Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Explained simply, the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015 is all about stopping the Labor Party and their Greens allies from stealing people's money. That is a simple explanation of what this bill is all about. The previous Labor government, supported by the Greens political party, always in need of a bit of money, thought, 'Here's an easy way to get it—we'll steal the money from depositors who have not dealt with their accounts for a period of three years.' The previous law, the law that had been in place since 1911, was that after a seven-year period the money went to a government agency, for very good reasons. But the Labor Party, supported by the Greens political party, thought, 'Here's a way we can get a bit more money.' Of course, they always needed money.

Mr Acting Deputy President, you and those who are listening to this broadcast might remember that, when Labor took government under Mr Rudd in 2007, the Howard government had put some $60 billion in credit—put it away in the piggy bank, so to speak—to save for a rainy day and to fund important assets or actions of governments in the years ahead. So the Labor government took over in 2007 with $60 billion in credit. What happened? Within a few short years under Labor Party administration, supported I might say—more than supported, egged on—by the Greens political party, that $60 billion in credit went into a debt that, if it had not been addressed, would have approached something like $700 billion. I will repeat that: from $60 billion in credit to $700 billion in debt. That is the legacy of the Labor government.

Where did they get this money from? They borrowed it, very often, from overseas. When you borrow money, as all of us who run a household budget know, you have to pay it back sometime, and in the meantime you have to pay interest. We were in the crazy situation where, thanks to the Labor-Greens debt approaching $700 billion, we were paying something like $1 million a day in interest. Imagine how many roads, how many hospitals and how many schools could have been built with the money the Labor Party and the Greens political party wasted on interest through their intemperance in financial management.

So that bill was another of the Labor Party's schemes to take money from Australians, after a three-year period of inactivity on their accounts. It was opposed at the time by the then opposition, the current government, but of course it was supported by the Labor Party and their Greens political party mates. I am pleased to see that the Labor Party have at last realised the error of their ways and are, from speeches that have been made so far in this chamber, supporting this bill.

This bill simply puts the time limit that accounts remain un-dealt-with and unclaimed by the government back to the seven-year limit that it has been since 1911. In making this major change, the government has also introduced some other amendments that will make it easier and better for Australians to look after their money. For example, children's accounts will be exempted from these provisions of being claimed after seven years of inactivity, and the reason for that is obvious.

Cleverly, the government has also provided, in this bill, that if a depositor signals to the bank in some way that they are aware of the account before it is transferred after the seven-year period then the account will remain in the control of the depositor. So the signal you can give to the bank is if you ring up or if you check the balance of the account online every now and again; that will show to the bank that the account has not been forgotten about, that it is available and that the account will therefore remain in the control of the depositor.

Under the scheme that has applied since 1911—and even under the Labor Party's three-year scheme—someone whose account was taken from the bank and put in a government agency could get it back, eventually, if they had the wherewithal and knew how to do it, and if they remembered it. They could apply to get it back. But that involved red tape, and many people, particularly older people in the community, perhaps would find the effort of trying to reclaim their money from a government agency too difficult. That is why we opposed, at the time, the three-year proposal by the Labor-Greens coalition, and that is why this bill corrects this anomaly and effectively gives Australians' money back to them. It prevents future Labor-Greens governments—should there, heaven forbid, ever be any—from again trying to steal the funds of Australian depositors.

We do have a good banking system in this country. Indeed, it is a system which, at times, has been supported by the government—and that means, of course, supported by the taxpayers, because, as I always say, governments do not have any money; they just use taxpayers' money. Over the years, at various times, the taxpayers have supported the banks, and that is why I always think that the banks owe a duty to Australian taxpayers to run their operations properly and fairly. Occasionally you hear of situations where banks do not.

I hope I am not verballing the National Australia Bank, but I thought I heard a report recently that the National Australia Bank had indicated that it was going to stop funding any fossil fuel investments within Australia. For 'fossil fuel investments' read 'coalmines', and where I come from, in North Queensland, coalmines are very important. They are big contributors to the economy, and they create lots and lots of jobs—jobs for mine workers; jobs for all the mine support staff and jobs for those working in the small businesses that support mines. These are the sorts of jobs that you would think the Australian Labor Party, which claims to be the party of workers, would support. But do they? Of course they do not!

I could understand why the Labor Party is not terribly concerned about workers' rights, because, as I often point out, the Labor Party consists of union hacks and people who have worked in the unions; the majority of their members in this chamber come here from the unions and with not much other experience, I might say. So the unions control the people who come in here, and the people who come in here look after the unions. You might say: 'If the unions looked after the workers and if the Labor Party looked after the workers, that might be okay.' But let us have a look at the figures. Of all workers in the private sector, how many joined a union? Who do the unions speak for? I can tell you, because the Australian Bureau of Statistics told me, that only 12 per cent of workers in the private sector choose to join a union. That means that 88 per cent of workers in the private sector make a deliberate decision not to join the unions. And when you see what is coming out from the royal commission into unions, you can understand why workers do not want to join a union. For that reason, the unions will eventually fade into insignificance. So it is a matter of life and death for the unions, and for all of those opposite me who the unions support, to try and maintain their relevance to Australian society by getting the Australian Labor Party into government. But I emphasise that, in doing this, the unions, which control the Labor Party, and the Labor Party, which answers to the unions, do not answer to the workers; they answer to 12 per cent of the workforce in the private sector. And across Australia they represent only 17 per cent of all workers in all sectors—17 per cent—which means that 83 per cent of all workers in Australia choose not to join a union. Seventeen per cent of Australian workers choose to join the unions, yet it is the union movement that controls the ones who would hope to be the alternative government of this nation. It is an important point to continue making.

But I have diverted. I was talking about the National Australia Bank. As I say, if I am verballing them, I will apologise later. I read or heard somewhere that they were going to stop investment in coalmines. That concerns me because I understand how important coalmining is to Australia, to my state of Queensland and to the area where I live and that I represent in this chamber. I am particularly disturbed if that is true, because years ago my father used to work for the National Australia Bank and I have always had a soft spot for the National Australia Bank. In all of my own personal banking since I first had a bank account—and that is many more years ago than I want to confess to here—I have always dealt with the National Australia Bank. Indeed, when I was a solicitor and had rather a big trust account, it was with the National Australia Bank too, and the National Australia Bank were very grateful for that.

I would be distressed if a major Australian bank had made a policy decision not to fund fossil fuels. That, to me, would be a bank simply trying to get a warm, fuzzy feeling and succumbing to the propaganda of the Greens political party—the party that says Australia, which emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, is the reason for all the climate change in the world. That is what the Greens political party would have you believe. I say to anyone who might be listening to this to think about this: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of all the world's emissions.