One of the first things you learn as a child is not to be greedy. It’s a fairly straightforward lesson. Yet, greed is the ultimate culprit identified by Justice Kenneth Haynes in his banking royal commission report. Worse still, the current hysteria surrounding franking credits shows a culture of greed has spread beyond the financial sector. If we don’t confront this culture of greed, we’ll be having another banking royal commission in ten years' time.

Not one person has yet gone to jail after the revelations of Justice Kenneth Hayne's banking royal commission. Credit:Jamie Brown

Greed is the opposite of a fair go. Greed is targeting Aboriginal people under 30 for funeral insurance. Greed is cold calling a young man with Down Syndrome and spending 20 minutes persuading him to hand over his debit card number over the phone, for insurance he cannot afford and does not understand. Greed is charging dead people fees for services they cannot possibly use from beyond the grave. Greed is allowing wealthy retirees who pay zero tax to continue to use a loophole that perversely allows them to claim refunds of thousands of dollars for tax they didn’t pay. Is this the kind of Australia we imagined for ourselves by 2020?

It was depressing to watch financial stocks surge in the share market - to the highest levels in nearly a decade - profiting off the back of a report detailing the obscene greed, misconduct and malfeasance on the part of banks, financial planners, mortgage brokers and insurance companies. You can be 100 per cent sure that if the average Australian stole money from a bank they’d go to jail, but it’s not yet clear that any bankers will go to jail for effectively stealing from their customers - though it is still possible.

Not a single bank CEO has been sacked. Instead of heads rolling at the major banks, they are retiring with sacks of money.