Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on behalf of a constituent, my friend Charlie. Charlie had a very bad experience with a bank several years ago. A credit card transaction of his resulted in his bank account being cleaned out. Subsequently, he was not able to recover his lost funds, which were considerable. This led Charlie to have a severe distrust of banks and he closed all his bank accounts. He currently does not have a bank account. Charlie is 73. He is managing to survive at home. He does not have any super and does not receive any social security benefits. He lives on the dividends of various shares that he has purchased on his own after reading the financial papers and making the decisions.

Charlie’s biggest problem at the moment is that the majority of large funds will no longer pay individuals by cheque. This is a grave concern to Charlie, and to numerous other people, particularly because large corporations such as the Coles Group will now only pay dividends direct to a bank account. This is a problem if you are like Charlie and you refuse to have a bank account. Charlie will not have a bank account, no matter how much various people, including me on a recent occasion, have discussed it with him or tried to cajole him into accepting that perhaps the best thing to do is to open a bank account. He is adamant he will not have a bank account; he refuses to have a bank account.

He believes that his civil liberties have been violated by various groups who will no longer send him his dividends by cheque. He has, up until now, lived on these dividends. They arrived by cheque and he had various arrangements so they could be cashed and he could get on with his life. He survives on his dividends, but at the moment he cannot get any of his dividends—and currently he has about $3,000 worth of dividends outstanding—because they will not be provided to him by any means other than a direct credit into a bank account. Of course, this is a bit of a circular movement between Charlie and the various corporations of which he is a shareholder. He believes that in a democracy this situation should not be tolerated. He has asked me specifically to raise this issue in parliament to bring it to parliamentarians’ attention so that something can be done, his rights can be returned and he can get his money—and he needs that money because it is his sole source of income at this point in time. I have tried to explain that we are not going to resolve this problem easily or speedily or overnight, but I did say that I would raise this matter in the House on his behalf. I have done so, and I would also like to say that, yes, in some cases people do not want to be subjected to having a bank account.

In the time I have left this morning I would also like to note the passing of a fantastic branch member of mine who died at the tender age of 68 this week. David: sadly missed. (Time expired)