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Sign the Petition:

For national survival, Australia needs a national bank—now!

Australians have recently been made painfully aware how vulnerable we have become by not manufacturing goods that are vital for our survival.  Let us resolve we will no longer continue to be confined to being a raw materials exporter, dependent on foreign countries for critical supplies.  We must manufacture!  

Say what you will about China, they have learned this lesson.  By building massive water, power and transportation projects in their own country, China has become a productive giant, far surpassing the United States in steel, cement and high-speed railways, to name but a few categories of industrial production.  How do they finance such projects?  By using state-created credit institutions to direct loans into infrastructure projects and the productive industries that provide the supplies.

This is not new, nor is it communism.  In fact, Australia once did this.  The original Commonwealth Bank was created by the Australian government in 1911.  It was conceived as a people's bank, and it was instrumental in the astonishing rise of Australian manufacturing during World War II.  

Imagine Australia simultaneously building dozens of huge infrastructure projects today, projects that have long been designed and ready to go:

  • thousands of miles of high-speed rail;
  • large scale water projects
  • electricity generating capacity
  • hospitals and health-care equipment

These projects would create more than 1.5 million jobs in engineering, manufacturing, construction trades, surveying, metalworking, and more.  We can repair our crumbling, existing infrastructure and erect modern, new, state-of-the-art infrastructure for the 21st century. We can build up our manufacturing and productive capacity, and invest into science and technology to put Australia at the cutting edge.

All that's needed is the political will to do it. 

The Australian Citizens Party is leading the fight to recreate a 'People's Bank', that would invest on the basis of promoting the Commonwealth, rather than simply increasing short term profits on whatever risky speculation seems to hold the highest rate of return.

Ironically, the current unprecedented economic crisis is an opportunity for a dramatic change for the good

Please sign the petition now.  This is a matter of the greatest urgency. 

Petition Summary

We call upon the Australian government to:

Immediately establish a national bank to finance an emergency economic mobilisation without borrowing from overseas, just as the original Commonwealth Bank, the “People’s Bank”, provided the credit for Australia’s miraculous WWII mobilisation that transformed the economy into a productive powerhouse.


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“If the Government of the Commonwealth deliberately excluded itself from all participation in the making or changing of monetary policy it cannot govern except in a secondary degree.”

John Curtin
Australian Prime Minister 1941-1945


PETITION

For national survival, Australia needs a national bank—now!

TO THE HONOURABLE SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

This petition of concerned Australians draws to the attention of the House that:

Australia is in a national emergency, facing the combined crisis of a public health threat and economic collapse.

The economic crisis however is not primarily due to the coronavirus pandemic, but to decades of economic policies that dismantled Australia’s industrial capacity and infrastructure, including and especially healthcare, while inflating a bubble in financial services and real estate.

Australia has become extremely dependent on foreign capital and foreign imports, leading to the highest levels of foreign debt and household debt in its history.

The economic crisis was therefore inevitable; its cause is the same reason Australia is ill-equipped to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

For national survival, this economic situation must be turned around, fast.

We therefore ask the House to:

Immediately establish a national bank to finance an emergency economic mobilisation without borrowing from overseas, just as the original Commonwealth Bank, the “People’s Bank”, provided the credit for Australia’s miraculous WWII mobilisation that transformed the economy into a productive powerhouse.

A national bank would:

  • harness and direct public credit into long-term nation-building infrastructure projects and a massive expansion of productive industries, especially, immediately, in the production of healthcare supplies and equipment;
  • be a vehicle for Australians, including superannuation funds, to invest in the nation’s economic development for a guaranteed long-term return;
  • support the financial system that serves the real economy, not financial speculation;
  • restore public confidence.
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Website: https://citizensparty.org.au   Phone: 1800 636 432  Email: info@citizensparty.org.au  Postal Address: PO Box 376, Coburg, Vic 3058