Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing the amendments that the member for Melbourne has put forward, I would start by saying that I do not doubt his genuine sincerity in having a discussion about ATM fees. I do not necessarily think, though, that his advice to the banking industry would be well received. If the member for Melbourne were to open a bank on the principles he has outlined here in the House today and call it the Greens Bank, for example, and he were to run it at a loss—he sort of railed against banks making a profit—and he were to charge no fees for service and provide free money, I am not certain that there would be a rush from the Australian population to put their money into the Greens Bank. I am not sure his advice to the banking industry is really that accurate or that well regarded.

In terms of the series of amendments that he has put forward, the first point to make is that the Financial System Inquiry did not make a recommendation on ATM fees. This bill is about excessive surcharging by merchants—that is, where merchants are charging a fee that is not related to the cost of providing that service—which was found by the Financial System Inquiry to be a matter of concern. It is a problem that all Australians know about. It is a problem that they reported to the Financial System Inquiry. It is a problem that David Murray highlighted from the inquiry. It is a specific recommendation. This is why the opposition and the government are united in this endeavour. We do not want to see merchants surcharging excessively the public in an unrelated way to the actual fees for providing that service.

ATMs—and there are many ATMs around the country—and ATM fees might be a legitimate issue for discussion in another forum, in another context. It would not be good law. It would not be good process to start tacking on everybody's pet issue to the back of serious bills about reducing credit card surcharging. It would not be a good process. It has not been a recommendation of the Financial System Inquiry. There are whole different issues at play about the fees for service at ATMs. Of course there are different issues at play, because providing an ATM service does have a cost structure to it and, regardless of the member for Melbourne's fictional economic understanding of these things, it does cost money to provide terminals in place and banks ought to have the right to recover cost and to charge fees for service for accessing money. Fee for service of a business is a well understood principle. The levels and the nature of those fees, when they are applied or not applied, are legitimate items for discussion in a different forum and in a different way, and the government is open to a conversation about those things in the future.

This bill is so important, because we are addressing something quite different, and I do not think it is accurate for the member for Melbourne to conflate these two issues. There are different issues at play, and here specifically David Murray, a well-respected individual, has inquired into these issues at length. He has identified this as a specific problem, and of course the government has responded very quickly and strongly with this legislation to ensure Australians can now have confidence that when they are charged for the use of a credit card it is entirely 100 per cent related to the cost of providing that service. We can now all have confidence in that.

The government will not be supporting the amendments of the Greens in relation to this, and I urge them, if they want to have a conversation about this, to take it to the appropriate forum and the proper place and we can have that conversation.

See this speech in context