#70: The Dogged Journalist Who (May Have) Pricked a Property Bubble — Adele Ferguson

August 9, 2019

Adele Ferguson is an award-winning investigative journalist best known for her work exposing misconduct and fraud in the Australian banking and financial services sectors.

Show notes

Selected links

  • Follow Adele: Website | Twitter
  • Banking Bad, by Adele Ferguson
  • ‘CBA covered up misconduct by rogue financial planner’, Adele’s 1 June 2013 article
  • ‘Banking Bad’, the 2014 Four Corners investigation
  • ‘Money for Nothing’, the 2018 Four Corners investigation
  • The Financial Services Royal Commission website
  • ‘The Theory of Economic Regulation’, seminal article by  George Stigler

Topics discussed

  • How did Adele get involved in the story of banking misconduct in Australia? 3:08
  • What were some of the scandals exposed by Adele between 2013 and 2017? 7:28
  • What sort of pressure was brought to bear on Adele while she was breaking these stories? 17:47
  • How did the Banking Royal Commission finally come about? 20:41
  • The story of how, in 2013, a motley group of politicians saved the Future of Financial Advice Act. 26:13
  • The day Adele heard there would be a Financial Services Royal Commission. 30:07
  • Was the Royal Commission the straw that finally broke the housing market’s back? 30:57
  • What did Adele learn about mortgage lending during the Royal Commission? 32:18
  • Regulatory capture in Australia. 36:04
  • Why did the CEO and Chair of NAB announce their resignations when the Royal Commission delivered its final report — and were they warranted? 46:22
  • What was the historical context of Australia’s banking misconduct scandals? 52:00
  • Have the Royal Commission’s recommendations been implemented? 57:53
  • The Royal Commission’s impact on mortgage lending. 58:47

One Comment

Paul Condon
reply
August 20, 2019 5:06 pm

Community banks and public banking ,state and national, is needed. That will curb the inevitable excesses of for profit banking. Credit must be guided into productive investment. Prof Richard Werner, economist, professor of banking, has the best insights snd solutions. Our financial sector is not an industry, merely a blood sucking parasite about to kill the host , Australia.

Leave a Reply