MP swipe at corporate ‘wokery’ as report tabled

MP George Christensen has attacked what he describes as ‘thinly veiled corporate wokery masquerading as environmental, social and governance issues’ in a report on the Prudential Regulation of Investment in Australia’s Export Industries tabled in Parliament. The member for Dawson acted as chair of the Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth in investigations sparked by concerns that banks and insurers were reducing services to sectors such as coal mining and live animal exports. “There are businesses in North Queensland, Central Queensland, Newcastle and indeed across the country who have been facing the threat of losing access to essential services – banking transactions, finance, and insurance they can afford," Mr Christensen said. “They have been pressured to step away from, or limit their involvement with, the coal mining sector if they want to get finance and insurance. “Over the course of five public hearings and receiving over 70 submissions, we’ve heard how financial institutions have used risk, particularly the ill-defined ‘climate risk’ to threaten profitable and law-abiding companies, particularly in the coal sector but also live exporters with a loss of services.” Call for self-funding insurance model for resources sector The report makes 13 recommendations to the Federal Government, including that it accept that finance and insurance are essential services for business. Federal member for Dawson George Christensen. “If this notion alone is accepted, then clearly action must follow to ensure that business in this nation has access to those essential services,” Mr Christensen said. The committee also wants to see the government work with the resources sector to create a self-funding insurance model that meets the needs of resource companies, contractors, suppliers and associated export infrastructure. And it has recommended that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission undertake a formal investigation into whether finance and insurance firms, in denying finance or insurance coverage to lawful sectors of the Australian economy such as the resources industry, have breached the concerted practices provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. Mr Christensen took aim at some of the factors affecting how the financial sector engaged with certain export industries. “Some of those factors influencing our banks and insurers are targeting by activists and negative media coverage, minority but noisy shareholder activists, unclear directions from regulators such as APRA and ASIC and the influence of international investors such as BlackRock who use their sizeable capital to shift our financiers away from certain export industries.” The committee has recommended that the Department of the Treasury conduct a review into extent of the influence of activist pressure on the decisions of financial institutions in relation to the resources industry and, if necessary, develop options to address this issue. The full report can be view on the committee’s website HERE.

MP swipe at corporate ‘wokery’ as report tabled

Industry Queensland

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