By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The chief executive of Australia’s biggest bank accused a member of parliament of spreading misinformation and described a proposed tax on the profits of large companies as baseless, hitting out at what he said was “insidious populism” towards the corporate sector.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) CEO Matt Comyn’s testimony at a routine parliamentary hearing on Thursday marked a break with the deferential tone generally adopted by Australian bank chiefs since they began appearing at mandatory hearings in 2017, when the industry was mired in scandals.
Asked about the surcharges companies impose on Australians who pay for goods with debit and credit cards, Comyn denied that the fees were a way for banks to increase their profits. The Reserve Bank of Australia has said it may ban payment surcharges, but Comyn said claims that banks make A$4 billion ($2.72 billion) a year from them were false.
“This kind of sustained, often fact-free rhetoric, published on an ever-increasing scale, is very damaging,” Comyn said.
He was questioned about the charges by a member of parliament who was holding up a $5 Australian dollar note in one hand and a credit card in the other with the words “$5.08 Australian dollars” written on it, referring to the price of a coffee.
“It actually undermines trust in institutions. It weakens society and creates a fundamental distrust among citizens,” added Comyn, who took over as CEO in 2018.
“You have to see that. We see that too. I don’t think it’s right to present things in a way that makes them factually wrong, and I believe that’s the case with you too.”
Referring to the politician’s arguments, Comyn added: “It’s not a direct comparison.”
Asked about a plan proposed a day earlier by the left-leaning Greens Party, which has 12 of Australia’s 76 senators, to raise taxes on major banks and mining companies to raise an additional A$514 billion over 10 years, Comyn called the proposal “an example of insidious populism”.
The policy seems to be based on a “false dichotomy that something is unfair, that unfair profits have been made and that there is a reason why this should not be so,” he said.
It is an example of “performative politics designed to attract attention but lacking rigor and substance,” he said.
“Some of them are based on assumptions that are simply demonstrably false.”
(1 US dollar = 1.4732 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Jamie Freed)
