December 2019 - No handshake, no prisoners: The fallout from the finance royal commission
February 2019 - Link to Reports from the Royal Commission - VOLUME 1 ; VOLUME 2 ; VOLUME 3
February 2019 - Choice CEO - Alan Kirkland interview on the RC final report - You Tube
May 2018 - Open Letter to Prime Minister Turnbull
24/03/2018 - ABC News - Banking RC has some thinking it's the customer's fault. Here's why they're wrong
01/12/2017 - The Age - 'It can destroy you'_ Bank victims hope royal commission will bring justice
30/11/2017 - ABC - Banks misconduct is not 'alleged' - CBA whistleblower Jeff Morris interviewed on The World Today
30/11/2017 - The Age - After years of bank scandals, the people have been heard
30/11/2017 - ABC News - Malcolm Turnbull announces banking royal commission after big four call for inquiry to restore public faith
17/11/2017 - ABC News - Same-sex marriage divisions within Govt reignite push for royal commission into banks
08/11/2017 - The Conversation - It's time for a royal commission into banking regulation
06/08/2017 - New Daily - CBA's latest scandal makes royal commission 'inevitable'
05/08/2017 - The Age - Growing calls for a bank royal commission
25/07/2017 - SBS News - Time ripe for broader banking inquiry
15/06/2017 - The Age - Senate backs Commission of Inquiry into banks which then gets stymied
26/03/2017 - Senator Bob Katter - we need a Royal Commission into the banks now - watch speech on youtube
26/03/2017 - Andre Wilkie introduces a bill for mandatory banking code of conduct - watch speech on youtube
23/03/2017 - Senator Peter Whish-Wilson - PM Turnbull 'running a protection racket' for bankers - watch speech on youtube
01/09/2016 - Guardian - Labor wins votes in lower house to force Coalition to debate banking inquiry
13/04/2016 - Canstar - Will we see a Royal Commission into banking services
08/04/2016 - HNAB-AG Media Release - Call for Royal Commission into FSI
30/06/2014 - Why a Royal Commission is necessary updated 09/07/2014
HNAB Action Group Call for a Royal Commission into the Financial Services Industry
It is revealing that The Wolf of Wall Street has received far greater public attention than Margin Call. The former movie glamorizes a perpetrator while the latter powerfully portrays the cold hard ruthlessness and machinations of financial institutions with no regard whatsoever for the impact on people.
Melbourne based suburban accountant and financial advisor, Peter Raymond Holt, has a history of using unsuspecting ordinary, hardworking, clients as his personal gambling chips to make himself multi-millions of dollars without care or concern for the inevitable financial decimation, loss of homes, bankruptcy and impact on their lives. It could be said that for rich Australians with financial and legal knowledge, bankruptcy is merely a tool in their arsenal to protect their assets and wealth. For them it is a strategy. For the rest of us bankruptcy ruins lives.
On 11 June 2014, Mr Holt was due to be discharged from his bankruptcy. In the past 3 years that he was a bankrupt he lived in his comfortable home in North Balwyn, drove a luxury car, played golf mid-week and continued to enjoy his assets and high-flying lifestyle.
Since 2008, almost 6 years later, his last crop of former clients are struggling to deal with catastrophic loss and debt in which he, lending institutions and product providers, have placed us. Mr Holt has done this before. He has been reported to ASIC on previous occasions - well before the members of our Action Group formed after his last hit on clients. We persisted and ASIC banned Peter Holt for 3 years. We believe his conduct warranted and met the criteria for a Life Ban.
It is vital that politicians and the industry protect the community.
To safeguard the community there must be:
1) proper regulation of the financial services industry to address unethical and criminal conduct - the Future of Financial Advice Reforms must ensure it occurs and to this end a Royal Commission is necessary.
2) a mechanism to stop the banks forcing victims to sell their homes or enter into settlements for investments in which people have been fraudulently placed. It must be carried out by a specially trained, and properly funded, body to investigate and to prosecute lenders, product issuers and advisors to make these crimes less easy or attractive for the industry and rogue advisors to perpetrate.
3) accountability from the government to be responsible to compensate the full extent of direct losses and related consequences where its regulators and the laws fail to safeguard people.
SUMMARY: Unless the government is accountable to pay compensation when its regulatory system fails there is no incentive to ensure laws safeguard the community. Rogue advisers and organizations get a green light to commit white collar crime. This decimates lives. As the GFC exposed, it can bring the global economy to its feet - perhaps in even worse scenarios in the future.