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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2956 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

That is a model which I hope will be followed in the future. It seems to me to be a very sensible approach to take. It is not recorded in the Hansard whether a similar situation arose in relation to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (NMRB) Bill, but one would hope that it was. Certainly, by the time the government of the day dealt with the Canberra Advance Bank Limited (Merger) Bill such an arrangement had been made with the Advance Bank of Australia, and I think that was a commendable outcome.

Mr Speaker, this history indicates that the parliament has always been able to deal very effectively with specific pieces of legislation designed to facilitate specific bank mergers, whether it was the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd merging with the National Mutual Royal Bank or the Canberra Advance Bank Ltd merging with the Advance Bank of Australia. The parliament dealt with a specific piece of legislation which facilitated those arrangements and which was aired in public. The public had the opportunity to see, in relation to each of those Bills, what was specifically being proposed in relation to the transfers of assets and obligations, et cetera, and was able to adjudicate on the appropriateness of those arrangements before the legislation was passed. I think that is an appropriate way to go.

Mr Speaker, the current Government, by contrast, is trying to take away from the parliament this appropriate kind of scrutiny entailed in introducing a piece of legislation each and every time a bank merger is contemplated. Instead, the Government proposes a general Bill which will create general powers for the Treasurer to approve arrangements associated with a merger by regulation rather than by legislation through the parliament. I know that the Government will say that regulations are subject to disallowance in the Assembly, but I do not think anybody in this house would deny that regulations do not attract the same high level of scrutiny and the same public attention as does a Bill.

Mr Speaker, under the circumstances, I would have thought legislation rather than regulation was an appropriate way to deal with things of this kind which involve the rights, obligations and assets of individual account holders. The kinds of regulations that the Government can make under this Act are prescribed in clause 5 of the proposed Bill. Clause 5 provides for the application of regulations to be made to deal with aspects of the merger process. The regulations are the means to facilitate the merger process. The regulations can be made for or with respect to the following:

(a) the transfer of the whole or a part of the undertaking of a bank to another bank and the vesting of the whole or that part of that undertaking in the other bank;

(b) the succession of a bank as the successor in law of another bank and the effect of that succession, including the vesting of assets or liabilities;

(c) the obligations of the merging banks in relation to the merger and related transactions;

(d) the effect of the merger on ... existing contracts ... current or pending legal proceedings ... rights and obligations ... liabilities ...

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