Senator RIDGEWAY (9:37 AM) —The Australian Democrats will be supporting the amendment, for many of the reasons that were spelt out yesterday evening by Senator Conroy. I note the comments of Senator Campbell, and the difficulty of course is trying to consider something in the absence of a possible future briefing. The only thing that we can do at the moment is to work on what is before us, and that is the amendment being put forward by the opposition. The point that needs to be made in all this is that, whilst there is the promise down the track of trying to deal with an appropriate fit and proper test, at this stage we would be seeking to look at the merit of the amendment put forward.

I need to make a few comments on the issue. From our perspective, the point that needs to be made is that banks are essentially entrusted with large sums of money that are held by the community, and the strict legal relationship between a banker and a customer is a contractual one rather than one of a trustee and beneficiary as in the case of superannuation funds. So we would be supporting the amendment in the absence of appropriate arrangements being put in place, acknowledging that this essentially attempts to bring it into line with what already exists in the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act. For that reason, and in the absence of any briefing from the government, we will be supporting the opposition's amendment.