Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) to (17) together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (after line 27), after subsection (2F), insert:

  (2G) In addition to the effect that this Act (other than Parts IIIA, VIIA and X) has as provided by another subsection of this section, this Act (other than Parts IIIA, VIIA and X) has, by force of this subsection, the effect it would have if:

  (a) each reference in Part IVD to an ATM transaction were a reference to an ATM transaction that occurs:

     (i) by means of a postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other like service (including electronic communication); or

     (ii) by means of an automatic teller machine provided by a bank (other than a State bank), or any other institution engaged in banking, in the course of banking (within the meaning of section 51(xiii) of the Constitution); and

(b) each reference to a corporation included a reference to a person not being a corporation.

(2) Schedule 1, item 3, page 10 (after line 32), after Part IVC, insert:

Part IVD—ATM transactions

Division 1—Preliminary

55N Object of this Part

     The object of this Part is to ensure that:

  (a) account holders are not charged for ATM transactions made using automatic teller machines owned or leased by the persons with whom their accounts are held; and

  (b) amounts charged for other ATM transactions:

     (i) are not excessive; and

     (ii) reflect the reasonable costs of allowing a person to make an ATM transaction.

55P Definitions

     In this Part:

  ATM transaction means a cash deposit to, a cash withdrawal from, or an enquiry about the balance of, an account that is made by means of an automatic teller machine.

55Q Part not to apply to State banking

     This Part does not apply with respect to State banking that does not extend beyond the limits of the State concerned.

Division 2—Limit on charges for ATM transactions

55R Limit on charges for ATM transactions

No charges for ATM transactions made using own -branded ATMs

(1) A corporation must not, in trade or commerce, charge a person an amount (however described) for making an ATM transaction if:

  (a) the corporation is an ADI (authorised deposit-taking institution) for the purposes of the Banking Act 1959; and

  (b) the transaction relates to an account held by the person with the corporation; and

(c) the automatic teller machine used to make the transaction is owned or leased by the corporation.

ATM transactions made using foreign ATMs must not be excessive

(2) A corporation must not, in trade or commerce, charge a person an amount (however described) for making an ATM transaction that is excessive (see subsection (3)) if:

  (a) the corporation is an ADI (authorised deposit-taking institution) for the purposes of the Banking Act 1959; and

  (b) the transaction relates to an account held by the person with the corporation; and

(c) the automatic teller machine used to make the transaction is not owned or leased by the corporation.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), an amount charged for making an ATM transaction is excessive if the amount exceeds the amount permitted by a standard determined under section 18 of the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3):

  (a) the Reserve Bank of Australia must ensure that there are at all times in force standards under section 18 of the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 permitting amounts for the purposes of subsection (3); and

  (b) the making of such standards is taken to be in the public interest; and

(c) an amount permitted for an ATM transaction must reflect the reasonable costs of allowing the person to make the transaction.

55S Acquisition of property

Scope

(1) This section applies to the following provisions of this Act:

  (a) section 55R;

  (b) any other provision to the extent to which it relates to section 55R.

Effect of provision

(2) The provision has no effect to the extent (if any) to which its operation would result in the acquisition of property (within the meaning of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution) otherwise than on just terms (within the meaning of that paragraph).

(3) Schedule 1, item 4, page 11 (line 2), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(4) Schedule 1, item 5, page 11 (after line 5), after subparagraph (ia), insert:

     (ib) section 55R;

(5) Schedule 1, item 6, page 11 (line 7), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(6) Schedule 1, item 7, page 11 (line 9), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(7) Schedule 1, item 8, page 11 (after line 12), after subparagraph (ia), insert:

     (iib) section 55R;

(8) Schedule 1, item 9, page 11 (line 14), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(9) Schedule 1, item 10, page 11 (line 16), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(10) Schedule 1, item 11, page 11 (line 18), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

(11) Schedule 1, item 12, page 11 (line 20), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

(12) Schedule 1, item 13, page 11 (line 22), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

(13) Schedule 1, item 14, page 11 (line 24), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

(14) Schedule 1, item 15, page 12 (line 3), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(15) Schedule 1, item 16, page 12 (line 5), after "55B,", insert "55R,".

(16) Schedule 1, item 17, page 12 (line 12), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

(17) Schedule 1, item 18, page 12 (line 19), after "55B", insert "or 55R".

The minister, in summing up, said—I am paraphrasing slightly—that recovering costs is not unreasonable but profiteering is. That is a very good principle and it is one that, under these amendments, we are seeking to extend not just to credit cards but to ATM transactions. At the moment in Australian society you pretty much have no choice but to use a card. You use a card either to get your cash out of the bank or to make a payment. What the bill does—and this is why we are supporting it—is say: if the way you are making your payment is through a credit card then the merchant can charge you a fee for processing but they cannot profiteer out of it. Under this legislation, when it goes through, the merchant will only be able to charge a fee that reflects the cost to them of processing transactions et cetera. That is a good move. But what the bill does not do is tackle one of the other ways in which banks make hundreds of millions of dollars from people, which is through the $2 to $3 ATM fees that you see.

Most people now go to their own bank to get money out in order to try and avoid these $2 to $3 ATM fees. That is a good thing. People should not be charged for the privilege of accessing their own money. In modern society, you cannot get by without having a bank account. Banks get huge amounts of money put into their coffers with people's salaries, welfare payments and so on. If you go to your own bank to get money out you should not be charged for it. That is what most banks are doing now. That is a good thing, and it will be enshrined in law if these amendments are passed.

We all know there are many, many times when, despite your best efforts, you find yourself without enough cash in your wallet. It might be that the place you are wanting to purchase at does not take a card., so you cannot use payWave or you cannot use a credit card; or you might have some urgent purchase to make and you have nothing in your wallet and the only ATM nearby that you can get to is one that is not of your own bank. When you go to that bank to get money out you can be charged a fee of $2, $2.50 and sometimes even as high as $3. We know it is worse in many rural and regional areas. But what we also know is that the real cost to the bank for providing that service, of letting you get your money out even though it is not your own bank, is about 77c. The rest of the money is the cream on top of that, which the bank is making. Banks who are making world-leading record profits in this country should not be allowed to profiteer from people accessing their own money. You should have a right to access your own money from an ATM. If there is a cost because you are not going to your own bank but to another bank then let us do what this bill is doing for credit cards and limit the cost of the ATM fee to a reasonable cost to the banker for providing the service.

These amendments will allow a standard to be set. The RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia, will set that standard with regard to the cost to the bank for recovering the cost of the transaction. So banks will not be left out of pocket by this amendment, but consumers will be better off. We are saying: let us take a very, very good principle that this government is applying to credit cards and also apply it to ATM fees. It is essential, because people are sick of seeing that $2 or $3 fee come up when they are getting their own money out. People are sick of being charged for the privilege of accessing their own money, because often they have tried their best to get to their own ATM and they just cannot for whatever reason.

What we also know is that these fixed fees hurt the poor and low-income earners more than everyone else, because they are the ones who are most likely to withdraw small amounts of money. When you take $20, $40 or $50 out the ATM, whacking a $2.50 fee on top of that is a much, much bigger impost on these people than it is on someone who is in a position to take out several hundreds of dollars at one particular time. So it is an equity measure as well.

Consumer groups and the Greens have been campaigning for years to rein in excessive ATM fees that are just another way for the banks to make money. When we remember that the big four banks are the most profitable in the world and are bringing in in the order of $30 billion profit combined, this is one small way that they could give back to the community. They could say: we are no longer going to profiteer from people getting access to their own money. I commend these amendments to the House. If the minister sincerely believes, as I am sure he does, in the spirit of these amendments for credit card fees, there is no logical reason not to extend them to ATM fees as well.

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

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, there is not going to be support for these amendments in the House, so I will not delay the matter further—and I elaborated the reasons for supporting these amendments further in my second reading speech. But I will ask the minister whether he believes that the principle of cost recovery for fees—namely, that you should only be able to charge a fee, if it reflects the real cost to the person providing that fee—should extend to ATM fees as well or whether it is limited only to credit card fees?

Secondly, the minister said that now is not the appropriate time and that there are other appropriate forums. Does the government have any plans to tackle excessive ATM fees; and should we be expecting any moves from the government on this any time soon?

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

Again, I reiterate in relation to these amendments that this bill is about excessive credit card surcharging, so this is not a debate about ATM fees. There may be a proper time and place to have that debate and that discussion. Certainly it is the government's view that banks need to make a profit. There needs to be competition in our economy and a competitive and well-regulated banking sector. That does not mean that we seek to run every single aspect of the banking sector and every single aspect of their business.

There are good arguments in relation to the cost of ATMs, and this is a great era we are in, where people can access their own capital in more ways than ever before, whether they be through payWave services, digitally online or through an ATM terminal. And of course we have to continue to innovate and exploit that era, but we are not running the banks, I have to say, to the member for Melbourne. We regulate to ensure that there are strong capital and liquidity requirements in Australia and that we have confidence in the banking sector, but we do not want to be day-to-day bankers and run every single aspect of their business. This is not a bill about the banks; this is a bill about excessive credit card surcharging, which has been identified by the Financial System Inquiry as a serious area of concern to most Australians that needs tackling. The government agrees that merchants should not be allowed to add unreasonable and excessive charges on top of credit cards for people to access credit.

This is a worthy bill so we seek your support. We seek for you to drop these amendments so we can get this through. And if you have serious concerns, have carefully analysed every aspect of ATMs and other fees and want to present a report, go ahead and do it. But I suspect you would not be able to tell us today exactly the cost structure of providing 15,000 ATMs around the country. I suspect you would not be able to tackle it today, so rather than waste this House's time with an endless debate about something which is not what this bill is about, simply support what is—I think you would agree—a very worthwhile measure and something the government is doing that you can support. You do not always have to rail against the machine, Member for Melbourne. When the government does something worthwhile you can get up and say, 'This is worthwhile.' The Labor Party is on board, and the opposition is on board. This is a worthwhile measure supported by the Financial System Inquiry, supported by the opposition and supported by the Australian public. You can get up and have a nice day with us and say, 'Thank you for what we're doing' and 'What a good bill,' and then we can have another debate, if you want to do so.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government sure is full of people whose egos exceeds their capacity. The minister may not have heard, but in my second reading speech and opening words to moving my amendment I commended the bill and said we were going to support it. It does some very good things, and that is why we are giving it our support. And what I also said was, 'Can we extend this principle to ATM fees?' Then the minister just could not help himself and decided to have a very long tail to his answer to my question and said, 'We're not able to get up and talk about the cost structure of providing ATM fees.'

The minister may not be aware but the Reserve Bank has actually looked into this and, coming out of all that, there has been a finding that the average cost of a third-party provision of ATM services—a bank providing it for another bank's customer—is around 77c. So this issue has been inquired into, and we have brought private members' bills before to this parliament to try to address the issue, underpinned by exactly that research. So the facts are out there and they have been put before this place many, many times.

I can only take from what the minister has said that he does not believe that the current levels of ATM fees being charged are excessive. He does not believe that a $3, $2.50 or $2 ATM fee is worthy of the attention of this parliament, so I will not be holding my breath for the minister to come back with any proposals. It is clear from his answer that this government does not see ATM fees as excessive, despite the significant evidence available and everybody knowing, when they see that message come up on the screen as they are getting their card out of the ATM, that they are being charged $2.50. Everyone knows it is a problem, and all we were seeking to do is extend a very good principle in a bill that we have commended on credit card fees to ATM fees.

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

I simply reiterate that this bill is a worthwhile bill in itself. It does not address the issue of ATMs—it was not a recommendation of the Financial System Inquiry—and the member for Melbourne's simplified explanation of ATM fees is not able to be discussed in this debate today in the House. Simply getting up and putting your own particular view about one particular component of one particular report is not a way to make law in this country. It is not a fair way to make law or have a debate in this country. Mr Bandt's amendment tacked onto a bill about something else is not a way to run an economy, not a way to run a government, not a way to provide certainty and confidence for consumers or businesses. It is not really right for him to come in here and raise one aspect of one pet thing that might be of concern to him and suggest that we just tack it onto the back of a bill about something else. That is what the government's principal objection is here. We make no claims about the other matters that he raises, because this is not the forum to discuss them. It is very simple. It is not appropriate to come in here and just add something that is very complex, something that does bear discussion and consideration by government, something that does concern Australians, something worth considering in other forums in other ways, onto the back of something else and pretend we have had a reasonable discussion about it. There are many complex issues related to those matters.

I say to the House again that the government and the opposition have carefully looked at these matters in the Financial System Inquiry and the reason we have come to the same view is that that is the strong recommendation of Mr David Murray. I say to the member for Melbourne: you have many forums, you have many opportunities, you have many ways of raising those matters but it is not a good process, it is not good law, it is not good for the economy or consumers or businesses to be attaching minor pet issues onto the back of every single piece of legislation about other matters when people are unable to have the proper debates or the proper considerations about the issues that you want us to legislate on.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

As there are fewer than five members on the side for the ayes in this division, I declare the question negatived in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

Question negatived, Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting yes.

Bill agreed to.