A Tasmanian former farming couple who say their dealings with ANZ left them destitute has welcomed Commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s report into the banking and financial services sector.
The couple say people who have broken the law need to be hit "really hard".
Dimity and Michael Hirst were customers with the rural finance group Landmark, which was taken over by ANZ in 2009. Valuations on their property were cut by 40 per cent and they were informed ANZ was selling their property, cattle and their main residence weeks before Christmas.
Mr Hirst gave emotional testimony to the royal commission last year, prompting what was described as an overdue apology from ANZ’s head of lending services.
On Monday, Mrs Hirst was keenly monitoring the public release of Commissioner Hayne’s report, praising him for doing a ‘fantastic job’ and warning that appropriate measures must be taken to implement his recommendations.
"It’s really going to hurt the financial sector, but that is brilliant," Mrs Hirst told SBS.
"It has to hurt because if it doesn’t, it’s going to continue. It has to stop.”
Mrs Hirst told SBS one of the ‘hardest things’ they ever had to deal with was signing a piece of paper telling them they had ‘nothing left.’
"They wanted everything, and they took everything," she said.
She hopes the 76 recommendations will lead to a shakeup of the industry, to prevent other families from having to suffer.
Mrs Hirst said the family desperately wants to get "back on track" and return to farming, but they are still renting trying to rebuild.
"The culture of the banks needs to be broken, it needs to be stopped," Mrs Hirst said.
"I hope that some of the people that have broken the law are really hit hard and some people do need to go to jail. We don't want to see anyone else going through what we went through."
