Australia's big banks have returned fire on the Federal Government which has been attacking them for lifting interest rates.
They say the government's criticism over their high profits is drawing unnecessary attention from international markets to Australian banks' capacity to borrow overseas.
Australian Bankers Association chief executive Steven Munchenberg said that if international investors saw banks' profits coming down, they would worry about what was happening in Australia. It could trigger market sentiment to move significantly.
''I am therefore flabbergasted when I see our federal government out there explicitly attacking our return on equity, because that is the sort of thing, when they use that language, that the markets will pay attention to," he said.
''Politicians red, green and blue were out there lining up to attack our profitability.
''That [profitability] is what stands between us and potentially a credit crisis.''
He said Australian banks were heavily reliant on overseas funds and were addressing this structural risk.
Speaking today at The Canberra Times lunch series staged by the Canberra Business Council, Mr Munchenberg conceded banks had a serious trust problem with the Australian public and that this needed to be fixed.
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