These sound bites are irrelevant red herrings that direct attention away from the main issue. That is to ensure the excellent work of the commission is not wasted.

Yes, this Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the point where it agreed to an inquiry last year, but it did finally get there. There is now bipartisan support for the work of the commissioner and an almost unprecedented level of public interest in some of the astounding revelations.

These include patently fraudulent "fees for no service" levied on the dead for financial advice they were hardly in a position to receive or to act upon.

In light of this, one would expect both sides of politics to work together on the most effective legislation to ensure financial regulators do their jobs and that financial institutions put customers ahead of profiteering from this day forth.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put matters right. It would be a national tragedy if it was wasted in a vain dispute over who should get the credit.

That battle was won a long time ago by Inverell-based Nationals, Senator John "Wacka" Williams, in any case.

Senator Williams, who threatened to cross the floor on this issue last year, first called for a Royal Commission into white collar crime in the finance sector almost a decade ago following the $88 million Storm Financial collapse in January 2009. That left more than 3000 investors destitute.

Mr Williams continued to be a lone voice in the wilderness during the Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull prime ministerships. Labor finally came on board with Bill Shorten calling for a banking royal commission in 2016.

Given neither of the major parties set speed records for taking on the big end of town while they were in government, it would make sense for them to just get on with the job of eliminating this culture of greed both root and branch.

The massive increase in penalties, including fines of up to $210 million or 10 per cent of a bank's turnover for breaches, announced by Scott Morrison last Friday are a good start.

There has been talk of making the penalties even stiffer with fines sufficient to wipe out an institution's entire yearly profit and the ability to jail errant CEOs, executives and directors.

While the institutions will undoubtedly condemn such measures as draconian, they would focus individual's minds on the need to behave responsibly and ethically at all times.

Recent testimony to the commission has shown that while a person who robs a bank with a gun will likely to jail, bankers who took from their customers using a computer, some fine print and a pen would, more often than not, be in line for a promotion and a bonus.

That's not good enough. So-called corporate larceny is just another way of describing fraud and theft. It needs to be called out for what it is.