Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

BANKING LAWS AMENDMENT (UNCLAIMED MONEY) BILL 2015

Today I introduce a Bill to reverse the previous government's changes to Australia's unclaimed moneys provisions.

From 31 December 2015, this Bill will ensure that funds from Australians bank accounts and life insurance policies can only be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission after they have been inactive for at least seven years.

Australia has had provisions to affect the transfer of unclaimed funds to the government since at least 1911. They exist to protect Australians forgotten funds from being eroded by fees and charges, but no matter what, these funds continue to belong to their rightful owner and can be reclaimed at any time.

Between 1911 and 2012, accounts must have been inactive for at least seven years before funds could be transferred to the Commonwealth. Under these rules, only $70 million in unclaimed funds were transferred to ASIC in 2011-12.

However in late 2012, the previous government reduced the required period of inactivity to three years. This resulted in $550 million from thousands of accounts being transferred to ASIC in 2012-13—an almost eight fold increase in a single year. Many of these accounts were certainly not unclaimed or forgotten, but were transferred to the government regardless in order to improve the budget bottom line.

For many Australians this meant cancelled holidays and delays in purchasing new goods—washing machines, dishwashers, and cars—that were crucial to their families. For some Australians the consequences of not being able to access their hard earned savings when they needed to were even more severe. Many Australians, particularly in regional areas, were placed in positions of financial difficulty. In the worst cases, some individuals have had to sell their homes. This is unacceptable.

We did not support this change in Opposition and, as promised, in Government we will make it right. That is why, in the 2015-16 Budget, we committed to reforming the unclaimed moneys provisions.

Returning the required period of inactivity before savings and life insurance policies can be transferred to ASIC to seven years will drastically reduce the number of effectively active accounts that are transferred to ASIC each year.

This change will cost the Government $285 million over four years, however will save the community $36 million each year in reduced red tape costs as fewer accounts must be transferred from, and returned, to account holders.

To further ensure that only funds that are truly forgotten are transferred to ASIC, this Bill also expands the ways in which account holders can keep their accounts active. This Bill will ensure that if an account holder alerts their financial institution to the fact that they are aware of their account in any way prior to their funds being transferred to ASIC—including simply checking a balance online—that transfer will no longer occur.

This Bill will also exempt children's accounts and foreign currency accounts from the unclaimed moneys provisions entirely.

Many Australians set money aside for their children's future and trust that this money will continue to grow in value and be available for their children when they are ready.

In recognition of this fact and to reward, not punish, those Australians working hard to contribute to their family's future, children's accounts will never be transferred to the government.

Foreign currency accounts, meanwhile, are primarily used by sophisticated consumers to settle complex business transactions.

Not only does transferring these accounts to the government potentially disrupt these processes, it also exposes the account holder to the risk of a loss as their funds must be converted to Australian Dollars at the prevailing exchange rate before they can be transferred to ASIC. In line with the Government's commitment to protect Australian businesses from excessive red tape, these types of products will also be exempted entirely from the unclaimed moneys provisions.

Not only did the changes made by the previous government leave many Australians financially distressed, the unprecedented growth in the value of money transferred to ASIC also highlighted glaring deficiencies in the way that account holders' personal information is protected.

ASIC is currently required to publish an Unclaimed Moneys Gazette online with detailed personal information, which includes a person's name, last known address and the amount of money they have unclaimed. The Information Commissioner has raised concerns about the potential for identity theft using currently published information.

Some unscrupulous businesses are also using this information to charge fees as high as 25 per cent to reunite people with their own money. The Government and financial institutions do not charge account holders for this service.

To protect those Australians with unclaimed moneys from exploitation, this Bill will remove the requirement for ASIC to publish the Unclaimed Money Gazette and will introduce secrecy provisions to ensure that only individuals with unclaimed accounts or those acting on their behalf will be able to access their data through Freedom Of Information requests.

As stated before, this Bill delivers on the Government's promise to reform the unclaimed moneys provisions and contributes to the Government's promise to support Australian business by reducing red tape by at least $1 billion each and every year. This Bill will leave more Australians in control of their own finances, better protect their personal information, and leave a safety net in place to protect those with truly forgotten amounts from having their value eroded by fees and charges.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to inform the Senate that Labor will be supporting the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015. This bill extends the time that bank accounts and life insurance policies can be inactive before they are transferred to the government from three years to seven years. The principle behind unclaimed money legislation is that customers do not benefit if their savings are eaten away by fees and charges when they are left sitting in a bank for years. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, in 2014 Australian banks collected over $1 billion in fees from household deposit accounts. We do not want to see bank profits rising simply because Australian savings are shrinking.

When Labor made this change to a three-year time period in 2012 we also determined the Australian government should pay interest on unclaimed money for the first time. Paying interest on the money held for safekeeping protects the value of those savings by ensuring they are not diminished by inflation. Right now a standard transaction account with one of the big four banks is paying 0.1 per cent interest. Thanks to Labor's decision, accounts held by ASIC are earning interest at a rate linked to the consumer price index. That means that those bank accounts are better off, even before fees and charges, as a result of being held by ASIC. We are also aware that fees and charges can significantly erode accounts. Stories of fees and charges amounting to up to $100 a year have been heard of in the past, and that is why unclaimed money legislation exists.

It is important to get the balance right, of course, between protecting the value of people's savings and ensuring that accounts are not claimed incorrectly. Treasury consulted on this issue in 2014, and a majority of the submissions supported a lengthening of the time frame for declaring accounts inactive. Some suggested it should be extended from three years to five years and some from three years to seven years. Labor is always willing to be guided by expertise and feedback from those who work most closely with Australian banking customers. It is vital that we recognise that for all the schoolyard talk of 'trousering' what we are debating here is the correct duration after which unclaimed money should be moved into ASIC. It is not about an argument that the unclaimed money legislation should be repealed entirely. The question is whether the time frame ought to be three years or seven years, and today Labor will support the decision to change that time frame from three years to seven years.

More broadly, though, Labor wants to see Australians get a fair deal with their banking. That is what motivated the changes to the unclaimed money rules in 2012. It is what has prompted the Leader of the Opposition to recently call for an inquiry into disproportionately high credit card fees. We were pleased that the Senate supported this call with a reference to the Economics Committee, which is due to report on 24 November 2015.

The gap between the two per cent official interest rate set by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the credit card interest rates of around 20 per cent is near its highest level ever. This 18 per cent point spread has doubled over the past 25 years and continues to widen. The government's top economic advisers, including Treasury secretary John Fraser, RBA deputy governor Malcolm Edey, APRA chairman Wayne Byres and ASIC deputy chair Peter Kell all have stated that this growing gap is an issue that needs to be investigated.

Research from Swinburne university shows that over the past 23 years an average of 112 per cent of cash rate rises were passed onto credit card customers but only 53 per cent of rate cuts were. As author Abbas Valadkhani puts it, credit card rates 'go up like a rocket and fall like a feather'. We not only want to make sure that Australians avoid unreasonable fees and charges at the bank, but also Labor is fighting to protect Australian people from unfair costs imposed by the Abbott government. We have opposed an unfair chippie co-payment, $100,000 degrees and a 15 per cent GST as an unfair tax on the cost of living.

Increasing the GST to 15 per cent would see the poorest Australians paying 11 per cent of their income while the richest would pay less than eight per cent. That would be at odds with what the Prime Minister said before the election: 'The GST does not change. Full stop. End of story.' Similar comments were made by the now Prime Minister on 33 separate occasions before the election. Now, when asked to rule out increasing the GST, the Prime Minister replies, 'Well, what I'm not going to do is rule out a sensible conversation about a better tax system.'

Australians are increasingly feeling that Mr Abbott's list of promises of things that he would not do is, instead, turning into a to-do list for things that he will do: cuts to hospitals, cuts to schools, cuts to the pensions, cuts to the ABC and SBS, and increasing the GST. There is only one thing on that list that has not been done, and that is the increase to the GST. We have had an $80 billion cut in funding to schools and hospitals, a cut that was aimed at forcing states and territories to make an argument for an increase in the GST.

The Abbott government is already taxing Australians at higher levels than at any time since the big-spending Howard government, with tax receipts rising each and every year over the budget forward estimates. Labor has been deeply concerned that since the Abbott government came to office we have seen a steady trend downwards in annual growth, almost trending downwards in train with the Prime Minister's popularity ratings. Every quarter since the Abbott government's first budget was brought down we have seen a downgrade in growth. There was nearly three per cent annual growth in the March 2014 quarter. There was below two per cent annual growth in the most recent figures. Unemployment has increased from 5.7 to 6.3 per cent and is now at its highest level in 13 years. We have consumer sentiment 11 percentage points below where it was at the election and the budget deficit has doubled in the last 12 months.

We know that we need to get growth above three per cent if we are to see unemployment trending downwards rather than upwards. But while we have anaemic growth sitting at two per cent or potentially worse—given that the last quarter's figure was only positive as a result of a one-off blip in Defence procurement—we know that it is not enough growth to secure a lower unemployment rate rather than a higher unemployment rate. Before the election the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, said:

Now, I believe that the Coalition I lead understands all of this in the marrow of its bones and that’s why I am confident that should there be a change of government later in the year, there will be an instantaneous adrenaline charge in our economy.

But that adrenaline charge has far from been delivered. Instead, we have unemployment going up, confidence going down, debt going up and the standing of the Australian government in boardrooms around the nation going down. The figures that should be rising are falling, and the figures that should be falling are rising. We had the Treasurer saying that returning the budget to surplus had 'an inescapable moral dimension'.

Before the election, we were told that the budget would be back in surplus in the first year and in every subsequent year. Earlier this year, though, Steve Austin, on ABC Brisbane, asked the Treasurer: 'What's the higher priority, delivering personal income tax cuts or returning the budget to surplus?' The member for North Sydney said: 'Well, it's both, Steve.' Steve Austin then asked: 'But which is the priority, though?' And the member for North Sydney replied: 'We've got to try and do both. They're not mutually exclusive.

What was to be a moral imperative of returning the budget to surplus has now seen net debt increasing from its levels in the low teens, when the government took office, to being projected to peak at 18 per cent of GDP. So the deficit is up and debt is up. If they were driving debt trucks around the country when they were in opposition, they should have debt ocean liners now.

This suggestion that we can return to surplus now finds itself following the almost comical suggestions from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister that there ought to be personal income tax cuts of some $5 billion or $6 billion a year—but with no plan to fund those personal income tax cuts. Bluff and bluster does not balance the budget. We have a Treasurer who has claimed that his own electorate is the home of bulk-billing in Australia when we know that it rates 126th out of 150 electorates; a Treasurer who, while the rest of the world is moving and embracing the growth and jobs benefits of renewable energy, describes the wind turbines around Lake George as 'utterly offensive' and a 'blight on the landscape'; a Treasurer who says that the GP co-payment of $7 is just a couple of middies of beer; and a Treasurer who, before his first budget, confessed to his authorised biographer, Madonna King, that he wanted to cut harder and cut earlier.

While it is absolutely vital for treasurers to get their numbers right, we have a Treasurer who instead exaggerates the tax paid by higher income households, saying that they pay half their income in tax, whereas, in fact, the highest marginal tax rate is 49c—but only for incomes over $180,000. The suggestion that pensioners will be made better off by halving the pension by mid-century is not one that has received universal acclaim from groups like the Council on the Ageing and the Australian Council of Social Service. The idea that poor people do not drive cars suggests a Treasurer who is a fantastically out of touch with the Australian people, as does the proposal that, if housing were unaffordable in Sydney, no-one would be buying it—a logic which can equally be applied to diamond-encrusted iPhone covers and any other unaffordable item that you would like to mention.

We have a government with a lack of long-term vision and perspective that has moved into the very dangerous territory of playing partisan politics when overseas. The confidence with which this government approaches the unclaimed money bill is not matched with the confidence that we see when the Treasurer is overseas in discussions with his Chinese counterparts. We know, from his comments on the ABC's AM program just yesterday morning, that he was going into those conversations trash-talking the Australian union movement and the Australian opposition. The government likes to talk about 'Team Australia', but it is hardly Team Australia to take your partisan games into an international conversation with our largest trading partner. That is dangerous politics and bad economics, and it signifies so much why the Australian people have lost confidence in this Treasurer and this government.

We need a government with a clear economic plan, with a vision for jobs and growth and with an understanding that the science, technology, engineering and maths jobs of the future need to be underpinned by investment in education—not by cuts, cuts and more cuts. Labor will be supporting this bill, but we continue, as do the Australian people, to have deep reservations about the economic agenda of this government.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I went away for the two-week break hoping, like a lot of Australians, that we might actually have some reform on the table during this next couple of parliamentary weeks. The Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015 is disappointing on a number of levels—and I will get to the detail around why the Greens are likely to oppose this bill.

A week ago, the Treasurer, Mr Joe Hockey, walked away from what would have been a significant but passable reform through this Senate: a bank deposit levy. A bank deposit levy was originally proposed by Labor and the Greens four years ago, following a comprehensive piece by the Reserve Bank of Australia and an international study looking at the requirement to have funds put aside for contingencies should we see a situation like we saw with the global financial crisis, when our government had to step in and guarantee both wholesale and retail deposits so that we did not have the contagion and the mass panic that we saw in other markets around the world. A bank deposit levy that made a lot of sense was broadly supported, including by some very positive statements by the Treasurer himself, and it would have had the support of the Greens. I cannot speak for Labor—who knows what Labor does on the economy from day to day—but it would have had the support of the Greens.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not nice.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had to say that, Senator Polley.

It fascinates me. We had a business forum in this country organised by the Fin Review and The Australian. I must say I was very disappointed that the Greens were not invited to that business forum because it was discussing a vision for this country in tax reform and we have a lot of very good ideas that we have always been on the front foot with around tax reform in this country. One of the things that came out of that forum—it was widely reported and, a couple of days later, backed up by a statement from Roger Corbett, a well-known corporate figure in this country who went into retirement—was that the Senate is making this country ungovernable from a big business perspective. Then, of course, as he likes to do, Rupert Murdoch made some very similar comments on his Twitter account on Thursday night last week. It was the same thing: the Senate is making this country ungovernable; let's have a double dissolution election.

That bank deposit levy would have been a significant reform and it would have got through this Senate. The Greens would have supported it if it had been good legislation that targeted the big four banks to put aside, on the estimates that we had costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, between $1.1 billion and $1.4 billion over the forward estimates into a reserve account for contingencies around potential liabilities should we see more financial crisis.

Another reform that would have got through this Senate and arguably—certainly from my personal perspective—would have been a lot more important was implementing the findings of the government's own Harper review and amending section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act to bring in an effects test. This is what small businesses around this country want; this is what farmers around this country want. Give the government and the ACCC, which acts on behalf of the government, the powers to have create a level playing field in this country and, for example, at least test the proposition that the supermarkets duopoly has too much market power and often uses that market power to the detriment of small businesses and farmers in this country. This is significant reform and a very important piece of legislation that people, including my party, the Greens, have campaigned on for decades.

Guess what? The government walked away from it. They turned their back on small business, the sector of this economy they so often take for granted. So, while they are whispering sweet nothings in the ear of small business on one hand over a Chinese trade deal, the government walked away from the reform that small businesses and farmers in this country really want: competition powers to take on abuses of market power—another example, Mr Murdoch, of reform that could have got through this Senate, if it had been good legislation. I wrote to the Prime Minister myself—of course, I was hoping for an answer, but I have not got one—asking him to bring us the legislation. Let's do this in this parliament. Let us—the Liberal Party and the Greens; and I know how much this means to the National Party and their constituents in the bush—work on getting a section 46 effects test through parliament. But the government walked away from it. They think they have done 'enough' for small business in this country.

Well, guess what? According to the lead lobby group for small business in this country the tax cuts and the instant asset write-offs are just a shadow of what they want. This was the Holy Grail for them, and there was a significant expectation that the government would deliver on this—especially following all the work and all the feedback that went into the Harper competition review. And I have to say that the final recommendation of the Harper review was a bit weaker than I wanted. Because of the consultation with the big end of town, section 46, the final version of it, was weaker than what I would like to have seen. But it was significantly better than the existing competition laws that we have got in place, where you have to improve content in anticompetitive behaviours rather than look at the effect of anticompetitive behaviour. This is a significant disappointment.

To the big end of town, big business in this country, who are claiming that the Senate is making this country ungovernable because it cannot get economic reform through the Senate, I say that there are two examples. A bank levy would have raised billions of dollars on, arguably, the most profitable financial sector in this country. They make tens of billions of dollars of profits for their shareholders each year, who have been propped up by the Australian taxpayer to the extent that this levy would erase the revenue. The taxpayer and the government stepped in to give a deposits guarantee. The government guarantee—and this was all modelled by the Reserve Bank—has allowed banks to access wholesale funding at a better rate. As Senator Canavan well knows, their price of money was lower because the risk is lower. The premium would have been higher if that guarantee had not been there. And that has been good for the banks. They borrow money in wholesale markets and then they lend it out. They do other things—they invest their money in securities and all sorts of different investments—but, essentially, that is how banks work. So the Australian taxpayer has helped the big banks make money.

Of course it has had some good effects on the financial stability of our system, as it was designed to do. This bank levy was saying, 'Give the money back to the taxpayer.' At least have a contingency fund put aside for future financial crises, which will always happen. I do not want to digress too much, but it is remarkable how often financial crises do happen; just outside the boundaries of our memory, these things continue to happen. So there are some reforms that we could be dealing with and I could be talking about here today. I am proud to say that my party has campaigned for years on a bank deposit levy. We have campaigned for years on helping farmers and small business get a section 46 amendment to the competition policy.

But what I am standing here today talking about is a policy proposal that has been put up by the Australian Bankers Association, the same people who have lobbied against the FoFA laws, which we fought tooth and nail in the Senate—credit to Labor where credit is due—to retain in their existing format to strengthen laws around financial advice. The Australian Bankers Association no doubt fought tooth and nail in the corridors of power, behind the scenes, and they made public statements to oppose a bank levy. They probably even gave the Prime Minister the line 'This is a tax on your bank deposits'—which is a total myth; it was a levy on bank deposits. The Greens proposed a levy of 0.5 per cent on deposits up to $250,000. We were not sure what the final proposal from the government would be, but it would be a levy and it would have been sensible policy that would have been passed by the Senate. But when you criticise this House and say we are making this country ungovernable it is because we do not pass legislation that the big end of town wants. But this would have been legislation that certainly small businesses and some of our governance organisations would like to have seen.

What we have in front of us today, the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill is a flaccid attempt at reform for the banking sector. In my opinion, it is wholly designed to give the banks the upper hand. I want to read a statement by the former Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Bernie Ripoll. In a media release on 29 November 2012 they stated that 'reducing from seven years to three years the time before money was referred to the government was a good thing because Australians who have lost track of superannuation or old bank accounts will now have their money returned faster and interest paid to preserve its real value'. This was a bill that was brought in by Labor—and good on them. It was supported by groups such as CHOICE. Let me read you CHOICE's comment in its submission to the Senate inquiry:

The proposed amendment contains several important amendments for consumers.

this is going back to 2012 when it was reduced from seven years to three years—

With unclaimed money being transferred four years earlier to the Commonwealth, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission or the Commissioner of Taxation, the erosion of balances through fees, commission and adverse market movements is substantially reduced.

Now hands up who does not understand that especially for small amounts of money, which the majority of unclaimed deposits tend to be, bank fees are not a substantial part of your return on those unclaimed moneys. I made the mistake of leaving $500 in a Westpac account and forgetting about it. Six years later, when I realised that I had an actual physical passbook—this is about 10 years ago—I went in to withdraw the money in cash and I found that I had $126 left. I had $126 left—out of a $500 deposit!

That was the erosion. It was only a small amount of money, I will warrant, but at the time it was important to me. The erosion of that amount was through fees. There was interest on top of that, but it was actually fees and charges that ate that amount.

Why do you think the Australian Bankers' Association want to keep these deposits for an extra four years? Well, go figure! It is because they can earn fee income on these deposits. They claim that—and I am not sure where they got the evidence from—if the government increases this to seven years before the government takes responsibility for it it will reduce the claims by half on these unclaimed money deposits. And, by the way, when it goes to the government you get a CPI return, not a return that has been heavily eroded by fees and service charges. It seems to me that this is about giving the Australian Bankers' Association what they want and it is about them making more fees and income.

Whatever your arguments for or against, it is a pretty poor attempt by this government to bring legislation like this before the Senate and have us even stand here and debate it when there are so many more important things we could be talking about, like multinational tax avoidance, reform around negative gearing and superannuation tax concessions, capital gains concessions and a whole range of things that we could do for affordable housing in this country, removing perverse incentives for fossil fuels for the big mining companies or providing research and development tax breaks for high-risk mining exploration companies—giving taxpayer deductions to mining exploration companies that you go punt on down at the local share market. There are so many things that we could actually be dealing with in the Senate that you would classify as real reform.

Take superannuation tax concessions, for example. It has been ruled out, depending on who you believe. Because this government is so chaotic, it is hard to know from day to day who speaks on what. If we had some decent reform proposals on superannuation tax concessions, I have no doubt the Greens would support that. We have very clear policies in this area. It is another example of why it is a load of rubbish that this Senate is making this country ungovernable. It is just that the right policies and the reform that is necessary is not coming from a gutless government that is more interested in the politicisation of things like national security than it is in actual reform in this country. They are totally rudderless.

While we are in this period before we go to an election—whenever that is going to be, and I do not think any of us know whether or not we are going to have an early election—I say here again today to the Prime Minister and to those across the chamber that if you want to get sensible economic reform through this place we have voted with our feet. You cannot dispute our track record on things like pension changes and small business reform. We have supported good legislation that is in line with our policies, values and beliefs. We are prepared to do that on things like superannuation tax concessions, on a bank levy and on section 46 competition policy—

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, Senator Whish-Wilson. I just want to point out to you that when you are tapping the table it does echo through the microphone and out onto the radio. Continue, please.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I got that from House of Cards. I only have three minutes left to go, so, rather than you having to go and have some kind of shock treatment, I would like to leave on this very important note: I throw down the challenge to Rupert Murdoch, to Roger Corbett and to the big end of town in this country that if you want the right economic reform in Australia, while this government is still around—and hopefully it will not be for much longer—bring some good economic reform that the Greens can vote on and we will get this through.

Do not waste the opportunity on section 46 competition policy. It is not a sign of weakness to admit you were wrong and to change your mind. Bring some good reform back to this Senate that helps small business and helps farmers and that helps to at least provide a level playing field. It is not a silver bullet—who knows whether it would work, and we will not know until it is tested—but at least bring back the recommendations of the Harper review so that we can actually give farmers and small business what they want in this country, not this kind of reform that is designed to put a few extra dollars into the pockets of the Australian Bankers' Association and the big banks. This is a really poor attempt at legislative reform.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate on the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015. I would like to put a bit of history in here. I congratulate the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Josh Frydenberg, for bringing forward this legislation to right the wrong put on the Australian people by the previous government. It is important to note that since around 1911 this country has had provisions to allow the transfer of unclaimed funds to the government. That is how long it has been around. These provisions stop accounts being eroded by fees and charges. Even after they are transferred, the funds still remain the property of the rightful owner. For 100 years the rule existed that the accounts must have been inactive for at least seven years before funds could be transferred to the Commonwealth.

Let me expand on the matter of the account being inactive. If, for example, you had $500 in a bank account, when interest was paid in each month or fees and charges were taken out each month and there was no other transaction, then the account would still be inactive. You must actually put some money into the account or withdraw some money out of the account every seven years.

In 2011-12, when inactive accounts were transferred only after seven years, only $70 million in unclaimed funds were transferred to ASIC. In 2012-13, after the previous government reduced the required period of inactivity from seven years down to three years, 156,000 accounts, worth around $550 million, were transferred to ASIC—up from $70 million. In 2013-14 almost 40,000 accounts, worth around $145 million, were transferred to ASIC. In 2014-15 a further estimated $162 million was transferred to ASIC. Without change to the required period of inactivity, Treasury had assumed that an approximately equal number and value of accounts would be transferred to the government each year.

The rapid growth in the number of unclaimed accounts highlighted problems with the treatment of children's' accounts and foreign currency accounts. Accounts that had been set aside for a child to access when they turned 18 were being transferred to the government and therefore the account was not accruing interest—except that when the government did get the money you received the bond rate when you claimed it back, a very low rate of interest. Take a young couple, both of them working away. They have two young children. Let's say they get a tax return of $5,000, and they say, 'We'll put this $5,000 away in a fixed deposit account for the children's education, when they get older.' After seven years, under the previous rules, they would have had to either add some more money to it or take some money out of it. As I said, the interest accrued or the fees taken out do not mean that the account is active; it is still inactive. Wouldn't it be great! After about eight years they go to their accountant—that is how the law used to be—and their money would have gone to ASIC, and they would have to get it back.

But the previous government reduced that to three years. I know for a fact; I was handling my late mother's money then, with power of attorney. A thankyou to Westpac: my mother had a fixed account of some $8,000 or $9,000 and Westpac wrote to me and said, 'You must put some money in this account by such-and-such a date, or remove some money from the account, or the money will disappear.' Thank you, Westpac, for that notification. I went and deposited a small bit of money in my mother's account, and that kept me going for another three years without having to worry about it. However, I should not have had to do that. It should be a seven-year period.

It is amazing. This was brought in by the previous government, and for what reason? The reason was simple: to get money into the coffers of Treasury. And of course the then Treasurer was Mr Swan, alongside his finance minister, Senator Wong, and the then assistant finance minister, one Mr Bill Shorten MP. What a crazy situation, that you have to steal the money off the Australian people after three years if the account has laid idle, to help fix the bottom line of your budget. As I said, it was about $70 million in active accounts, taken out after seven years so that the fees did not erode the account down to zero. That climbed to around $550 million. This was wrong in all principle. I remember Senator Bushby asked the question of Senator Cormann, the finance minister, a few months ago: why are we doing this? Are we doing this to take it back to the status quo, as it has been for over 100 years, since 1911, since the formation of the Commonwealth Bank? That had not been a situation whereby if you leave your account idle for three years and then if you go to it there is nothing there.

I had pensioners come to me. They had some money in a fixed deposit. They phoned my office and said: 'The money's gone. What do I do? Where did it go?' We had to tell them to go through the process. When I raised this in the joint party room some time back I said that this is wrong, that it goes against all the principles of what we in the coalition believe in, that you must rely on stealing the money—and I underline 'stealing'; that is what it is—off people in Australia to help the bottom line of your budget. Mr Russell Matheson MP made another good point while we discussed this in the party room. He said that there is an industry that has started up, an industry that will go out there and say: 'Oh, you lost your money; it's been taken. Pay me $2,000 and I'll get your money back.' People were preying on pensioners' and kids' accounts to make money out of it. That is wrong. It is against everything we believe in.

So I was very pleased to hear the announcement that this would be changed back so that when people put money in their accounts they at least have seven years. I encourage all the banks—and I am sure most of them or perhaps all of them do this—when the accounts have been idle for some time to write to their customers to inform them of the situation. Once again, I thank Westpac for doing exactly that: writing to me about the management of my mother's accounts.

The Information Commissioner raised concerns about the potential for identity theft by using currently published information. For example, some businesses are also using this information to charge fees as high as 25 per cent to reunite people with their own money. That was the industry, as I was saying, that kicked off. By removing the requirement for ASIC to publish the unclaimed money gazette and introducing secrecy provisions in this bill to restrict freedom of information requests generally to an individual's own details, this bill will better protect the privacy of those with unclaimed accounts.

The bill will generate regulatory savings of approximately $36 million a year. I will repeat that: the money this bill will save in regulatory savings will be about $36 million a year. This legislation will ensure that only funds that are truly forgotten are transferred to ASIC, not those that might be set aside for three years. And it will ensure that if an account holder alerts their financial institution to the fact that they are aware of their account in any way prior to their funds being transferred to ASIC then that transfer will no longer occur.

An article in June last year indicated that several Labor shadow ministers were privately embarrassed about the policy Mr Shorten introduced. In fact, one Labor frontbencher reportedly compared the bank-siphoning policy with the Gillard government's wrong decision to cut welfare payments for thousands of single mothers.

In 2013 National Seniors received numerous emails from members regarding the changes to the time frame after which accounts are deemed to be inactive. Grave concerns for the vulnerable elderly residents in aged-care facilities and for those with neurological degenerative diseases were expressed.

In a submission to a consultation paper—and you will be very interested in this, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson—the Australian Bankers' Association said:

… the current period of inactivity, being three years, is inappropriate and has caused substantial disruption for banks and their customers.

I repeat: 'banks and their customers'. They go on to say:

In our experience, the ABA believes that a period of inactivity of seven years is appropriate and better meets customer expectations and reduces costs and inefficiencies for the banking industry and ASIC. Many accounts tend to no longer be inactive after seven years, and therefore, this is better aligned with the way customers tend to operate their accounts.

The ABA said that:

According to industry estimates, when the regime reduced the period of inactivity from seven to three years, complaints increased by 300%.

Complaints each year increased by 300 per cent. They said:

The impact of the change was felt across the customer base, including individual, business and institutional banking customers.

The ABA told the Financial System Inquiry that reverting to seven years would halve the number of claims. The inquiry recommended that the government should act to ensure bank accounts and life insurance policies are deemed unclaimed after seven years of inactivity and that these moneys be held in a separate trust account.

In summary, I totally support this bill and I am glad those opposite do as well. I am disappointed that the previous speaker from the Greens seemed to be saying that the Greens will not support it. I do not support governments stealing money off Australian people, and that is exactly what was happening after three years under the previous government. If you left your account idle, three years later it had disappeared. It was gone. So what do you do? What do elderly pensioners do, especially the ones who are in aged-care facilities who perhaps are relying on family members to monitor their accounts like my mother was with me? Do you go in search of it? Where do they start to search? What are they going to get back? It is a very low bond rate.

As Senator Cormann, in response to a question from Senator Bushby, asked: who was at the scene of the crime when this stealing started? The finance minister, Senator Wong, the Treasurer, Mr Wayne Swan, and the current opposition leader, Mr Bill Shorten. They were the trio seen running from the scene of the crime. This is wrong on all levels. Each and every Australian should believe that a government has no right to steal their money after three years. We should put it back to what the status quo was since 1911—that is, seven years—and give people more time.

As I said, I commend those institutions that notify, ring, write or email those customers to warn them by saying, 'Hey, your term is now getting close to the expiry date on an inactive account, which will mean that your money will be taken away.' Then the hunt starts to get it back. As I said, the businesses kicked off, saying, 'She'll be right, mate! Give me $2,000. I will get your money back.' It is an easy $2,000 for a bit of paperwork. But instead of giving the $5,000 back to the customer they only give $3,000. The smart businessman or businesswoman has taken $2,000 out of it. An industry kicked off to go out and siphon money off those people who had their money stolen in that period.

I commend this legislation. I again thank those opposite for supporting it. At the end of this year it is going to be back to how it was for more than 100 years prior to the ridiculous changes that the previous government made in an effort to try and bring their budget bottom line somewhere towards a surplus, which is something we have never ever seen. That has been the case all my life whenever the Labor Party is in government. We have seen the history of their financial management.

I welcome this bill. I welcome this legislation. I commend my colleagues, especially Assistant Treasurer Frydenberg, with the support of Senator Cormann and Treasurer Joe Hockey, for the work that they have done on this. I look forward to the passing of this bill and to getting things back to how they were for more than 100 years.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to follow my friend and colleague Senator Williams in speaking to this very important piece of legislation. Let us be crystal clear: this legislation is about a fundamental difference between the coalition and those opposite—the Labor Party and the Greens—based on what was expressed earlier today in the debate. The fundamental difference is that we believe that people's hard-earned money is their money. We believe that you should not be raiding people's bank accounts. You should not be raiding their super accounts. You should be leaving people with as much control of their own money as is possible, keeping the tax burden as low as possible and certainly not looking for new and inventive ways to raid people's savings.

That is what the Labor Party did when they were in office. That is what they plan to do should they come back into office. It is great that they are supporting this repeal. It is unfortunate that we need it, isn't it? We would not need it if the Labor Party had not raided people's cash. They have already signalled that should they come back into office they will be raiding people's superannuation accounts. We take a very different approach. We want to leave people with as much of their own money as possible. That is how we approach all legislation and all policy—we start with the principle that it is taxpayers' money and that, when we take it in taxes, we need to use it wisely. We should keep that tax burden as low as possible and we certainly should not be raiding people's accounts. In that vein, it is great to be supporting the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015.

This is another bill from this government that is about the fact that we believe people should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour and keep their savings. We have already done much in this space. We scrapped the carbon tax. That allows people to have more of their own money in their pockets. We scrapped the mining tax, which allows more jobs in the mining industry so that workers can have more of their own money in their pockets and can choose how to look after their own families. We have delivered the biggest tax cut ever to small business, which means that the hardworking men and women who run small businesses in this country can have more of their own money, can choose how they will spend it and can look to employ more people so that those employees can have money in their pockets, contribute to their families and contribute to our economy.

In total, we have reduced the overall tax burden on Australians by nearly $7 billion since coming to office. That is $7 billion staying in the pockets of hardworking Australians. That is something we are very proud of. We are continuing to look at how we can lower the tax burden on ordinary Australians. We note there are all sorts of issues with the tax system and, of course, through various processes we are looking at how we can further reform our taxation system to make it fairer and more reasonable, and particularly for low- and middle-income families who are doing it tough we want to make sure that they can keep as much of their money as possible.

Also, I was glad to see in this vein, just last week, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announcing that we are getting rid of Labor's bank deposit tax. That is just another raid on people's savings. This decision is not only fulfilment of our election promise to protect the savings of Australians but, also, it comes after the recommendation of the financial systems inquiry and extensive consultations with stakeholders and the community. Labor's bank deposit tax would have imposed costs of $1 billion on Australians with bank savings. It would have damaged competition in the banking sector by putting regional and community banks at a disadvantage relative to the big four banks, further disadvantaging hardworking Australians.

Dumping Labor's tax also addresses another legacy of Labor's shoddy economic management. Labor announced this tax just before the last election and then put it in the books so their bottom line looked better, but they never legislated the change. This is typical of the hypocrisy of Labor in government. All through the last chaotic days of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government they made announcements about spending, put them in the books so that things would look better and never legislated the changes, because they knew they would never have to deliver. We saw it in their promises on health and education, which they knew they never had the money for. Mark my words on this: if they ever do come back into government, they will not be putting back the money that they claimed was there. I can assure you, they will not be putting that money back, because it was never there. As I said, we are about protecting people. We are about putting money back in people's pockets, not raiding their savings.

This bill amends the unclaimed moneys provisions which exist to protect Australia's forgotten savings and life insurance policies from being eroded by fees and charges over time. This bill will ensure that, after an account has been inactive for seven years, the funds in that account will be transferred to the government where they will grow at the consumer price index, tax-free. No matter what, these funds continue to belong to their rightful owner and can be reclaimed at any time through contact with either ASIC or their financial institution. There is no fee charged for this service. As you mentioned in your contribution, Acting Deputy President Williams, we have had provisions like this since 1911. That is, of course, until the former Labor government came to office and decided that the provision which had been there for a century was no longer good enough. They did not want to transfer inactive accounts after seven years; they wanted to raid bank accounts after three years. They did that in late 2012, but they did not legislate it. This resulted in some half a billion dollars from thousands of accounts—many of which belonged to people who knew they existed and were simply long-term savings—being transferred to the Commonwealth. Many Australians were left in financial distress. By returning to the original benchmark of seven years of inactivity, we expect to see a reduction in the number of accounts transferred by about 50 per cent and it will reduce the red tape burden on the community by around $36 million per year. That is another example of how we are respecting Australians' money and, of course, cutting red tape. We want to do that in all sorts of ways. We are doing it for small business. This is another way that we cut red tape and cut some of the cost burdens in the economy. The change to the time of inactivity will take effect from 31 December this year, which means that no funds should be assessed as unclaimed until at least 2019 and no unclaimed funds should transfer to the government until 2020.

As I said, we on this side are about protecting the savings of Australians. We know that one important type of saving comes from parents to set aside accounts for their children. Many parents do it this way with a view to making those savings grow and being made available for their children when, for example, they turn 18 or perhaps at some other important milestone. When parents do this for their children and contribute to their family's future we should be protecting them, not raiding their savings. Funds from children's accounts are exempt from this bill. They will never be transferred to the government. Similarly, accounts in a foreign currency are also exempt from this provision. This is because these accounts are often used in relation to complex business transactions. Not only does transferring these accounts to the government potentially disrupt these legitimate business processes; it also exposes the account holder to costs, as the moneys must be converted back to Australian dollars at the prevailing exchange rate. The government is committed to reducing this sort of unnecessary red tape, so these accounts are also exempt.

At present, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission publishes an online Unclaimed monies gazette which details personal information relating to unclaimed accounts. This information includes a person's name, last known address and the amount of money unclaimed. There were serious concerns raised by the Information Commissioner about the potential for identity theft from the publishing of this information. Some unscrupulous businesses, as has been touched on, have also been using this information to prey on these people with unclaimed money by charging high fees—as much as 25 per cent—to reunite people with their own money. With this in mind, the bill will also remove the requirement for this gazette to be published. We will also restrict FOI requests generally to an individual's own details. The ASIC MoneySmart website will continue to operate and people who may have unclaimed money can go there to find out their own situation. So there will still be plenty of opportunity for people to find their unclaimed money, even without this gazette. Cancelling the Unclaimed monies gazette in conjunction with stricter controls on accessing account holders' personal information through FOI requests, will help to protect Australians with unclaimed accounts from exploitation.

As I have already mentioned, this bill is about protecting the savings of Australians, so we are also making it easier for people to make sure that their accounts stay active and away from the government. If you signal to your bank in some way that you are aware of your account before it is transferred to the government, the pending transfer will be cancelled and your savings will remain in your account. That notification can be as simple as checking your balance online or making a phone call to your bank. We are setting that bar very low because we understand that this is other people's money and we need to respect it as such. This will be the case even if your account had been declared unclaimed, because we believe your savings are, first and foremost, yours, and the burden should be on the government to transfer money, not on the individual. This is part of our commitment to reducing red tape and keeping your money in your pocket. As I have said, this reform will save $36 million a year.

Thousands of Australians will no longer need to locate their missing funds and apply to their bank or life insurance provider for their return—all thanks to this bill. Similarly, banks and life insurers will no longer need to unnecessarily transfer millions of dollars of Australians' savings to the government and then process thousands of requests for this money to be returned—often in the same year that those funds were transferred in the first place.

As is normal practice on this side of the chamber, we have looked through this issue carefully and methodically and have consulted widely. This is what good government does. Unlike those opposite, we do not just decide it is more important for our bottom line to look good than it is for Australians to keep their savings. We know the most important thing is to do the right thing by Australians and their own money—that is good government and good economic management—so we have consulted with the community on this issue.

On 26 May 2014 the government released a discussion paper, 'Options for improving the unclaimed bank account and life insurance money provisions'. Consultation on this paper closed on 11 July 2014 and the government received 17 submissions. These informed the government's changes to the unclaimed money arrangements. A year later, on 28 May 2015, the government released an exposure draft of the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015 and the Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Regulation 2015 and explanatory materials. Consultation closed on 26 June 2015 and the government received five submissions. These submissions have informed the final bill that has been presented to the parliament. So this has been a long, thorough process, and it is now important the Senate does the right thing and passes this bill so that thousands of Australians can have the security of knowing their savings are protected.

This of course builds on our record of lowering taxes and growing the economy. We are lowering taxes, boosting productivity, encouraging investment and creating jobs. All of these small steps, as they may be, contribute to saying to Australians: 'We respect your money. We believe your money should not be raided, be it your money in your bank account or your money in your superannuation account.' We respect those who have done the right thing, who have worked hard, who have saved their pennies and who believe that that money should belong to them. We agree with those Australians who believe that they should have access to their own money. Of course, it is part of our broader plan about people keeping their own money not just in their bank accounts and in their superannuation accounts but through lower taxes.

I have already outlined some of the taxes that we have gotten rid of or reduced. We have gotten rid of the bank deposits tax, the carbon tax and the mining tax, and we are lowering taxes for small business and putting in place tax write-offs for small business. This all means more money in the pockets of Australians. There is a fundamental difference between us and those opposite. Even though the Labor Party has indicated their support for this bill today, which is welcome, we would not be here if Labor did not have the view that, when they get into trouble, when they overspend, when they blow out the deficit and create a debt and deficit legacy for Australians, they always look to raid Australians' money in various ways. They jack up taxes and they look to raid superannuation accounts and bank accounts. Here is a clear difference in approach. I commend what I think is an important bill to the Senate.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't believe a word. That's a load of rubbish!

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

Is that not correct, Senator? Is that not correct? You get up and show me what the true figures are.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. The senator needs to direct his comments through the chair, not across the chamber. It is disorderly.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very good point, Senator Whish-Wilson. He could also perhaps present his speech without interjections as well. That might be a good idea, don't you think? Senator Macdonald, you have the call.

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

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I appreciate your protection from that vicious attack from the Greens political party by way of interjection. They are trying to put me off my thoughts because they do not like me telling the people of Australia who are hearing this on broadcast that Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. Do not worry about five per cent, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent or even 50 per cent of Australia's emissions being reduced—forget that. Let's surmise that we shut down 100 per cent of Australia's emissions. That means that you would stop Australia. You would not have any lights on now. Even if you did that, what impact would that have on the changing climate of the world?

I have often said that I am one of those who believe that the climate is changing because I have read about the time when Australia was covered in ice and when the centre of Australia was a rainforest, so clearly the climate has been changing over many, many years. Are man's emissions of carbon contributing to it? I have heard eminent scientists say yes and similarly qualified scientists say no. I am not in a position to judge that. But what I can judge—and you do not have to very bright to do this, and many would say that is appropriate for the Greens—that 20 per cent of 1.2 per cent is an infinitesimal number and will make absolutely no difference to the changing climate or to the environment of the world whatsoever.

Yet the Greens political party, with their Labor mates, would somehow have you believe that because Australia is only reducing its emissions by five per cent that we are the bad guys. I would like to make the analogy—not a very sensitive one, I might say—that it is much the same with the Syrian refugee situation. If everybody else in the world plays their part then so should Australia. If we are going to reduce emissions we should do so commensurately with every other country in the world. When the countries of the world that are the big emitters get down to the emissions size of Australia, then Australia should be in step with them. But this idea of the Greens political party and the Labor Party that somehow Australia, by cutting its emissions by 20 or 30 per cent, will save the world is just so ludicrous and ridiculous that I find it impossible to believe that supposedly intelligent people can fall for that lie.

I repeat again and again: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. I will say it again: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. That is the sort of thing that most Australians understand, and that is why they got rid of the Labor Party and their Greens allies at the last election. They realised that the Labor-Greens carbon tax was destroying Australian industry, particularly the manufacturing industry. It was destroying Australian jobs and, in fact, exporting Australian jobs overseas. What did the so-called workers' party do about it? They exacerbated the export of those jobs overseas. That is why I always want to continue reminding Australians that the Labor Party do not stand for workers—they stand for the unions, and the unions only represent 12 per cent of Australian workers in the private sector. They are not my figures; they are the figures of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

I hope I am wrong about the National Bank and, if I am, I will come in here and apologise to them. If the National Bank wants to invest in Queensland, it should be investing in coal mines. There is another biofuels fibre-to-plastics proposal up in Ingham, near where I live in North Queensland, that the National Bank could well invest in. I would hope that if it is the bank that it used to be—and that I hope it still is—it will be investing in those sorts of new technologies but at the same time it will be investing in the tried and proven technologies that provide us the light and the comforts we all enjoy and that provide for poorer people around the world to enjoy some of the advantages of life which Australians take for granted. Let's continue to operate our mines but I hope the banks are not part of this fraud by the Australian Greens political party that cause them to change their investment policies because of the false propaganda of the Greens political party.

That has taken me just a little bit away from the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill. Suffice it to say, I support this bill wholeheartedly and I repeat that it is simply explained as the bill that will stop the Labor-Green governments of the future—heaven forbid that should ever be any—from stealing people's money again, as they did during the time of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was trying to figure out what had happened. I had to go and get my hair cut and so I missed some of the intervening debate. When I left, we were talking about banking laws and, when I came back, Senator Macdonald was making a fine contribution on other matters. But I am glad that we are still on the same topic. I do not share the rhetorical gymnastic skills of Senator Macdonald to tie those issues into this bill, but, since he has already done so, I will use it as an opportunity to back the points that Senator Macdonald was making. Put very simply, we cannot change the temperature of the globe from a room in Canberra—we cannot do that. We might love to be able to do that and we may want to be able to do that, but we cannot. I am very proud to be part of a party with a strong history and record of practical and pragmatic action for people in this country, and we cannot practically change the temperature of the globe from Canberra. It has to be something we do globally, and I would be very opposed to any move that puts at risk one job or one Australian family's ability to provide for themselves—a move based on some ideological, passionate debate that seeks to do something that we cannot do. I am on a unity ticket with Paul Howes on that: if it is to cost one job, we should not do it. On our own we cannot do anything to change the temperature of the globe.

That somehow brings me back to the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill. I am happy to share Senator Macdonald's support for this particular piece of legislation. We should at all times try to provide consistent laws for the Australian people so that they can plan their futures and understand the laws of the land and comply with them. We should avoid haphazardly changing what has been in place for decades and, in this case, for more than a century—for almost the entirety of our federation. For almost the entirety of this parliament, people could be assured that, if their money was in the bank and they had not touched it, it would not be taken off them for at least seven years. There was a seven-year period in place to ensure that people who were using an account in that period did not have that money taken from them. For reasons I will go into later, in 2012 the then Labor government decided that they needed more cash and so they raided people's bank accounts. It was the wrong thing to do; they made a futile attempt to hit an unachievable budget surplus target and so they raided the bank accounts of Australian people. There is hardly a lower act of that former government, even though they did lots of low acts—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was in your budget twice!

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Order on my left.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to try to meet a futile promise to the Australian people to balance the budget by raiding their bank accounts. That is exactly what they did.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was in your budget twice!

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr!

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only reason they did it was to bring some more money into the forward estimates so that somehow their budget looked better. They wanted to do that on the backs of hardworking Australians who save their money. I am very happy that this government rejects that approach. We will be returning to the historic precedent of 101 years of not touching people's bank accounts for seven years. If people have used that account within that seven-year period in some shape or form, they can be assured, after this bill goes through, that it will remain their money.

My colleague, Senator Williams, made a good point earlier: when that raid occurred on people's money some years ago, a few people were caught red-handed in the act. Senator Wong was there as finance minister; Senator Conroy was part of cabinet; I am not sure whether Senator Carr was in cabinet—he was in and out a few times—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on!

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Were you there, Senator Carr? Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on! I was only in Siberia for a while.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There were various criminals over there who were caught red-handed raiding people's bank accounts. I will give them this: when they were caught in the act of raiding people's money, they owned up to it. Congratulations to the Labor Party—they have done that now. I am thankful that they have owned up to the fact that they conducted this raid and they will now be making efforts to compensate people by returning the law to where it was. Thankfully, they have finally seen the light in that regard, and we can count of their support and the support of other sensible political parties in this chamber to make sure we return the savings of hardworking Australians to their control.

We need to pass this bill very quickly because we want it to take effect before the end of this year so that any uncertainty can be removed. It is a great credit to the government that it has brought this bill forward. This bill also provides a number of protections to improve its implementation and application. We will be exempting children's accounts; if someone has put money into their child's account and that money is not touched for seven years, it will not disappear—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's because you have no other legislation!

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On my left.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been some benefit from the Labor Party's act of theft some years ago. We have made this legislation better and I am glad—

Debate interrupted.