Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2005 and I am quite proud to be able to talk about this bill in the parliament. As a farmer walking around my farm, I was shocked in 2012 that our government could stoop so low as to take money away from people who should not have had money taken away from them.

'I am an economic conservative'—they were the words of Kevin Rudd in 2007. It is easy to say that you are an economic conservative when the accounts were already balanced and there was surplus in the bank when the Labor Party came into government in 2007. But being an economic conservative is not just a statement. It is about choices. It is about making decisions. It is about governing.

Wealth is the combined sum of the efforts and endeavours of everyday Australians. Being entrusted to manage funds is a huge honour and a huge responsibility. At the heart of good government is good economic management, but to have good government you first need a heart.

This bill is not so much about history. It is not so much about what the Labor Party did at a desperate time. This is actually about character. It is about the decisions you make in the tough times. The contrast is that in 2012 the economy was not easy, and yet the Labor Party decided to take money from the sick, the elderly, the poor and sporting groups. I will give examples of exactly those kinds of people within my electorate.

The economy is not much better now. You can look at the economic indicators, and we are still walking through a very tough time but the very difference of character between the Labor Party and the Nationals and Liberal coalition is that they are changing this bill. No-one in the Labor Party wants to talk about this bill, because the Australian people know this bill epitomises character.

When things got tough, the Labor Party had a great idea: 'Let's actually take money out of people's bank accounts.' Surely, there would have been some in the party room—and I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the Labor Party party room when this discussion was raised. Where are the people who used to be the shearers? The people who remembered that $1.50 used to be what you got paid for dragging out a heavy crossbred ewe. That was the Labor Party, wasn't it? They were the shearers. Where were the people who bent their backs all day to make 200 bucks? They know the value of money and they know how hard it would have been to put money aside and how their mothers put money aside—$6,000. They knew it was sitting in a bank account for their funeral so that, if something happened to them, they would not be a burden on the family.

How many workers have that view—'I just don't want to be a burden on my family. I'm going to put money in a bank account, knowing that it's going to sit there.' Where are those people? Those people who used to represent the workers used to sit in the Labor Party. That is where they came from, but not anymore. Because if they did, they would have stood up at the Labor Party party room meeting in 2012 and said, 'That's an idea that's just simply unpalatable. Good one—yeah, I know: governments come up with crazy ideas, but we'll never let that one go through to the keeper. That's a nonsense. You're seriously considering taking money out of people's bank accounts that has only been sitting there for three years.'

That is just something that would never have got through the Labor Party of old. They walked through difficult times when they were in government in the Hawke-Keating years, but it would never have got through. Even 'Mr Spend' Whitlam would never have got that one through, because they had workers in the Labor Party who understood that it was hard work to save money and put it in a bank account; and governments should not touch bank accounts.

But there was no-one there. At least no-one that we know of—at least maybe they weren't leaking; I will give that to them. But where was the person who crossed the floor? Where was the person in the party of collective thought who crossed the floor and said, 'Actually, I'm representing my constituents. My constituents are poor. There's no way known that I will stand by and let people take their bank accounts.' But they did not, because in fact it was 2012. The polls were tough. They knew they needed to spend, because they had been spending. They got in in 2007 and they spent. Even though Kevin Rudd had said, 'I am an economic conservative,' he proved in his actions that he did not have the heart or the internal fortitude to be an economic conservative.

They spent like a drug addict who needed to get more money so that they could continue their spend; like a junkie: looking for money to pay for their next hit. So much so that they would essentially take from the poor, and the poor they were. The Birchip Cemetery Trust was a little country town's cemetery trust. People who had put bequests and people who had put money aside so that the gravestones could be maintained in a cemetery in a country town—they took their money. They took $63,000 from a dried fruit grower who had put that money aside for a drought—and a drought came. They took that money. It took them six months to try to reclaim that money, with no interest and lots of paperwork. The farmer had the money put aside to put his crop in. He went to get the money to pay for the fertiliser to seed the crop in May and could not get it till August. Anyone who knows anything about grain growing knows he missed the whole window. Think about that for a moment. Shame, shame. I very rarely criticise the other side, but this was the worst policy. This grain grower lost his farm. He could not put the crop in, could not get the money to pay, the bank would not loan him the money and it took him six months. He asked for an active grace payment. This was disgraceful and this is the policy that the Labor Party put in.

Of course you would think that the person who came up with this policy you would relegate to the back bench. In fact, they would not win their preselection if they brought up a policy that was going to essentially rob the bank accounts of hardworking Australians. You would not promote this person politically. Instead, what have they done? They have put up the member for Maribyrnong—the now Leader of the Opposition, the now person who they want to present to the Australian people as a fit and proper person to be the Prime Minister of Australia at the next election—the person who came up with this idea, pushed for this idea and implemented this idea when he was Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, to be the Prime Minister.

I ask the Australian people: does this really sit with you? This shows the character that, when things are tough, your money is their money. Not only is it taking from the cemetery trust, from the farmer who had money put aside to put his crop in and from the dried fruit grower; it is also from the children of Australia.

One of the things that has concerned me for a very long time is the economic understanding of how to manage money with our children. We always tell them we need to continue to train, to learn, to save. 'Don't buy that, son; save for it and, when you can afford it, you can buy it.' That is what I was told. I remember that, as a child, we used to have free-range chooks on our little farm. We used to go clean and pack of up the eggs. Ten cents a packer. About an hour's work was roughly 60c. You would write it down and you would save up and save up until you could get something you wanted. That is what we want to encourage in our children.

I lament the credit card culture. I lament that people think they have got to have it and have it now. I think our society is poorer for it. I lament that we do not have lay-by anymore, that we put things on credit card. But how do you instil in our children that they should save, that they should open a bank account, if that money is then raided and taken by the government? Of course that money just sits there; it is there to accumulate. It will gradually accumulate, and you can teach them the wonder of accumulating interest and how that can add to their net worth. But the member for Maribyrnong, the now Leader of the Opposition, was prepared to go to the children of Australia and take their money. This is not a fantasy. This is not a story. This is a historical fact now simply because the economy was tough.

Contrast that with our government, which still has a very tough challenge ahead of us as try to pay the bills and run the economy with character and decency. Amongst all that we are choosing to put right a wrong. We are choosing to say to the children of Australia that we want them to save. We are choosing to say to the children of Australia that we want them to learn the value of good economic management. We want you to put money aside in a bank account and we are not going to steal it from you. We are not going to take it from you. We are going to let that grow so that one day you might be able to buy a car. One day you might be able to buy a video or a DVD—or now you buy it all on Netflix. One day you might be able to buy something you really enjoy, a Father's Day present or something like that. But, if it is in your bank account, it is your money. It is not the government's money.

I think this is a real lesson for the Australian people because today marks two years of government. Sure, we have not done everything right. Government by its very nature is made up of imperfect people governing imperfect people. It is clunky by its very nature. But the one thing we have done is gradually tried to restore the economy, gradually tried to renew confidence for the Australian people and do that in a way that is ethically sound. Contrast that with the person the Labor Party is putting up now as the potential Prime Minister: someone who when things got tough went after your money, when things got tough went after the cemetery trust's money, when things got tough went after the farmer's money and when things got really tough went after the children of Australia's money. Who do you trust to run the country? You will have to make that decision in probably 12 months or fewer from now. All I can say is: look back. In 2012 there was a person who stood up in a party room and then implemented a policy that took away the money of the children of Australia, as opposed to our government, faults and all, who whilst in tough economic times are restoring confidence that you can put money in the bank and it will be your money, it will be respected and it will be safe.

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