Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday, 21 May, I visited the headquarters of the National Australia Bank in Melbourne with two local community leaders, Fergus Nutt, representing the traders of Mount Martha, and Lloyd Smith, representing the residents of not only Mount Martha but also Balnarring and Rye. The reason we visited the state manager of the National Australia Bank and a senior executive in their corporate communications and government relations centre is that the National Australia Bank has decided to close three branches on the Mornington Peninsula: Balnarring, Rye and Mount Martha. Each is a blow to local residents. Each is a blow to the workers. Each is a blow to traders who rely on the bank’s service. So we attended to protest, respectfully but clearly and absolutely. We said that it was time for the National Australia Bank to review, rethink and redetermine the outcome of each those three cases. I am not hopeful, but we will fight and fight and fight to see if we can have this decision reversed.

In the case of Balnarring and Rye, it is a tragic outcome for those communities. They have the small consolation that they also have existing community banks which will remain in place. While the closing of the National Australia Bank would be a great inconvenience, the community banks do at least provide an option. In the case of Mount Martha, a town of 9,000 people, there will be no bank—not a single bank. What we said to the National Australia Bank was very clear: ‘If you pull out, there will be a community response. Mount Martha will fight back and we will push to do two things. We will push to establish a community bank and we will push to make sure that as many of the community members as possible move their business to that bank. Whether they are traders, whether they are residents, whether they have a second residence at Mount Martha, we will push to ensure that as many of these people as possible move their business from the National Australia Bank to the community bank.’

We will not do that out of a vindictive approach. We will do it from the position that Mount Martha needs a bank. We need to establish a bank for seniors, for mums or dads who do not want to travel too far during the day if they have childcare duties, for traders who are unable to be away from their shops in the strip. We need community support in order to establish that bank, so we shall be unrelenting and unflinching in pushing to establish a community bank. I urge the National Australia Bank to review its position. I fear that it is not going to do so, in which case Mount Martha will fight back and we will establish a community bank.