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23 January 2026

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Bank royal commission survey initial results

Last week’s article, ‘10 reasons not to hold a bank royal commission’, drew many heated comments for both sides of the debate, in the comments section and in the results of the survey.

The original article showed the strong public support for a bank royal commission, with 64% in the support camp and only 13% opposing.

The Cuffelinks survey generally produced the opposite results, as shown in the table below:

The support camp was 25.6% while the oppose side was a healthy 73.2%. Even more impressive was the strong oppose score of 47.6%, nearly half of all respondents (although it is acknowledged that response numbers were down on our usual survey participation levels).

We will leave the survey open for a few more days to encourage more responses, and then open up the full survey results and comments before next week’s edition.

Please take our survey on whether a royal commission into banking and financial services is required [now closed].

 

  •   25 August 2016
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3 Comments
Keith Hart
August 26, 2016

How many readers of this post are connected in some way to the banks? Wouldn't that potentially skew your data?

Graham Hand
August 26, 2016

Hi Keith, every poll has its sampling shortcomings, especially where respondents are 'opt in' and not selected at random. We have a wide range of readers but with a bias to professionals. So the poll is offered for what it is - a survey of our readers, who are obviously far more engaged with markets and investing than the general public. Some argue polls in the SMH have a left wing bias and polls in The Australian have a right wing bias. Yes, the response is probably skewed. Cheers

SMSF Trustee
August 26, 2016

Keith, I expect that many of the Cuffelinks readers may well be connected to banks, if they are financial planners who work for bank-aligned agencies. But how does that necessarily skew the results? I am assuming that your belief is that these folk will oppose a RC.

However, there are plenty of planners who would much rather not be aligned with banks and thus who might see a RC as a way of getting the banks to sell off their advisory businesses.

There are also plenty who aren't bank-aligned, but use bank fund manager products who are very happy with their service and the results delivered to their clients, who thus might not favour an inquiry into the banks.

You just can't presume how people think about this and I believe we should just take the survey results as they come.

 

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