Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The cutting of defence spending was by Labor—

Mr Feeney interjecting—

You have made your intervention and I have happily accepted it. Under Labor, the cuts were to 1938 levels as a ratio of gross domestic product. I saw projects cut at Kapooka, the Army Recruit Training Centre responsible for the training of recruits, for the training of brave men and women. Projects for infrastructure at Kapooka were cut because of Labor. The only area where Labor wanted to spend money was buying back water for irrigation communities. There was always enough money for that, but there was never enough money for health or education—those important things that Labor always purports to represent but never does.

But I will tell you what, the bottom of barrel was then they tried to ensure that money was being trousered from children's accounts and from seniors' accounts. This bill will ensure that bank accounts and life insurance amounts cannot be transferred to the government until they have been inactive for seven years. The bill exempts children's accounts and accounts in a foreign currency from the unclaimed moneys provisions and better protects the privacy of account holders with unclaimed funds in order to limit the ability of some businesses to exploit them.

Up until 2012, accounts must have been inactive for at least seven years before they could be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. In 2012, this period was reduced by Labor from seven years to three years. This resulted in a large number of, effectively, active accounts—things we heard the member for Ryan talk about such as education funds and funeral accounts, and all these sorts of things—being transferred to ASIC. That left many, many Australians financially stressed. Shame, Labor, shame.

The previous Labor government made such a mess of the budget during its time in government, it was constantly looking for more cash. This was just robbery at its worst. In October 2012, a despairing Labor government with the member for Lilley as its Treasurer, desperate for cash, announced changes to the unclaimed moneys provision, which reduced the period of inactivity required before bank accounts and unclaimed life insurance amounts were transferred to the government from seven years to three years. These changes caused significant and ongoing disruptions for effective account holders and the financial services industry. This was a direct attack on people's bank accounts and a most inappropriate grab for money by Labor.

I have had my house robbed and there is nothing worse. Could you imagine going online or into the bank or your financial institution and looking to see what your bank account was up to and realising that all your money was gone? 'Where has it gone?' 'It has gone to ASIC.' Labor just did not care. Labor did not have one single care for those people who were saving for a holiday; people who were saving for a tertiary education for their children or their grandchildren; people who were saving to put money away so they would not burden their kids when they died.

I can give you one such example. A 95-year-old Hervey Bay pensioner had $50,000 forfeited from her bank account because it had not been used for seven years. Her family were warning others to be aware of the laws being put in place by Labor. And they were put in place by Labor, member for Batman:

Craignish resident Jan Powell said she was shocked last week when she went to check on the status of an account her mother opened in 2002, established to pay her own funeral costs, and found the balance had gone from $49,000 was zero.

It went from $49,000 to zip; $49,000 to diddly-squat, nothing, zero, zilch. How disgraceful. Then there was the rigmarole that people then had to go through to get the money back. Sure, some might say it is an easy process; some might say it is a perfunctory job of the banks to fill out a form. But some people are not good at filling out forms. Some people get worried and stressed about filling out these forms to get their own money back. It is absolutely disgraceful.

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