Westpac

  • Bank corruption: it’s the system

    There has been ongoing reporting of individual instances of bank malpractice and occasional reporting of large scale institutionalised malpractice. Reporting of the banking royal commission hearings has quickened the pace. But nobody, including the media, joins the dots: the key financial institutions are structurally given to corrupt practices, writes Evan Jones.

  • The relentless pursuit of profit

    Just as the big 4 banks will be promoting how important they are to the community, 91̳ Weekly will be there to fight them and argue for putting them under our democratic control for the benefit of society and the planet. But we need your support to do this...

  • New report: Home ownership declining

    The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey: Selected Findings (HILDA) report shows that the proportion of home ownership has declined in all parts of Australia, with the greatest declines in NSW and Victoria. Thereport, released on July 20, reveals that owning a house is no longer the norm and it is likely that renters will outnumber home-owners in the next few years.

  • Rate rises fund bankers' bonuses

    The onset of the Global Financial Crisis can be dated to July 2007, when two Bear Stearns hedge funds holding almost US$10 billion in mortgage-backed securities collapsed. That same month, bankers at Lehman Brothers paid themselves $US5.7 billion in bonuses. Little more than a year later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy with debts of $US613 billion. It was the largest bankruptcy in history.

  • New agreement a step forwards for Westpac workers

    Westpac workers have managed to break the link between targets and annual salary in the recent Enterprise Agreement (EA) negotiations between Westpac and the Finance Sector Union (FSU). After two months of negotiations, including a petition signed by workers across the Westpac Group, FSU negotiators reached an “in principle” agreement effective from 2016. The link between targets and annual salary increases has been broken, with staff only required to meet minimum behaviour standards and complete compulsory compliance training — which 98% of staff achieved in the last two years.