26 February 2025
Vol. 27 No. 7

Australia is hurtling towards an economic catastrophe by the middle of the year, because nobody in authority is prepared to tell the banks to simply do their job.

The economic catastrophe will be a collapse in cash distribution, if the banks don’t work out a deal with Armaguard by June, and if they don’t reach a deal to replace Westpac’s current cash distribution contract with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) which expires in July.

Without cash, Australia will fall into chaos. Regional Australia especially will suffer, but so too will many elderly, vulnerable, and indigenous Australians who rely on cash, and who are the 26 per cent of Australians not “digitally included” according to the Digital Inclusion Index. The small business sector will be hit very hard, which is 98 per cent of all Australian businesses. Of most concern, it will mean that all of Australia will be far more vulnerable to any disruptions in power and communications, and natural disasters, because of the role of cash as the most reliable backup to electronic payments systems.

RBA Governor Michele Bullock said to the House Economics Committee on 21 February: “I think they have to find a solution by June. If they don’t, then we’re in trouble.” But then she added, “So I think that necessity will mean that something will be done. I don’t know what it is.” Wait, what? The most powerful banker in Australia, whose office carries the authority of the Australian government, and whose bank is responsible for issuing the cash the economy needs, knows the country is careening towards a cash cliff, but she assumes it will be averted, except she doesn’t know how?

Is this how Australia really works? Yes, because the “they” in Bullock’s comments are the major banks. God forbid anyone in authority would tell the banks what to do, even in the face of a looming catastrophe. The banks have entirely created the cash crisis in Australia, by not just aggressively marketing to customers they should go digital, but also aggressively taking away all of the alternatives that ensure access to cash—bank branches and ATMs. Cash-in-transit companies like Armaguard, which is now a virtual monopoly, have contracts to transport cash to suburbs and towns, but without bank branches in those towns to receive the bulk of the cash, they have the same fixed costs with far less income.

For their part, the Big Four banks, which share more than $30 billion in profits per year, whine like spoiled children about the financial cost of distributing cash, which would be around $1 billion per year. They complain that it is somehow unfair that they are “cross-subsidising” those pesky customers who have the temerity to not conform to the banks’ digital dystopia and still use cash.

But this is not about the banks. It’s about the pathetic authorities who give them impunity and let them get away with economic murder. RBA Governor Bullock revealed later in her testimony that the RBA’s only idea for helping solve the crisis has been to look for ways for the publicly owned RBA to pay the banks more money to do their job! But even then she didn’t know if it would work.

There’s only one solution to this economic blackmail by the banks—end their impunity, now! It’s time for the government and RBA to stop kissing their butts and start barking orders, and hold them accountable. The Australian Citizens Party’s Senate candidate for NSW, Assoc. Prof. Andy Schmulow, sets the tone for how the banks should be treated in his Citizens Insight interview just posted on YouTube (p. 3): turn their arguments into a stick and beat them!

Only the ACP will end the banks’ impunity and break their power over Australia! We will order the banks to do their job, and create a postal bank that will put them out of business if they don’t.

In this week’s issue:

• Must watch! Andy Schmulow—The candidate who will terrify the banks and take out the garbage
• The cash solution to digital surcharge disaster
• Are you a digital ‘non person’?
• Choice survey respondents back cash
• Whyalla steelworks rescue is necessary, but not sufficient
• Chinese Navy in our waters?
• The facts about David McBride, another Scapegoat for the Empire*
• Trump thought bubbles won’t ruffle Global Majority
• Russian-American diplomacy begins, sends shock waves
• When will Europe wake up? Ukraine’s dictatorship is shrouded in myths about democracy
• The ACP: truth not lies!
• Australia must partake in hi-tech development charge

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