Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've been communicating today with the Mayor of Junee Shire Council, Neil Smith, and the general manager, James Davis, about their ongoing concerns about the closure of that wonderful railway and now jail town's only bank. The Commonwealth Bank is set to close its doors. This is reprehensible, when you think that a town like Junee, which lies halfway between Sydney and Melbourne—a thriving community with a vibrant business community—is set to lose its only bank. Junee is 42 kilometres from Wagga Wagga. Junee has a population of nearly 6½ thousand. It needs banking services.

What's going to happen now is that the businesspeople of Junee are going to have to get in their cars and drive along the Olympic Highway to Wagga to deposit their cash each night. The member for Gippsland in a contribution in this place earlier this week described the modern day bank robber as being some of the CEOs, rather than the balaclava-wearing thief. That's a bit rough—a bit harsh—but it's probably true. The member for Parkes, who sits behind me, talked about the disconnect between the CEOs who talk a big game about Australia Day and working because of the supposed offence concerning this national day, yet they are so willing and so happy to close their bank branches in rural, regional and remote Australia.

Just in the Riverina in 2018, the NAB closed branches in Lockhart, Grenfell and Ardlethan. In December 2022, the Forbes branch closed. On 9 February, the NAB will close its Holbrook branch. The ANZ, in May 2018, closed its Temora and Forbes branches. In 2023, the Parkes branch will go. The Commonwealth closed its Lockhart branch and is set to close Junee. The Westpac branch in Parkes will close in 2023. Yet these communities I mentioned have given those banks so much, over so many years! They deserve better.

Junee is not going to cop this. I have spoken to Mr Davis, and I fully endorse his remarks. He said this will be the 700th bank branch to close in the past three years. He has done the research. If they maintain the same pace of closures, there are not going to be any branches left in three years time. Of course he is referring to the regions. Junee is mounting a petition. They are getting national media attention. What we don't want to see is people being held up on the Olympic Highway because they might need to make deposits in Wagga Wagga. I have met with Junee council and I'm pleased that Senator Perin Davey is pushing ahead with the banking inquiry, in terms of the work that she has been doing—and others as well—to review and strengthen the Australian Banking Association's branch closure protocols, to implement branch closure impact assessments and to promote and support Bank@Post services and to maintain access to cash. Maintaining access to cash is one of the things people might not consider or think about, but those small businesses in those regional towns need cash because a lot of people in those towns still operate with cash, such as the Junee Liquorice & Chocolate Factory. They're pretty upset, let me tell you! I know Neil Druce. I know him very, very well and I know his daughter Rhiannon. They have a wonderful business, and many people come into that small business and operate on cash. He's contemplating what he's going to do as far as where he deposits his money.

These people have been left high and dry by banks—not just the CBA, but other banks—that are abandoning Junee and deserting and abandoning regional Australia. It's not good enough. It's simply not good enough for these banks to get all woke when they want to think and talk about Australia Day in capital cities and leave our regional communities without banking services. Those regional communities, through farms and through resources, have invested heavily in those banks and in those bank employees for year upon year upon year, for decades, for more than a hundred years. It's simply not good enough, and we in regional Australia aren't going to cop it. So I say to the bank CEOs: lift your game, pull your socks up and reopen those branches.