankWest customers tell the Senate shocking stories of fraudulent foreclosures while Australia’s financial journalists are out to lunch — dining on the Commonwealth’s Bank’s record profits. Associate Professor Evan Jones reports.
ON THURSDAY 16 August, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the Commonwealth Bank’s approximately $7.1 billion profit, up $700 million from 2010-11. The Herald’s financial journalists fell over themselves in adulation. Here was a true national champion.
The previous week, a different story was being played out. The Senate Inquiry into the ‘post-GFC banking sector’ held hearings in Canberra (8th) and Sydney (9th & 10th). A couple of dozen spectators attended the Sydney hearings; it appears that the Herald was not amongst them. It was a spectacle. Transcripts of the hearings are available here.
The Senate Economics Committee instigated its banking inquiry in March, following pressure from myriad former customers of CBA-owned BankWest who claim that their...