A public post office bank—the solution to bank branch closures

The best way to solve the terrible problem of bank branch closures is to create a new public post office bank.

In the process, we will rein in the corrupt power of the Big Four banks by re-establishing a public alternative. Australia has not had such a public bank since Paul Keating and John Howard privatised the Commonwealth Bank in 1996.

The Citizens Party’s proposed public post office bank will force the banks to compete on retail services and restore banking services to every community in Australia.

For more than a decade numerous organisations and experts have called for an Australian public post office bank to provide a secure alternative to the private banking system.

Australians and the Australian economy are straining under the yoke of a private banking oligopoly which:

starves small business and industry of credit while concentrating its lending in the housing bubble that prices young families out of buying an affordable home;
maximises profits by preying on bank customers to extract wealth through asset-stripping;
withdraws banking services from whole communities through aggressive branch closures to maximise its profits;
denies banking services to anyone it doesn’t like, especially small businesses that are competitors to the banking system, making it impossible for them to function in the economy;
is pushing to eliminate cash entirely, in order to lock Australians into banks and force us to transact electronically so the banks can trace our economic activities; and
corrupts the political system through its enormous lobbying power, enabling it to always block any attempt to seriously reform the banking system.

A public post office bank would cure each and every one of these evils.

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

PETITION

An Australia Post ‘people’s bank’—a win-win solution for the nation

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’s financial system is dominated by a private banking oligopoly that pursues maximum profit at the expense of customers, the community and ethical standards.

The major banks have focussed their lending on mortgages, which has inflated house prices to unaffordable levels, while starving small business, farming and manufacturing of credit. In recent years they have shut hundreds of branches and ripped out hundreds more ATMs in rural and regional Australia and low-income suburbs of the major cities, accelerating the economic decline of many communities. And they have abused their market power to reduce the use and availability of cash and cheques and to deny customers banking services through “debanking”.

Australia needs an alternative, public banking system that provides financial services to all communities and invests in the nation’s future.

We therefore ask the House to immediately establish:

a national postal bank—a new “people’s bank” like the original Commonwealth Bank—to operate through Australia Post’s thousands of post offices; and
a national development bank to invest in infrastructure and productive industries.

A national postal bank would restore retail financial services to all communities, fully guarantee savings deposits, lend carefully but fairly, maintain cash payments, not discriminate through debanking, and invest surplus deposits in the national development bank to fund job-creating infrastructure and industries.

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A new public post office bank—a “people’s bank”—is the solution to bank branch closures

PETITION

An Australia Post ‘people’s bank’—a win-win solution for the nation