Why does the govt want to protect 2 Aussie banks from their own failures?

The government plans retrospective law to protect our two largest banks at the expense of more than 173,000 of their customers.

The New Zealand government appears hell-bent on intervening in a live court case explicitly to protect two of our two biggest banks and to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Kiwis affected by disclosure breaches by those two banks.

Legislation detailing such retrospective changes was tabled in parliament earlier this month, although it has yet to receive its first reading.

The class action lawsuit against Australian-owned banks ANZ Bank NZ and ASB Bank is nearly four years old so far, having been launched in June 2021.

According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), it will “likely be a few years or more before a judgment is delivered.”

Something like 173,000 New Zealanders were affected by the disclosure breaches between 2015 and 2019, in ANZ’s case, caused by a faulty calculator and, in ASB’s case, a complete failure to disclose loan variations.