Thursday, 14 August 2025

Commonwealth Bank

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:48): Australia’s biggest bank gets even richer: Commonwealth Bank profits are up again. Last year they made an eye-watering $10.25 billion cash profit. That is mega money. It is so wildly removed from the reality of people in this state, who continue to struggle with day-to-day expenses. And then we hear the Commonwealth Bank has raked in over $10 billion at a time when the interest rate cut was just a measly quarter of a per cent, as we have just seen. No doubt that cut will absolutely make a difference for people with mortgages. They will have an extra few hundred bucks a month to keep that roof over their head or to cover high winter energy bills, but it is just such a juxtaposition. People are desperate for these tiny decreases in their mortgage payments, and these profit-rich banks could always reduce home loan rates beyond the cut in the cash rate, particularly given they make huge amounts of money from home loans. It would literally be no skin off their bones. If the banks are not going to make their home loans and other products more affordable, we should tax them more. They can certainly afford it, and they should be paying their fair share. We should expect better.