Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

And on time—yes, of course. And then on top of that, what if you send it by post? Dear God! The temerity of putting it through Australia Post in an envelope! It is $2.20. And then on top of that again, if you have the further temerity to get out your plastic and pay for it then they will have another go. This has been going on for too long in Australia, and you do not expect one of the leading corporations of the country to be leading it.

American Express. We will have to charge you a levy.’ It is as if you have got some sort of fungus on your hands. Or it is, ‘Oh, you are on Diners Card.’ The latest one I have seen is, ‘To even this all out we will charge you all another one per cent.’ I saw that in a prominent hotel in Sydney not more than two months ago. And the whole idea of this is to screw a bit more out of the client. In fact, I went to Gladstone not so long ago and I was actually charged $8 more for using an American Express card. I think it was $5 plus three per cent of the bill. That is sim-ply outrageous. If you are a businessperson and you accept the facilitation of American Express, Diners, Master-Card or Visa or whatever it might be, you are committing to that form. You are saying, ‘I am prepared to accept business on your terms.’ You cannot then say, ‘Well, I have accepted it on your terms but there will be a bit more for me.’ And that is what it is. Then when you come to Telstra, not only do they want to charge you the $2.20 for posting in your bill or paying in cash—paying in cash, I just cannot get over this!—but on top of that, if you are paying on Diners Card then you are up for another two per cent. So all in all, if you are a Diners Card customer, it is four per cent.

I reckon this is wrong. It diminishes the quality of legal tender. We have 800 years of developed law that came from Magna Carta and the monasteries, the British parliamentary system, our own parliamentary system, and partly the American system. We have international codes of conduct and behaviour with finance, and it ill behoves a leading Australian company to be guilty of this sort of thing. I commend you, Member for Franklin. I support you in getting the ACC to give this a real working over. I really think that the Treasurer should seriously consider strengthening the legal tender provisions of the Currency Act.

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