Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn described the proposal for a tax on excessive profits as “insidious populism” and described criticism of profitable companies as “fact-free rhetoric” that damages trust in public institutions.

When the head of Australia’s largest bank appeared before a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday, he expressed frustration at questions about payment surcharges and corporate relations and abruptly turned his attention to criticism of big industry.

“Businesses in Australia are continually portrayed in this false dichotomy. If a business earns any income or profit at all, it is often or directly assumed that it is unfairly extracting money from consumers on a daily basis,” he told the House of Representatives committee.

“I think this persistent, often fact-free rhetoric, which is being published in ever-widening circles, is very damaging.

“It really undermines trust in institutions, in all of our institutions. I think that’s a real cause for concern.”

Comyn’s criticism was partly directed against the Greens’ “Robin Hood reform package” with which they want to go into the next election and which, among other things, provides for a 40 percent tax on “excessive profits” of large companies.

Green Party leader Adam Bandt said earlier this week that big corporations had taken hundreds of billions of dollars from the public since the end of the pandemic, with “too much of it tax-free.”

The previous Rudd government famously attempted to introduce a super profits tax, but this was blocked by a lobbying campaign by the mining industry.

The parliamentary exchange follows the release of the CBA’s annual results, in which it reported a cash profit of $9.8 billion for the full year, a modest 2% decline from the previous year’s record, despite a slowing economy.

Analysis shows that the Australian banking sector tends to benefit from periods of rising interest rates, which are usually passed on to borrowers more quickly than rate cuts.

The recent decline in profit margins was caused by the decision of large banks to increase their market share by chasing mortgage customers. However, the intensity of this competition has diminished.

On Thursday, Comyn acknowledged that there had been situations where criticism had been appropriate, citing the royal inquiry into banking misconduct as one of those situations.

However, he warned that measures such as the proposed tax on excess profits risked “leading to fundamental distrust over the next decade”.

The bank chief also said that the claim that profiteering had fuelled inflation was “simply not true”.

The comments contradict the findings of the investigation led by Allan Fels and the efforts of the US Democrats to push through a nationwide ban on price gouging that would apply to companies in the food and grocery industry.