Turnbull Rebuffs Calls to Drop Banks From Company Tax Cut Policy

(Bloomberg) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has rejected calls from some lawmakers to exclude the nation’s four big banks from a planned company tax cut.

“A company tax rate has got to really go across all corporations,” Turnbull said Saturday in Queenstown, New Zealand. “Distinguishing between one sector and another is not a practical measure. I’m not aware of that ever being done in any other jurisdiction.”

Some backbench lawmakers from the ruling Liberal-National coalition have called for big banks to be cut out of the government’s $48.7 billion plan to reduce the ­company tax rate to 25 percent from 30 percent after former Queensland state ­Premier Anna Bligh’s appointment as their chief lobbyist, according to the Australian newspaper. The Australian Banker’s Association announced Friday that Bligh will take over as the group’s chief executive officer April 3.

Turnbull reiterated his opposition to a widespread independent inquiry, known as a Royal Commission, into the banking sector, claiming that the move “will not actually result in any action.”

“The recommendations would be, essentially, to do the things we’re doing now,” Turnbull said. “We are setting up a one-stop-shop ombudsman that will be able to promptly and fairly settle disputes between customers, consumer customers particularly and banks. That’s clearly what’s needed.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jackie Edwards in Sydney at jedwards160@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey