Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly, Sherwood, a leafy suburban in my electorate, will no longer have a local bank branch for any of the big four banks within a few weeks. Sherwood has many older residents who have been doing their banking locally for decades. These residents will now have no local branch.

ANZ, NAB and now Westpac are all closing their doors in Sherwood. All four of these banks are making huge profits. Westpac, the most recent bank to announce a branch closure, had a profit last year of $8 billion. So who are these banks working for? Is it their shareholders only? What about their customers? Not surprisingly, just as we've heard during the banking royal commission, the big banks are looking after their profits at the expense of their customers.

Banking customers living in Sherwood will have to drive more than 13 kilometres to the Mount Ommaney branch or negotiate the very busy Indooroopilly bridge and Indooroopilly Shoppingtown precinct, if they want to speak to a real person to do their banking. Many older customers will find this either impossible or stressful.

Westpac has a 200-year history in Australia, and they gave me this book the other week. For 200 years, Australians have supported this company and trusted it to look after their hard-earned money, only to be rewarded by having local services that customers rely on shut down. They have dropped the ball in Sherwood. Why would any sensible government reward this behaviour with a $17 billion tax giveaway? I ask these big banks to have a rethink and start putting their customers first, rather than their shareholders.

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