Melbourne MP Daniel Mulino has been appointed the new assistant treasurer and minister for financial services in the Labor government.
Jim Chalmers continues as treasurer.
Mulino earned a PhD in economics from Yale in 2005 with his thesis topic "The impact of an aging society on capital deepening and international factor flows.”
He was a member of the upper house of the Victorian parliament before being elected to the House of Representatives in 2019. Before that he was an adviser to Bill Shorten when Shorten was minister for financial services.
As chair of the House economics committee Mulino was more energetic than many of his predecessors, while leaving the most important and most controversial questions unasked.
The committee's 2024 report from its Inquiry into promoting economic dynamism, competition and business formation delved into a number of banking topics.
Tracker mortgages - where the variable rate would be adjusted to follow changes in the RBA cash rate - have been talked about on and off for years, but never really tried.
The committee argued in its report that "people with tracker mortgages are at less risk of paying an interest rate above the best available rate at the time, even if they do not pay attention to the market."
The committee also advocated for a Canadian-style scheme of ongoing public sector support for residential mortgage-backed securities.
This is another perennial of reform agendas for banking that never really goes anywhere.
Let’s see if Daniel Mulino has the stomach to pursue these reforms, or even any reforms, now he is in a position to do so.