Lib MPs jostle for bank oversight role
The ministerial reshuffle announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday is set to have a big impact on parliamentary oversight of the banking industry.One of the winners from the reorganisation was NSW Liberal MP, David Coleman, who has secured a junior portfolio assisting the finance minister, Mathias Cormann.The appointment is almost certain to end Coleman's role as chair of the House standing committee on economics that is charged with grilling the CEOs of the major banks every three months.Several Liberal members of the committee have legitimate claims to the high profile chair role, including former ASIC investigator, Trevor Evans.Evans spent three years investigating financial misconduct cases at the regulator before he joined the Queensland Competition Authority as an economist in 2008.Another leading candidate is Victorian MP Julia Banks who worked as a corporate lawyer at Kraft and GlaxoSmithKline before entering parliament in 2016.While Banks and Evans will no doubt jostle for the appointment, it is likely that the committee's deliberations on banking next year will cede the public limelight to the hearings of the royal commission.