Australian Citizens Party Citizens Taking Responsibility

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Vote for candidates who support a post office bank

- Citizens Party Media Release

The Citizens Party is leading the campaign for Australia to establish a public post office bank, which would have enormous benefits for our nation (see below). The LPO Group, which represents the interests of the 2,850 small business Licensed Post Offices, has issued a call to all political parties to support a post office bank “to service small and medium enterprises and help sustain the network and fund infrastructure”. To support the post office bank policy, vote for the Citizens Party’s Senate candidates, who are running in every state except Tasmania and the ACT, and the eight House of Representatives candidates in NSW, Victoria, and NT.

Click here for the Citizens Party’s candidates.

The Citizens Party recommends the following candidates in electorates where there are not ACP candidates:

Tasmania

In the Senate, vote for Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party candidate Ray Williams, who is a staunch supporter of the post office bank “to provide full banking services to hundreds of country towns where the Big Four banks have closed branches”. As a former local bank manager and business manager who now owns a hardware store, Ray understands the needs of Tasmania’s economy, and has been a longtime collaborator in the Citizens Party’s fight for transformative economic development for Australia.

In the seat of Braddon, vote for Independent candidate Craig Garland, who supports the post office bank, and is fighting to provide cheap housing, training and jobs for young people who are being squeezed by unaffordable housing and electricity. “It can't go on like this”, Craig Garland says.

Click here to see policy profiles of Ray Williams and Craig Garland on the Tasmanian website The Battler.

Other parties

To assist in voting and assigning preferences, following is a list of other parties that also support a post office bank:

  1. Katter’s Australian Party. Queensland MP Bob Katter is the strongest supporter of the post office bank among current Members of the House of Representatives.
  2. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts is a tireless advocate for the LPOs, has questioned the government pointedly on allowing bank branch closures, and strongly supports a post office bank.
  3. The Australian Greens have expressed firm support for a public post office bank, and have been an important part of the fight in Parliament against financial corruption and for financial reform to reduce the power of the private banks.
  4. Other parties and candidates. There are numerous individual supporters of a post office bank in the other parties, including in the ALP, Liberals, and Nationals, and among the new minor parties. The best way to find out if the candidates in your electorate support the policy is to ask them how they respond to the LPO Group’s call for a post office bank.

Benefits

Just imagine what a public post office bank would do for Australia:

  • Ensure all Australians have close access to face-to-face banking services: communities that are losing their bank branches wouldn’t have to worry anymore, and in fact the prospect of losing customers to the post office bank would spook the private banks into keeping their branches open;
  • Give Australians a place where they can have 100 per cent security for their savings: the public post office bank wouldn’t be using deposits to gamble in toxic and risky derivatives, and deposits wouldn’t be in danger of being “bailed in”, a.k.a. confiscated to prop up the bank, because the bank is owned by the government and can’t go broke;
  • Maintain the post office network: all over the world post offices have lost revenue as the internet has reduced the number of people sending letters, but countries that have combined postal services with banking services have succeeded in maintaining their indispensable post offices;
  • Guarantee the financial viability of the LPOs: the 2,850 small business LPOs were literally losing sleep at night going broke before then-Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate demonstrated that revenue from banking would make them viable, which a permanent post office bank would guarantee (and the LPOs wouldn’t depend on payments from the private banks, as they do now);
  • Restore local banking: deposits in the post office bank would fund loans back into those communities, whose small and medium enterprises and even local councils could borrow for business and infrastructure investments that enable the local economy to prosper;
  • Ensure cash availability and maintain the cash payments system: the private banks are trying to phase out cash to boost their profits and data collection from transactions, which would be very bad for Australians and the Australian economy, so the post office bank will permanently maintain the cash payments system;
  • Break the monopoly of the Big Four banks over Australia’s financial system: only a government-owned bank will have the strength to take on the Big Four and force them to compete, including on service;
  • Invest in national economic development: the post office bank will attract a massive flood of deposits away from the private banks, from which any surplus deposits could be loaned directly to the federal, state, and local governments for infrastructure projects to develop Australia.

A public post office bank isn’t just a “good idea”; it represents the beginning of a crucial reform of the financial system to constrain the power of the Big Four banks and ensure public credit flows into the long-term infrastructure and industry investments that the private banks neglect. Citizens Party candidates Alexis Garnaut-Miller (Cunningham NSW) and Robert Barwick (Senate Victoria) discussed this transformative potential for Australia with Martin North on his Digital Finance Analytics YouTube channel. Click here to watch Why This Election Should Be About Access To Cash!

What you can do to help!

Get involved in the campaign by seeking out all the candidates in your electorate to ask them to support the LPO Group’s call for a post office bank. Also contact your local councillors to ask them to support the LPO Group’s call.

Click here to sign the Citizens Party’s petition for a public post office bank, which would invest its deposits in infrastructure projects to develop Australia.

Postal Savings Bank