A Good Word for Banks … and Royal Commissions

To say Australians do not like their banks is to say nothing, as it strikes me on the strength of personal observation alone that the Big Four occupy a place in the public heart not far removed from parking tickets, pubic lice and any and every English team contesting the Ashes. Interestingly though, Australians don’t get personal – their loathing is institutional, not directed at tellers behind the curtain. Even their bosses who fared so badly in the witness box at the recent banking royal commission don’t draw the extreme ire that in other countries might lead to riots and public burnings. Australians are good like that, ‘laid back’ in this wonderful country a synonym for ‘sane’.

When fury at the banks does erupt it is short-lived. As the banking inquiry bared the shoddy, sleazy and grasping policies of the major financial institutions there were eruptions of spleen almost as creatively vituperative as anything that ever passed Paul Keating’s lips. But then reality reasserts…