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What is the Role of a Bank?

A theme throughout this inquiry into Australia’s bank closures is that bank representatives continue to say they are committed to providing cash for the foreseeable future despite Australians using cash less frequently.

The Commonwealth Bank has no plans to remove the distribution of cash even though it is a cost to the bank to keep cash available, according to CEO Matt Comyn.

I know that Australians are afraid of losing cash. There’s no doubt that the best way to keep cash alive is to keep on using it.

Despite regional bank closures, more than 90% of customers remain which is seen as a sign less customers see a physical branch as important because more of them are using online services.

I asked Matt Comyn about the bank’s digital expansion which includes the CommBank App. He said this app is used by eight million customers and the vast majority of customers appreciate the bank’s investment in it. The bank’s contract with Australia Post, worth tens of millions of dollars, is a partnership allowing customers to make transactions at Australia Post outlets where the bank has been shutting down branches. For many rural customers the Bank@Post scheme doesn’t offer everything they need.

We also discussed the many ways the Commonwealth Bank along with the rest of the Big Four Banks are supported by the government including bail-in, props such as government guarantees for overseas borrowing, regulatory support and their advantages over smaller banks.

When I asked about the shareholdings by asset managers such as BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, Matt Comyn responded that most of the bank’s shareholders are Australian retail shareholders, domestic superannuation shareholders, and shares held by 12 million Australian families. Share dividends will be high this year with a record $10.2 billion profit and a pay packet for its CEO of $10.4 million.

The Commonwealth bank serves about 10 million customers. Among those customers are many Australians who are worried about digital controls, branches closing, and the gradual loss of cash as a readily available and convenient means of transaction. The Commonwealth Bank prides itself on supporting its customers so let’s hope they’re also a listening bank.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of what has happened to Qantas’s reputation in the last few months?

Mr Comyn: Yes, I am.

Senator ROBERTS: You represent a bank which provides financial services, and cash is fundamental to those for many people. People are afraid of cash. Whether you agree with that or not, they are afraid of cash and
they’re increasing their use of cash. As to your costs and services, from your statement I concluded that they’re reviewed annually, but are you considering the whole service and what people really expect from your bank?

Mr Comyn: Yes, absolutely we consider the whole service.

Senator ROBERTS: More than 90 per cent of your customers stay after a bank closure?

Mr Comyn: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: So, your customers are sticky?

Mr Comyn: Yes. It could be perceived in a slightly different way as well, which is the role of a physical branch in some customers’ minds perhaps isn’t as important as it was. I sort of agree with that and I think it very
much depends on different customers. I think a range of different conclusions can be drawn from that.

Senator ROBERTS: I agree with you. The fact is your customers are sticky and so are other customers. You mentioned cross-subsidisation of electronic customers on cash is $40 per customer?

Mr Comyn: What I said was we calculated we think the cost of providing cash, and I believe providing cash will continue to be important and is an important issue. I suspect we pay a significant proportion of the costs of providing cash in Australia. I don’t say that as a complaint, I say it more as a statement of fact. We serve about 10 million customers. It works out to be about $40. The reality is, like anything, there’s a small proportion of customers who use cash very often. There’s a much larger proportion who don’t use it at all, and there would be somewhere in between who are using it infrequently across that. I’m not exactly sure I understand the point you made about ‘afraid of cash’? I think you said earlier on in your question that Australians are afraid of cash? Did I mishear you?

Senator ROBERTS: Sorry. They’re afraid of losing cash. Thank you for picking up on that. That’s a very important point. They’re afraid of losing cash. We’ve seen a digital identity mooted by the Morrison government, now raised by the Labor government, and a bill that was introduced not into parliament as such for processing but into the public debate in parliament last year. We’ve seen attempts to limit the cash ban bill. People are scared, especially after losing a lot of their fundamental freedoms in the last three years under COVID mismanagement. They’re worried about being controlled in all aspects of their lives. How much has your bank spent on digital expansion that cash customers did not ask for?

Mr Comyn: It would be very difficult for me to answer that, because we haven’t asked every one of those 10 million customers.

Senator ROBERTS: I understand that.

Mr Comyn: I think we could reasonably assume that with our retail bank, the CommBank app, which is our mobile banking app, we have more than eight million users. On average, they log in 39 times per month. It’s
clearly one of the most important, if not the most important, feature that customers use. I’d say that clearly the vast majority of customers highly value the investments that we make, both in terms of hopefully helping make it easier for them to manage their financial lives but also as Senator White was asking, to make sure it’s the safest, secure and most resilient experience possible.

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll come back to cash in a minute. You just said you’ve got a commitment to cash?

Mr Comyn: I believe cash will continue to be available for many years within Australia. I don’t think people should fear that cash is going to be removed from circulation.

Senator ROBERTS: Is that your commitment or is it just your belief?

Mr Comyn: I can only make the commitment on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I mean.

Mr Comyn: We certainly have no plans to remove cash distribution or the provision of cash in Australia. I don’t think that’s feasible, and I don’t think that would be desirable, certainly in the foreseeable future.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s turn to Australia Post and we’ll come back to cash. How much do you pay Australia Post for the community representation fee—not the transaction but the community representation fee?

Mr Comyn: I mentioned in the introduction it’s tens of millions of dollars. I know I’m protected by parliamentary privilege. Would you mind if I checked whether there’s any commercial—

CHAIR: You can take it on notice.

Mr Comyn: I know what the number is. I don’t have any difficulty sharing it with you, but I probably should check that.

CHAIR: I think usually the best idea is to take it on notice. Mr Comyn can provide the information to us.

Senator ROBERTS: Is your concern one of the figure or of releasing it?

Mr Comyn: I’m not personally concerned with either of those dimensions, but since it’s in a contract entered between the Commonwealth Bank and Australia Post I just want to doublecheck if there are any contractual
restrictions and probably out of courtesy let Australia Post know.

Senator ROBERTS: It was released in 2018 as being $22 million for each bank.

Mr Comyn: It’s more than that.

Senator ROBERTS: So, you’re currently flooding Australia Post. When I say ‘you’, it’s not just the Commonwealth Bank but all banks. You’re closing branches in the regional areas and Australia Post is getting flooded with customers. Is it more than $22 million?

Mr Comyn: The totality of what we pay Australia Post? Yes, it is. Again, not to get caught up in the semantics, I wouldn’t characterise it as ‘flooding’. We pay on a per transaction basis to Australia Post with an extension beyond 2030. We entered into a long-term contract to give Australia Post and some of those individual franchisees certainty. We meet—I know Mr Jones does—regularly with Australia Post to talk about are there opportunities for us to continue to improve the service to be able to support Australia Post’s customers better and to make sure as many transaction types are available in Australia Post to ensure the convenience is as high as possible.

Senator ROBERTS: So, you’re treating them as a partner?

Mr Comyn: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Coming back to the structure of the banking system in this country, especially the big four banks, there is protection for the banks if the banks go overboard in risk or the economy collapses. You’ve got protection in bank bailing, which was legislated I think in 2018. That was confirmed to me by a senior Treasury official two years ago. You’ve had props from the government in the past, and government guarantees for things like overseas borrowing. You have enormous support. Four pillars for a start is a regulatory support. You have more generous treatment from APRA in risk weighting. You have barriers to entry that the regulations provide for protecting the big four. You have a barrier that’s legal in the sense that you’ve got deep pockets and you can fund enormous defences in lawsuits brought against you. I’ve seen this first-hand when chaired the Senate select inquiry into lending to primary production customers. You dominate the cash distribution network. You’re essentially now, as a result of the support from the community and governments, a low-risk business. And your customers are sticky. That’s a hell of a ride.

Mr Comyn: I’d challenge just about every one of the assumptions that you made then, but I’m not exactly sure where that would get us. I definitely wouldn’t characterise it in terms of the context that you did. Are we heavily regulated? Absolutely. Is there a lot of investment required to manage and appropriately respond to that regulation? Yes, there is. Do I think significant financial institutions in Australia and others should be heavily regulated? Absolutely. Do I think it’s important that Australian banks and the Commonwealth Bank have unquestionably strong levels of capital? Absolutely. Because we’re big importers of capital and the success of economies and financial institutions are necessarily very intertwined. I could give you multiple examples but I don’t know how helpful it would be. Even if you think about capital levels, Australian banks hold considerably more capital than many other financial institutions and jurisdictions. As a policy setting I think that’s absolutely appropriate, but to help make the numbers real that costs across the major banks per annum between $7 billion and $11 billion. I’d characterise a lot of things differently. I think sometimes our funding facilities are described in a way that’s not necessarily matched by our experience.

Senator ROBERTS: I acknowledge your view. I point to the fact that every monopoly in the world—I’m not accusing you of being a monopoly—is there as a result of government. You say you have a low-risk business. Your ownership of the Commonwealth Bank, a significant controlling portion, includes the Vanguard Group and BlackRock. I’m reading from your registry: Vanguard Investments, Norges Bank, Goody Capital Management, BlackRock Advisors, Vanguard Global Advisors and a couple more. When I look at the other three big banks, they’re almost identical in terms of the significant controlling interests. It seems to me that we have one bank with four logos. That’s a very tight industry. You hide behind the regulations, I’d put it to you. When I chaired that Senate select inquiry into lending for primary production customers, I saw the services almost identical from each of the banks. The strategy is almost identical. The disregard for customers is almost identical as is the hiding behind regulations. Regulations are there to protect your bank; that’s the way I see it in practice. It’s almost identical across all four banks. Directors appoint you, I take it, and your directors are appointed by the likes of BlackRock, Vanguard, First State and State Street. The banking sector with the four big banks seems to be a very cosy club and you can do whatever you want with very sticky customers; is that correct?

Mr Comyn: No, it’s not. Again, the shareholder base is quite different to the way you outlined. There are quite significant differences even across the major banks. We’re an extremely widely held retail stock. Approximately 50 per cent of our shareholding is held directly by retail onshore shareholders. Obviously that’s a result—

Senator ROBERTS: How many of those shareholders vote?

Mr Comyn: Every one of them is entitled to vote.

Senator ROBERTS: How many of them vote?

Mr Comyn: I couldn’t give you the exact number. One thing I would say is clearly I meet with institutional shareholders. I just came back from meeting with some institutional shareholders internationally. I can assure you I get stopped and asked about the performance, profitability, questions on people’s minds, and the dividend by a lot more retail shareholders than I ever do from international. To finish quickly on the shareholder base, more than 50 per cent would be direct to retail. The next approximately 30 per cent would be institutional but domestic, primarily through superannuation, some of the biggest industry and superannuation funds. We actually have quite a small representation internationally. You mentioned some of them. There’s a mixture of both. You touched on some of our index funds. Some have a variety of different mandates from either US, North America or within Asia. Fundamentally if the Commonwealth Bank is profitable, 75 per cent approximately of our profits go to our shareholders, predominantly Australian families—more than 12 million. I can assure you based on my experience they absolutely do value it. I’m not sure the point you’re making on regulation, either. Obviously we work very closely with regulators.

Senator ROBERTS: The point I’m making was that regulations help you because they give you protection. It’s very difficult for a small borrower to take you on legally.

CHAIR: We’re going to have to rotate the call. Mr Comyn, you can briefly respond to that if you want to. It’s up to you.

Mr Comyn: In the interests of time

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The Future is Digital Says Westpac CEO

Your future is digital and Westpac’s is even higher profits. Once again, the commercial in confidence excuse was trotted out around disclosure of the cost of the Australia Post community representation contracts that are allowing the banks to close many of their regional branches. In 2018 the amount was public information so what’s changed? Westpac has taken the question on notice.

Almost a quarter of Australians cannot do digital banking. Either they lack access or the necessary skills to go online for their banking. I asked Westpac why the bank is turning its back on these Australians. The way Westpac’s CEO Peter King views this is that 96% of their own customers are engaging with them digitally so all is well.

Has Westpac looked at the fact they’re pushing people online who don’t actually have the capability to stay safe and secure on that platform? Instead of directly answering my question, Peter King said the three biggest scam losses are through investment scams, romance scams and business email compromises. Banks are doing everything they can, he said, to prevent this by blocking suspicious payments and educating customers.

Westpac is enthusiastic in its push towards digital. In Townsville for example, where Westpac has shut its doors, the bank conducted education sessions to help customers adapt to the digital transition. Clearly there are factors that limit digital banking in regional Australia. Westpac’s answer isn’t to reverse the closures, it’s to improve its banking app to do everything. The bank intends to shoehorn people into the digital economy whether they like it or not. Peter King believes this shift is much broader than just banking because all government and essential services will become digital too.

Will there still be cash? Peter King thinks that cash will still exist in the economy but its use will decline. Cash made up 70% of all transactions in 2007. That figure is now 13% and trending down. Where telecommunications or power are cut off, Westpac would get cash into an affected area by flying it in. Telecommunications is obviously critical.

Finally, I asked if Westpac’s data might not be accurate. It isn’t capturing all cash transactions. Once cash is circulating there is no way to track it, so perhaps they’re not seeing the real picture of cash use in the economy. I was told the Reserve Bank undertakes surveys into how cash is used and in Westpac’s view there is less call for cash making it less important in the scheme of things. Online banking and Bank@Post will replace bank branches, particularly in regional areas where Westpac and the other big banks are pulling away from in person services.

Profits over personal touch is what’s in store for customers in the digital economic future. In a move we’re seeing across the corporate and political sectors, the Big Four are making the data fit the narrative so they can achieve their goals. Where’s the care factor?

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Just sticking briefly with Australia Post, how much do you pay Australia Post for a community representation fee, not the transaction fee?

Mr King: It’s subject to some commerciality requirements. I’ve said it will be over $200 million over 10 years, including the fee. We might see whether we can provide that separately in confidence.

Senator ROBERTS: It wasn’t commercial-in-confidence in 2018. Is something being hidden?

Mr King: No. We’ll work with Australia Post on how much detail we can give you.

Senator ROBERTS: So, you’ll take that on notice?

Mr King: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Your submission relies on digital technology as a fallback to the removal of physical branches, yet 23.6 per cent, almost a quarter of the population, either lack access to or the ability to handle digital banking. Why are you turning your back on almost a quarter of the population? Do they not have enough money to warrant your attention?

Mr King: What we see in our customer base is 96 per cent of customers are engaging with us digitally, in terms of transactions.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s your customer base. I asked about the population of Australia. Almost a quarter don’t.

Mr King: In terms of our service offering, if you take the cash, we have our own branch network, and the Australia Post, and an ATM arrangement. So, there are plenty of opportunities for customers who still want to use cash to get cash through the country.

Senator ROBERTS: The ACCC reports that Australians lost $3 billion in online scams in 2022. Has Westpac done any work on what share of that has come from Westpac and the banking sector in general, forcing this 23.6 per cent of the population online when they lack the skills to avoid being scammed? Is Westpac simply setting up these people to lose their money in an online scam?

Mr King: In short, no. There are three big drivers of scam losses, and the biggest one by a long way is investment scams. As to investment scams, we have less financial planners in the country, more people doing
research, including on social media platforms, and that’s devastating. Romance scams are still pretty high in terms of people being prepared to pay for romance scams, and then there’s business email compromises. A lot of those are issues around how customers are being tricked out of their money, effectively. The way the banks are reacting is to do everything we can to help customers make better decisions. So, prompt them about those types of things, put friction in the system to stop the payments. But we do need to help our customers pick these scams up as well.

Senator ROBERTS: In towns where you close your branch and provide education to customers on how to use online banking safely, do you open a digital education centre?

Mr Miller: In a regional town where we’re closing a branch we have a fairly lengthy period where we’re consulting with our customers. We run education sessions from the branch before it closes. When the branch has
closed, we’ve enabled our call centres to be able to take calls from customers anywhere in Australia where they can continue that digital education with customers online. We would have had 340,000 of those conversations with customers since March this year.

Senator ROBERTS: Some of them are a physical, face-to-face in town where the bank is about to close?

Mr Miller: Absolutely. That’s our priority during the transition period.

Senator ROBERTS: What factors would limit digital banking in regional Australia?

Mr King: For us, I think we’re looking to have everything you can do in the bank in the app. We’re not there yet, as Ross said, but we will be. Another is, as you just said, helping people transition to the digital economy. But I think it’s broader than banking. If I look at government services, banking services and most services in the country, they’re all going to go digital, so we have to help people get on. Then telecommunications is critical as well.

Senator ROBERTS: Are you saying there will be no cash, none of this stuff?

Mr King: No.

Senator ROBERTS: You said ‘all digital’?

Mr King: I believe there will still be cash in the economy but the usage will go down. I think I used a stat before that, in 2007, 70 per cent of consumer transactions were cash based. It’s now 13 per cent and it will go
further down; that is the trend. Cash will be less important in the scheme of things than it has been historically.

Senator ROBERTS: What are customers supposed to do if the bank or the NBN or the telco fails for a whole day? I noticed in Mount Isa, the day before I arrived recently there was no internet and no EFTPOS so people had to use cash. Business was open purely because of cash.

Mr King: That is an important part, but also the merchant terminals can go into a mode which is called offline for a period of time, but you need your card. You need to put your physical card in. It’s hard to use a digital wallet in that situation. There are fallback facilities when telecommunications are down. It’s a bit harder when the power is down, obviously. In that case, like we do in any event, a flood or fire, we would get cash into the area and a way to distribute it. We did that in Lismore through the floods by flying it in.

Senator ROBERTS: If a constituent of mine goes to a farmers market and pays cash, how is that captured in the data for cash use and electronic payment?

Mr King: It will depend on how that merchant reports. Certainly, when we’re tracking cash usage we’re looking at money going in and out of the banks. It will depend on how that person banks, whether they go near a
bank at all. They might just spend it. The Reserve Bank has the data on how much cash is on issue, and then it touches the bank at certain points but we don’t see 100 per cent of it because some of it’s in the economy and going around without us seeing it.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s exactly the point, isn’t it? The data does not capture all of the cash transactions?

Mr King: If it doesn’t go through us we won’t see it; that’s right.

Senator ROBERTS: Correct. Could the volume of cash transactions occurring outside of the banking sector be quite different to the data you present as being the reduction in cash transactions?

Mr King: Possibly, but the Reserve Bank also does periodic surveys where they survey consumers on how they’re using cash. That doesn’t rely on the reported data. You also get surveys. Our experience in what we’re
seeing is there is less cash being used for transactions, and much more cards and particularly debit cards are being used for transactions.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m being sent complaints about queueing in the branches that remain after closures in the area. Your point of presence is now inadequate. If a customer wants to use face-to-face and their branch is
closed, then they go to the next nearest branch which is queued out the door so they give up and go home and use phone or internet or banking, would you consider your bank as being helpful?

Mr King: As I started with, customer service has to improve. If there are examples from your constituents, send them through and we’ll have a look.

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Time to Burst the Bankers’ Club Bubble

At a recent Senate Banking Inquiry I spoke with Michael Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer of the Customer Owned Banks Association.

I know that many of our supporters hold the belief that more regulation will bring the banks under control. The truth is that the banks will always have smarter lawyers than the government. Regulation becomes a barrier to entry of new or small players wanting to compete with the big banks. At the same time, the big banks do whatever they want with only the occasional penalty that is clearly not enough to stop them.

The answer to this dilemma is a Government-owned bank that provides the existing banks with real competition by running the bank for the benefit of the customers and shareholders equally, rather than entirely for the benefit of shareholders, as the banks are doing at the moment. The difference will be especially noticeable in the areas of customer service and ethics.

Suncorp is the 6th largest bank in Australia. It is on the market for a bargain price of $4.9 billion. My proposal is for the government to buy Suncorp Bank outright using the Future Fund and re-purpose it to provide the full range of banking services through Bank@Post.

This would offer real competition to the big banks. By running the Post Office Bank using a modified Code of Practice it guarantees the customer a bank that will not behave like greedy, immoral, profiteering crony capitalists.

That would be a refreshing change.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Mr Lawrence and Ms Elliott, for returning today. You made some comments about regulation, Mr Lawrence. Would less regulation lead to more competition and better service?

Mr Lawrence: We don’t advocate for less regulation, because we need to be regulated in the same manner as any bank. What we ask is that it be targeted at the objective. It needs to take into consideration business models. It needs to take into consideration the size and the complexity, rather than a broadbrush—Senator ROBERTS: Are the big four banks hiding behind excessive regulation that is really a barrier to entry for your smaller banks?

Mr Lawrence: I can’t speak for the big four banks. What I can say—

Senator Roberts: I am asking you for your opinion on the regulation of the big four banks, not to speak for the big four banks.

Mr Lawrence: The big four banks are facing the same regulation, but it gets magnified because of their size and complexity. They do have more resources to put towards that regulation and compliance. As I said, it comes back to the size of ours. You only have to go back to October 2021. In one month, we had design and distribution obligations land, we had open banking time lines to be met and we had three recommendations of the royal commission. If you are a customer-owned bank with 20, 50, 100 or 1,000 staff, that’s a significant amount of regulation that takes you away from focusing on your customer. It’s that proportionality.

Senator Roberts: Did you see my questioning of the CommBank chief executive, Mr Comyn, this morning?

Mr Lawrence: Yes, I did.

Senator Roberts: I put it to him that the regulations are a barrier to entry for anyone outside the big four banks.

Mr Lawrence: My opinion is that the complexity of regulation that we have today would be deemed to be somewhat of a barrier for new entrants.

Senator Roberts: I go to your letter which accompanied your submission. You say:

Solutions that help, not hurt
Two policy solutions canvassed by stakeholders—a Government-owned bank and a community service obligation—would be anti-competitive interventions detrimental to our sector’s ability to provide services for regional communities.

On page 10 of your submission you say:
The attractiveness of an Australia Post Bank with an explicit government guarantee for customer deposits would almost certainly reduce deposit flows to privately owned banks…

Are you aware that all bank deposits of COBA members are already covered by the government’s Financial Claims Scheme bank guarantee?

Mr Lawrence: Yes, they are covered.

Senator Roberts: Yes. It says so on your website. Are your words, then, an acknowledgement that the Financial Claims Scheme is underfunded and never likely to be used?

Mr Lawrence: I am aware of the Financial Claims Scheme. Do I think it will ever be used? I think if you look at the people who are funding it, they are not necessarily the ones that are at risk. It could well be used.

Senator Roberts: Could you explain that?

Mr Lawrence: I don’t have the list of everyone who is funding the Financial Claims Scheme, but there are organisations that aren’t as heavily regulated that could be the recipient.

Senator Roberts: Of the Financial Claims Scheme guarantee money?

Mr Lawrence: Not of the deposit guarantee, if that’s what you are referring to.

Senator Roberts: Yes; not of that?

Mr Lawrence: Not of that. To have a guarantee on deposits, you have to be an authorised deposit-taking institution, and therefore you are fully regulated.

Senator Roberts: The proposal One Nation has raised is to ask the Future Fund to purchase Suncorp bank and operate the bank commercially, under a modified Banking Code of Practice that guarantees face-to-face service, cash availability and the provision of service guarantee—a code you would be free to use as well. Then Suncorp could expand its services through Bank@Post. I note your objections to a government-owned bank and to Australia Post becoming a bank. Which, if any, of these objections would relate to the Suncorp proposal that I just outlined?

Mr Lawrence: We haven’t taken a position on the Suncorp merger, if that’s your question.

Senator Roberts: No. My proposal is for the Future Fund to purchase Suncorp bank and to operate the bank commercially, under a modified Banking Code of Practice.

Mr Lawrence: The question to us is?

Senator Roberts: Have you got any objections to that?

Ms Elliott: It is something we would need to consider. We have fantastic banks in Queensland ready to serve the public. We wouldn’t be looking for a government-backed intervention that would be to the detriment of the existing competitive market that involves customer-owned banks.

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In Australia the Bank Robs You!

If you rob a bank, you go to jail. If the bank robs you, no banker will go to jail and they won’t even pay a fine. Maybe it has something to do with the Big 4’s top shareholders – Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, JP Morgan, Charles Schwab, HSBC and others.

After 6 years of inquiries and a Royal Commission, the final Financial Accountability Regime Bill contains no accountability for bad bankers. We supported Senator McKim in trying to make sure bankers could be liable for personal fines if they misbehaved but the Greens caved, joining Labor to pass through the bill without the penalties.

One Nation won’t stop our fight to make bank executives accountable and find justice for their victims.

Transcripts | Speech and Questions

Yesterday, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I spoke on Senator McKenzie’s matter of public importance regarding the decision by Minister Catherine King to give Qantas a substantial commercial advantage in the Qatar Airlines application for more flights to Australia. I pointed out that the Qatari government owns Qatar Airlines, while Qantas’s most influential shareholders are the merchant banks that invest money on behalf of the world’s richest predatory billionaires. I raise the question: who does this government represent? Is it everyday Australians or foreign wealth?

Here we are again, the very next day, debating the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023—a bill devoid of financial accountability. A financial accountability regime bill with no accountability is a bill that could more rightly be called the ‘Letting bank executives do whatever they want bill 2023’. Banking executives in Australia are a protected species for the same reason Alan Joyce and Qantas are protected: crony capitalism.

The big four banks have almost identical major shareholders. They have the same owners as Qantas, including Vanguard with $15 billion in shares in the big four banks, BlackRock with $5 billion, and then the usual suspects with smaller holdings, such as State Street, JP Morgan, Charles Schwab, HSBC and others. With these common owners making up a controlling share, it means we do not have four big banks. We have one monstrous bank with four divisions working under four logos. Why would the banks compete with each other when that competition will lessen their profits and, in turn, reduce the flow of dividends to these investment funds?

Our banking legislation, our checks and balances, were not written for an eventuality where investment funds with A$40 trillion in funds available bought controlling shareholdings in all the big four banks and used those shareholdings for their own financial benefit in a way that reduces competition and has reduced competition. Investment funds get assistance from complicit executives. Those complicit executives know the deal when those same investment funds elect directors who then employ the executives. The same executives know that they have to follow orders to keep their jobs and their fat pay cheques. The same executives then pursue the now infamous ESG measures to ensure that a bank lends only for projects that meet so-called environmental, social and governance standards. ESG is shorthand for using banks to enforce political objectives, like enforcing net zero by defunding coal, gas and most mining while lending for speculative investments in hydrogen and similar unproven fantasy technology.

Why would banks take a course of action that puts shareholders’ funds at risk? It’s because these big investment funds own the companies that profit from those investments. ESG is nothing more than the billionaires who run the world using their ownership of our banks to lend to themselves for risky investments that, if they fail, will reduce their equity. It will reduce the equity of mum and dad investors more. They carry the risk. Everyday Australians are shouldering the risk of these misinvestments that benefit only the world’s most wealthy individuals. As George Carlin famously said, ‘It’s a club, and you’—everyday Australians—’ain’t in it.’

I wonder if whoever made the decision to take personal financial penalties out of the financial accountability regime is in the club. Are you? Those penalties were in this legislation when the Turnbull government introduced it—although, of course, it is not being used, because nobody in the Liberal Party or the Labor Party has the guts to take on these investment funds—least of all, it would appear, Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, who authored this bill.

Everyday Australians are feeling the pain from the failure of this government to govern without fear or favour. Bank branch closures and de-banking are hitting everyday Australians hard, and the banking cartel just sit back and count the profits—record profits. The most glaring exclusion from this bill is the absence of civil penalty provisions such as fines for bankers. To translate that into plain English, it means that senior bankers who behave badly will not, under this bill, face personal fines—no fines at all.

Making bad bankers pay big fines isn’t an idea One Nation and the Greens pulled out of thin air. The Treasury department was the one that initially proposed it. The proposal paper for the financial accountability regime that Treasury published in 2020 included civil penalties for bad bankers. The big bank lobby circled the wagons, mustering all of their high-powered lobbyists and industry groups to browbeat Treasury into removing the personal civil penalties. When the Morrison coalition government introduced the 2021 version of this bill, civil penalties had disappeared. Labor had a chance to fix that when they introduced their versions of the bill, first in 2022 and now with this one in 2023. Instead, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen ‘I love the bankers’ Jones, has joined Labor at the hip with their crony-capitalist banking suck-up mates in the coalition.

This bill’s time line is a glaring example of what’s wrong with our country’s governance. In 2017 I chaired the inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers, while at the same time we called for a royal commission into the banks. The horror stories we uncovered in that Senate inquiry were enough to make my skin crawl and my stomach churn: banks stealing land and even livestock straight out from under farmers’ feet, cattle rustling, foreclosing on properties where there hadn’t been breaches of loan repayments, preying on vulnerable people, stealing whole farms, and rewarding mates amongst insolvency practitioners and other farmers. Rabobank, after being fined hundreds of millions of dollars for serious breaches in America, was destroying families in our country. All under your watch.

The evidence of banking practices we uncovered during that inquiry forced the government’s hand. With the testimony of those victims, the government had no option but to call the Hayne Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. This bill now before us supposedly implements recommendations of that royal commission. What a joke! It’s been more than six years since the Senate select committee I chaired was established. At the end of that long road not a single banker has been thrown in jail for their criminal actions—not one. To my knowledge, not a single banker has paid any civil penalty for the outright fraud uncovered in the royal commission—not one. At the end of the long road to this bill we have something that still will not impose personal civil penalties on bankers who breach their accountability regimes. And you guys just let it continue. If you want to know who holds all the power in this country, look no further than the fact that civil penalties have been dropped.

One Nation will be supporting Senator McKim’s amendment to insert civil penalties back into the bill, but, alas, that failed. If that amendment had been successful, we would have supported the bill. Without that amendment this bill does not go far enough to place accountability on misbehaving bankers, and we cannot support its passage. Minister, why does this bill not contain civil penalty provisions for senior bankers who fail their accountability obligations?

Minister Gallagher: Thank you and I acknowledge Senator Roberts’ speech. I don’t agree with large parts of it but in this bill there are penalties within the legislation before us.  They will, individuals can lose deferred remuneration – they can be disqualified from being able to work in the industry and there are individual civil penalties for assisting an entity’s contravention of obligations.

Senator Roberts: Minister, are you aware who owns our big four banks? Let me read the list of shareholders of those banks right now so that you may have some idea of where I’m going. Shareholders of National Australia Bank Limited are the Vanguard Group, with 3.3 per cent; BlackRock Fund Advisors; Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd; Norges Bank Investment Management; State Street Global Advisors; Colonial First State Investments; Goody Capital; BlackRock Advisers; Netwealth Investments; and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec. Let me read them for the Commonwealth bank: Vanguard Group, BlackRock Fund Advisors, Vanguard Investments Australia, Norges Bank, Goody Capital, Australian Foundation Investment Company Limited, BlackRock Advisors, Netwealth Investments, FIL Investment Management and Vanguard Global Advisors. Westpac: the Vanguard Group, Vanguard Investments Australia, BlackRock Fund Advisors, Norges bank, State Street Global Advisors, Goody Capital, Advance Asset Management, BlackRock Advisors, Australian Foundation Investment Company, Netwealth Investments. ANZ group: the Vanguard Group—is there an echo in this room? BlackRock Fund Advisors—there’s that echo again! Vanguard Investments—it’s still here! State Street—another echo! Goody Capital—another echo! BlackRock Advisors—another echo! This place is an echo chamber, and that’s probably very appropriate. There’s Netwealth Investments—another echo! Dimensional Fund Advisors—they’re only in ANZ. There’s Vanguard—another echo! BlackRock investment—another echo! Minister, are you aware of this?

Minister Gallagher: I’m certainly aware there’s millions of shareholders in Australia’s big banks and across Australia’s financial system, yes.

Senator Roberts: So you allow it to continue with no accountability. It seems we don’t have 4 big banks. We have one monstrous bank working under 4 logos, 4 divisions. There’s no, there’s no difference between their primary products and services and their ways of operating. Their product, services and operations are similar. So similar that I recognised, as Chair of the Senate Select inquiry into lending the primary production customers back in 2017, that they operate as one. They are a cartel. Are you aware of the common ownership and common practice, product and services of these banks?

Minister Gallagher: Well, that information is available, as you know, to all of us.  It’s transparent around shareholding in big companies in Australia.  So I’m aware and you are aware, and you’re aware because that information is available.

Senator Roberts: The difference, Minister, between you and I is that I want to do something to fix it. Minister, what will your government do about protecting Australians from these parasitic predators?

Minister Gallagher: Well, I don’t agree with the language that you’ve used Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: The Minister says, in effect, that she agrees they are parasitic predators. So legislation needs to have teeth. Without teeth, massive regulation protects the Big Four from accountability because of the complexities needing deep pockets for deep pockets for lawyers. A farmer, small businessman, even a woman, cannot afford the lawyers that the big banks resort to at the drop of a hat because they’re protected by deep, complicated legislation. These barriers are barriers to accountability. Are you aware of that? And what do you plan to do about it?

Minister Gallagher: Well, no, I don’t agree with that. The bill we are debating or we completed debated of yesterday is the Financial Accountability Regime Bill. So no, I don’t agree with that. And I do believe since the Royal Commission there has been significant increase in and protections for us through legislative reform like this to make sure that we get a properly regulated and accountable financial system. This is one piece of that. So no, I don’t agree with you.

Senator Roberts: Minister, these regulations provide barriers to entry of new competition to the Big Four or the Big One. Are you aware of that and what do you plan to do about it?

Minister Gallagher: Sorry if your questions about do I think this is a barrier to competition? No.

Senator Roberts: That wasn’t my question. The massive amount of complex regulations, they’re protecting the big four banks, they’re a barrier to competition.

Minister Gallagher: I mean in a sense you’re arguing in a circle because we are putting in place legislative protections and regulations to make sure there is a stronger financial system in this country to deal with some of the problems that we saw come through in the lead up to and during the banking Royal Commission to protect consumers and to make sure that we have a strong, profitable, well led banking system financial system in this country. This legislative response is part of that. The regulations are there to offer that protection. They’re not there to limit competition.

Senator Roberts: They’re effectively working as such Minister. The government’s bank deposit guarantee scheme is worthless. Firstly, it’s not automatic, because the Treasurer has to invoke it and if he doesn’t, there’s no guarantee of bank deposits. Secondly, it covers only a maximum of $80 billion out of $1.3 trillion in bank deposits. For example, the Commonwealth Bank, I understand, has 30 million deposit accounts, meaning an average of $670 per deposit. Meanwhile, the previous government passed a bank bail-in provision that your party supported. These are other ways in which banks avoid accountability for their mistakes and greed. They take none of the risk and all of the profit. They have no penalty for excessive greed causing failure, because government bails them in. When will your government start protecting Australian citizens and revoke the bail-in, for example?

Minister Gallagher: Well, the work that has come out of the royal Commission, of which this is a part of, is precisely about that, Senator Roberts.

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Australia’s Bank Guarantee Scheme – Are You Covered?

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At the May/June Senate Estimates, I asked the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) about their accountability and responsibilities for financial services and then probed further into depositor guarantees. I wanted to try and establish whether Australians’ savings are secure in the event of a financial crash. Have a listen.

APRA made the point that Financial Claims Scheme (FCS) is really a last resort. Australian banks and financial institutions are required to have practical plans in place to ensure they can get up and running again in the event of a financial crisis. If that were to fail, however, account holders would be covered for the first $250,000 of their deposited funds per institution.

What this answer failed to mention is that the Financial Guarantee Scheme (FGS) only kicks in once the bank fails. At this point, the bank would have been able to use bail-in provisions to use depositor’s funds to save themselves.

The FCS is also unfunded. The government has not put any money aside to fund the scheme — there is a limit of $20 billion per bank, which is only 10% of what would be needed for just one of the Big-4 banks alone. The Treasurer is not required to trigger the FCS if they don’t want to spend the money.

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Time to Give Our Banking Cartel Some Real Competition

My latest article in The Spectator …

No amount of regulation has been able to force our banks to behave ethically because the banks will always have smarter lawyers than the government. The only way to restore fair banking practice is free market competition.

Suncorp Bank is on the market and the ACCC refused ANZ permission to buy it. The Future Fund should step in, buy Suncorp and turn it into a people’s bank. Suncorp should then be run in a way that guarantees cash, face-to-face banking services through a branch or Australia Post outlet, prohibits de-banking and decides loan applications on financial merit alone, rather than ESG and other political measures.

Read Full Article Here
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RBA’s Ties to US Dollars Leaves Australia Exposed

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The BRICS member states are abandoning the United States’ dollar and other nations are seeking to join the BRICS bloc, which accounts for 25% of world trade and is expected to grow to 50% by 2030. The US dollar is now just 58% of all world trade. As the world moves away from the US dollar its value may fall.

Our Reserve Bank holds AU$35 billion in foreign reserves and half of that is in US treasuries securities. I asked the Governor whether the RBA had modeled the probability of that fall on Australia’s US holdings and whether they intended to invest in more US treasuries. The governor expects Australia’s economy to grow and foreign holdings to increase — as part of risk management however they are looking at other currency markets in line with the RBA’s key bench marks, but without speculating on any future currency fluctuations.

The BRICS group of major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China (the four founding members of the bloc) and South Africa is holding its 15th heads of state and government summit in Johannesburg on 22nd August. Founded as an informal club in 2009, it was initially created as a platform to challenge a world order dominated by the US and its allies with a focus on economic cooperation and increasing multilateral trade and development. As many as 23 countries have now formally applied to join the group and many more are said to be interested.

With more countries investing in and accumulating greater gold reserves and widespread reports that the BRICS alliance is working on creating a new gold-backed trading currency, I asked the Governor if Australia is planning to increase our gold reserves.

The answer was no. “We’ve got our gold reserves and we haven’t bought and sold for a long time, and we have no intention of changing that.”

Transcript

Senator Roberts: I have a question about the Reserve Bank’s reserves. Let me get to it by giving some background. At the BRICS meeting in Cape Town on 2 and 3 June, 13 nations will formally apply to join BRICS, which is currently Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—and Saudi Arabia, with an each-way bet. Candidate nations include Mexico, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Indonesia and Iran. BRICS is now the world’s largest trading bloc, accounting for 25 per cent of world trade which is expected to grow to 50 per cent by 2030. And it’s big in oil.

BRICS member states are abandoning the US dollar in favour of using their own currency or the Chinese renminbi in an environment where other countries, including Australia, are doing the same thing. Pakistan is now buying Russian oil and renminbi. The US dollar is now denominating just 58 per cent of all world trade. The United States has printed $10 trillion over the last seven years, doubling their M2 money supply. That increase has been absorbed in part by an increase in international trade.  As the world moves away from the US dollar the value of the US dollar may fall. The Reserve Bank holds United States treasuries and dollars. Have you modelled the effect on your balance sheet from that probable fall in the value of US holdings.

Mr Lowe: Not as a result of these other global changes you’ve talked about. We spend a lot of time and part of our risk management processes looking at volatility in currencies, because currencies move around all the time, don’t they? That affects the value of those assets on our balance sheet, so we model that from a risk-management perspective. Despite the developments you’re talking about, most countries still hold the bulk of their foreign reserves in US dollars. There’s diversification going on, which is good, but the US dollar is going to remain the dominant currency for some time.

Senator Roberts: What is the value of Reserve Bank holdings of US dollar and US treasuries in Australian dollars?

Mr Lowe: Our total foreign reserves at the moment I think are the equivalent of U$35 billion. What’s the share, Brad?

Dr Jones: I think it’s 55 per cent.

Mr Lowe: Roughly half of that $35 billion is allocated to US dollars, and then we have holdings of yen, Korean won, euros and rmb.

Senator Roberts: What about treasuries?

Mr Lowe: When we hold US dollars we invest it in US Treasury securities. We don’t invest in bank deposits or any other securities. We invest in US government securities.

Senator Roberts: What’s the reverse holding of Australian government currency and bonds held by the US government or their agencies?

Mr Lowe: We don’t have data on that.

Senator Roberts: Could you get that on notice?

Mr Lowe: No.

Senator Roberts: You don’t have it?

Mr Lowe: We don’t have data on specific holdings of other countries.

Dr Jones: If I understood your question correctly, Senator, the US holds euros and yen, from recollection, but not in large quantities.

Senator Roberts: While that arrangement helps with international stability across holdings, it is a method for backdoor quantitative easing. Does the Reserve Bank expect to increase your holding of US treasuries in the next 12 months?

Mr Lowe: We’ve just done an exercise where we were looking at how much of our balance sheet should be held in foreign assets. We said we’ve got $35 billion at the moment. As the size of the economy grows you would expect that to gradually increase. But, no, nothing dramatic. As the economy grows and the nominal value of the Australian economy gets bigger, then you would expect a bigger portfolio in US dollars and foreign currency.

Senator Roberts: The Reserve Bank has a mission to anticipate movements in major trading partners and in world markets. As it affects your provisioning and portfolio, does the Reserve Bank anticipate being affected by any out of the ordinary moves in financial markets in connection with the US economy or the US dollar over forward estimates?

Mr Lowe: We’ve recently been focused on the US debt limit issues in the US. If an agreement had not been reached there, that would have had implications for currency markets and economies around the world. So that’s one thing that we’ve looked at carefully. It looks like that has been resolved, thankfully. And, just as part of our general risk management exercise, we’re looking at developments in other economies and their implications for currency markets in own economy.

Dr Jones: As a general rule though, the way the bank has operated its reserves has changed quite a bit over the last, say, 25 years, and now the bank effectively sets key benchmarks and sticks to them. There are not big discretionary decisions going on every day. There’s wild speculation going on at the Reserve Bank, I can assure you, about the future value of exchange rates.

Senator Roberts: I wasn’t implying that. Worldwide purchases of US treasuries by central banks has fallen $600 billion in 2022 as compared to a baseline year of 2013. That’s just arbitrary—2013. Purchases of gold have increased $300 billion. So something is going on that Australia would be prudent to hedge against. Is the Reserve Bank increasing its gold reserves as an each way bet against BRICS introducing a gold brick currency of some form?

Mr Lowe: No, we’re not. We’ve got our gold reserves. We haven’t bought and sold for a long time and we have no intention of changing that at the moment.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Governor.

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The inquiry into Bank Closures in regional Queensland has kicked off this morning in Cloncurry.

Previously, Westpac abruptly announced their plans to close the branch that deals with millions of dollars in agribusiness and mining contractors, with no consultation.

When this inquiry announced we would be coming to Cloncurry to hear from locals and interrogate Westpac, they suddenly reversed their decision to abandon Cloncurry.

While the backdown is a small win, there are still dozens of regional branches on the big banks’ chopping blocks. Despite taking millions of dollars from the bush, the banks are happy to keep hollowing out regional town services to save a few cents.

Residents are forced to travel hundreds of extras kilometres to bank and community events are put on hold because they can’t get a decent cash float in their own town.

Bank profits are at record highs, the Australian community expects that they do the bare minimum for our regional towns and they are failing them.

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Only $80 billion of $1.2 trillion in deposits protected

Our banks are bastards, but they are well capitalised. Yet, if they were to run into trouble as is happening overseas, our government is only guaranteeing 7% of Australian money in the bank.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Last week I asked questions about the funding for the deposits guarantee scheme, which was designed to protect the money in the bank accounts of everyday Australians—capped at $250,000 per account, $20 billion per bank and $80 billion total. Minister, when the scheme was brought in, the eligible deposits being protected were $650 billion. According to statement 9 of Budget Paper No. 1 of the October 2022 Labor budget—your budget—eligible deposits are now $1.2 trillion. How can $80 billion possibly protect $1.2 trillion in deposits?

Senator GALLAGHER (ACT—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council): I think this question goes to some of the concerns that we’re seeing in global financial markets at the moment, and the impact on some banks overseas and some concerns that Senator Roberts is raising about the potential for impact here in Australia. The answer is the same as I gave last week.

Senator Rennick: You don’t know how to count.

Senator GALLAGHER: Thank you, Senator Rennick. Would you like leave to speak to this question or am I allowed to? You’d like to, would you?

The PRESIDENT: Minister Gallagher, address your comments to those opposite through the chair. Senator Rennick, resume your seat.

Senator Watt: Tell us about your Masters in Applied Finance!

Senator GALLAGHER: I know responding to interjections is disorderly, but Senator Rennick’s got verbal diarrhoea, it seems, this question time. He can’t keep it in. As I said last week, this is something the government is monitoring closely. In fact, the Treasurer is being briefed twice a day on what’s happening overseas, and is also being provided with feedback from regulators and from the banking system here. I think it is very good, and I would think that it’s something that this Senate would welcome, that our financial markets and our banking system are well regulated, well led and well capitalised, with good liquidity, and we are not seeing the issues that are being seen overseas. I did undertake, and I’m not sure if we’ve done this, to provide you with a written response to the question that you raised last week. I’ll chase that if it hasn’t got to you, as well as anything further I can provide in relation to the answer I’ve just given.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, your first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: My constituents, as I expressed last week and in the last question, are concerned. Minister, the protected amount is not indexed and, because of inflation, would need to be increased to $380,000 per account and $115 billion overall just to cover the same amount as the scheme did in 2008. Minister, will you increase the caps on the bank deposit guarantee to make up for inflation since 2008?

Senator GALLAGHER: In line with the answer I gave last week, of course the government would respond in relation to concerns that were raised about the operation of our banking system and the impact it was having here. We are not seeing that. I think Australians should be reassured that the Australian banking system is resilient and that all of our banks, as I said, are well capitalised and have strong liquidity coverage. The Treasury and regulators are closely monitoring the situation about potential impacts for Australia—and when I say that, I mean very closely monitoring. I can understand that people watching what has happened with Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse would have raised concerns. I can understand that. The response is that since the GFC and since the banking royal commission there are measures in place to ensure the strong performance of our banking system, and we don’t have any concerns about it.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Reviewing the minister’s answers, I have five questions on the guarantee so far. Firstly, the guarantee has not been adjusted for inflation, and so it offers 34 per cent less protection than when it was legislated. Secondly, the guarantee is not funded. There is no money available to implement it. Thirdly, the scheme only covers 7c in the dollar of deposits. Fourthly, the minister has refused to commit to activating the scheme if it was needed. Minister, can you explain why constituents should not conclude, as many have, that the bank deposit guarantee is a fraud and a lie?

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t agree with that representation by Senator Roberts at all. I have answered the question in a general sense by saying that, if there were concerns as we saw in the GFC, of course the government, and I presume the parliament, would act. The point I’m trying to make is that at this point we don’t have concerns. We do not share the concerns. In fact, we’ve been given very strong reassurance by the regulators, by the banks themselves and by the systems that have been put in place by this place and the other place to ensure that we have a strong, well regulated, well capitalised banking system to precisely insulate from some of the financial instability that we’re seeing elsewhere. Yes, of course, the government would respond if we had to. At this point in time we are assured that that’s not the case.

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$4.7 billion bank heist goes unpunished

If you steal $100 you go to jail. If a bank steals $4.7 billion they just get a strongly worded letter.

The Government is trying to make sure bankers don’t face any personal responsibility or jail time when they commit a crime.

Transcript

As a servant to the many amazing people who make up our one Queensland community, I note that if an everyday Australian steals a few thousand dollars they go to jail, yet if a banker steals $4.7 billion they do not go to jail.

As at 31 December 2022, six of Australia’s largest banking and financial services institutions have paid or offered a total of $4.7 billion in compensation to customers who suffered loss or detriment because of fees for no service or non-compliant advice. ‘Banks gone bad’, greedily charging fees for no service and providing financial advice that failed to meet the standards for financial advice, ripped $4.7 billion off everyday Australians. And they got away with it. Let me name and shame them: National Australia Bank, AMP, ANZ, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie Bank. Australia has a Banking Executive Accountability
Regime, B-E-A-R, that’s supposed to hold bank executives to account. Clearly, BEAR does not work, because no executive has been fined, let alone jailed, for this corporate fraud.

Is corporate fraud now okay with Labor, with the Liberal-Nationals and with the teals? Apparently. Now Stephen Jones, the minister representing the banks, is planning to introduce legislation to take the penalties out of the BEAR scheme to expedite the banks ripping off more Australians in the future.

One Nation has a simple message for banking executives: don’t even think about it! Unless we keep and use penalty based regulation, nothing will stop these banks doing the same again. Free market competition, though, will bring the banks to heel.

A proper Australia Post bank will provide genuine competition for our banking cartel, using ethical, community based banking at thousands of new bank branches. It’s been proven with the original Commonwealth Bank a hundred years ago.

One Nation has a long history of standing up for everyday Australians. Clearly, the Labor Party does not.

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