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Bank Closures

The Engineered Death of Regional Banking in Australia

 

According to independent research by banking writer Dale Webster, 64 percent of bank branches in regional Australia have closed since 1975.

Only 1011 ‘big four’ bank branches remain, largely clustered in major centres.

Even worse, 589 towns that once had bank branches now have no banks left at all.

Another 84 towns are on the verge of complete loss of banking services with just one major bank branch remaining.

According to APRA, Australia’s banking regulator, between June 2017 and June 2022, the number of branches went from 5,694 to 4,014.

That’s a loss of 1,680 branches – or 30 percent – in just five years.

ATM Cash machines are also being closed at a record rate.

Over 1,345 ATMs were shut down by the banks during 2021-22.

A reduction of 17 per cent in one year.

It’s not just those in the bush, either, who are bearing the brunt of all these closures.

Bank branches and ATMs are fast disappearing from suburban areas of our cities as well.

What these closures show, is that the ‘Big Four’ banks are no longer acting in ‘good faith’ towards the Australian people.

In fact, according to FSU, the banks are engaged in a deliberate campaign to ‘condition’ regional communities and older customers into accepting the gradual loss of all face-to-face banking services over the next 10 years.

Bank staff told the FSU they had been trained to steer customers towards using online banking and to implement ‘nudge strategies’ aimed at decreasing in-person visits to branches.

Staff said they faced disciplinary action and even termination, if the bank-imposed targets for digital banking weren’t met.

Banks are enforcing a ‘cashless’, automated digital banking system on Australians by stealth, while betraying their staff, customers and regional communities.

Last month, a Committee of Inquiry set up at the behest of Senator Gerard Rennick, to examine the economic and social impacts of regional branch closures.

The findings of this inquiry are due by 1 December.

Senate submissions for the inquiry are open until March 31.

I urge everyone to make a submission on the impact that these closures are having on regional communities.

Regional Australia deserves a fair go and to be treated with respect.

It does not deserve to have key services ripped out of its communities by multi-billion dollar banking monopolies, seeking to maximise bank profits and to further the ‘cashless’ agenda of their global finance masters.

That it IS a globalist agenda is evident from the way identical banking policies are currently being pushed worldwide.

How Branch Closures Affect Access to Banking Services | St. Louis Fed

Bank closures in regional Australia

On 8 February 2023, the following matter was referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 December 2023.

The current extent of bank closures in regional Australia, with reference to:

a. the branch closure process, including the reasons given for closures;

b. the economic and welfare impacts of bank closures on customers and regional communities;

c. the effect of bank closures or the removal of face-to-face cash services on access to cash;

d. the effectiveness of government banking statistics capturing and reporting regional service levels, including the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s authorised deposit-taking institutions points of presence data;

e. consideration of solutions; and any other related matters.

Submissions close on 31 March 2023.

Committee Secretariat contact:

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone: +61 2 6277 3511 | Email: rrat.sen@aph.gov.au

 

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Stop complaining

RBA Chief tells Australian homeowners to stop complaining, they’ve actually got it ‘pretty good’ ….

Reserve Bank boss Philip Lowe, the man who has inflicted 9 straight interest rate rises on Australian homeowners, said last week that Australians actually have it “pretty good” and should stop ‘complaining’.

Dr Lowe, who apparently lives in a $4 million house and earns over $1 million a year, told the media that ‘nothing keeps him up at night’.

In fact, his only real ‘worry’, is the growing “retreat from globalisation and free trade”, which he claims made Australia “a wealthy and prosperous country”.

It is a complete mystery to me how any economist, let alone one as eminent as Dr Lowe, can seriously think that offshoring a population’s productive capacities and skills base can possibly maintain a country’s prosperity for long.

In fact, it was globalisation which systematically dismantled all the elements needed for a free and prosperous economy in Australia.

The move offshore of production resulted in the moving offshore of our GDP, tax base, consumer income and irreplaceable career opportunities for young Australians.

The ladders of upward mobility that once made Australia an “opportunity society”, were kicked away in the interest of higher corporate profits.

Without growth in consumer incomes to drive the economy, the RBA substituted it with consumer debt.

This allowed Australians with stagnant or declining incomes to access more and more spending monies on credit, creating the illusion of growth.

The massive expansion of debt tied heavily to the property bubble is now coming to an end.

The ‘New Economy’ jobs we were promised, turned out to be insecure, casual jobs in non-tradeable services such as retail, travel, waitresses, bartenders, aged care and hospital workers.

Today, a thin layer of very rich people in Australia rule over those “who have been left behind”—a shrinking middle class and a growing underclass.

Australia’s median family income hasn’t increased for a quarter of a century, while real wages have gone backwards.

Many businesses now only survive well enough to service their debts, with most too broke to expand or raise productivity.

Even the good ones are so burdened with debt, they are in no position to invest further.

Offshoring jobs may have benefitted bankers, corporate executives and their shareholders, but it ruined the income and employment prospects of a whole generation of Australians.

The legacy today is a trillion dollar debt burden and a population facing the biggest decline in its living standards since World War 2.

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Minister of Everything

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CANBERRA ….

Last week’s revelation that Scott Morrison secretly appointed himself ‘Minister of Everything’ while PM, hardly comes as a surprise.

For three years we’ve seen how poorly democratic principles rank with those in Canberra.

Most see democracy as something to be ‘got round’, not protected or upheld.

What was surprising, were the protestations of innocence that flew thick and fast, from all those claiming they ‘knew nothing’ whatsoever about it.

Something I find very difficult to believe.

Even harder to believe is the idea that Morrison came up with the plan himself and then plotted on his own to bring it all about!

And yet that is what we are led to believe.

Of course they admit the Governor General knew, but there’s a huge push on to quarantine Hurley from any suggestion of culpability or blame.

However, serious questions do need to be asked about the role the Governor General played in all these secret ministerial appointments.

Such as why he didn’t consult the Solicitor General or even Buckingham Palace about what Morrison was asking him to do.

He claims it was “not an unusual process” and every ‘constitutional expert’ in the country has been rounded up to back up that claim.

If it everything was as ‘ho-hum’, however, why all the SECRECY?

Even Malcolm Turnbull has said the whole episode is “sinister”, and that Hurley needs to explain to the Australian people exactly what his thinking was at the time.

“The governor-general is not just a rubber stamp. He has a constitution to uphold”.

Turnbull also pointed out that if he had tried to secretly appoint himself to a ministry, “neither the former governor-general Peter Cosgrove, nor his own senior staff would have allowed it”.

There’s no doubt Morrison’s behaviour deserves a Royal Commission, but one that thoroughly investigates all those around him, particularly those in the Executive.

The chances of that happening, though, are pretty slim.

Albanese has ring-fenced his outrage over the incident to Morrison and Morrison alone.

But for many Australians, including myself, Morrison is just the ‘head of the fish’ as far as the whole rotten system is concerned.

There are just too many unanswered – and unasked – questions about the whole story for my liking.

Like why the story was ‘leaked’ in the first place?  We all know the power governments have for keeping things secret nowadays, so why not this?

Here’s another for you.

Has Morrison been cast to the wolves, not for any ‘secret ministries’ he held, but because he recently did the unthinkable and warned Australians that their government and THE UN were NOT TO BE TRUSTED?

Just a thought …

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Interest rate hikes

IS AUSTRALIA HEADED FOR ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON?

Remember in 2020 when EXPERTS told us that, contrary to what we were all taught in the past, mountains of government debt was actually a good thing?

It was called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and it all hung together beautifully in the models.

Well you don’t hear much about MMT anymore.

Not since inflation started skyrocketing and central banks began hiking their interest rates.

This month, Australia’s RBA raised interest rates to 0.85% and Goldman Sachs says it could hit 2.6% by year’s end.

Which makes RBA’s actions incredibly reckless, in my book.

Property and household debt are pretty much the only thing still driving this country’s economy.

We generate no real wealth, create no productive jobs, while private investment and wage growth have been stagnant for decades.

Where is the national productivity agenda?  There is none.

Australia is now a ‘service’ economy – ‘services’ and the longest running property bubble in history!

In 2020, the Treasurer said gross government debt would be $1.1 trillion by June 2024.

According to Treasury’s models, the total interest payable on all that debt was predicted to be $113 billion by June 2025, or close to $20 billion each year.

There’s just one tiny problem.

The  models were calculated on the ‘assumption’ that there would be A STEADILY FALLING INTEREST RATE ACROSS THAT PERIOD!

Which as everyone knows, didn’t happen. Instead of falling, interest rates have tripled.

So instead of having to pay around $20 billion in interest each year, the federal government could be looking at $60 billion.

And despite what MMT theorists believe, governments absolutely MUST pay their annual debt interest payments – or the whole house of cards collapses.

Imagine if interest rates do hit that 2.6% Goldman Sachs has predicted.  We could be looking at an annual interest bill ten times the amount predicted in 2020.

Even at $60 billion, Australia’s interest bill would be the Government’s third largest expenditure item behind health and aged income support, according to the IPA.

And remember! Australia’s Big Four Banks are 60-70% exposed to the property sector.  Even a moderate run of defaults could finish them.

And here’s the kicker.

Under the Financial Claims Scheme Guarantee, deposits of $1 million or below with Australian-owned banks, building societies, credit unions and even Australian subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks are automatically guaranteed by the Federal Government!

That means if the property market collapses and some or all of the banks crash, guess who’s on the hook to bail them out?  The Federal Government.

It would bankrupt the country.

Let’s hope the RBA knows what its doing!

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Chief Medical Officer’s shocking admission

THE BOMBSHELL EVERYBODY MISSED!

During the recent Senate Estimates hearings in April, an extremely revealing exchange took place between Senator Gerard Rennick and Prof. Paul Kelly.

It offered a rare glimpse of the hidden rationale behind some of the draconian measures adopted by our Government over the past two years.

It also showed the extraordinary inroads Treaties like the International Health Regulations have already made on Australian sovereignty.

Senator Rennick asked:

“Why are we stopping unvaccinated people from travelling overseas? I cannot for the life of me see the health risks in an unvaccinated person leaving the country? …Why do we have to restrict people from travelling freely outside of Australia if they’re unvaccinated? I would have thought it would reduce the risk, given there would be fewer people in the country?”

To which Kelly admitted:

“ACTUALLY, IT IS, BECAUSE WE ARE SIGNED UP TO A TREATY CALLED THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS, AND THERE IS A SPECIFIC COMPONENT OF THE BIOSECURITY ACT WHICH ADDRESSES THAT MATTER ABOUT PROTECTION FOR OTHERS.”

Rennick’s retort was priceless:

“SO IT’S NOT HEALTH ADVICE; IT’S BECAUSE WE SIGNED UP TO A TREATY!”

Boom!

Senator Antic got a similar response when he asked on 6 April:

“I understand that, if you’re an Australian citizen… you can’t leave Australia unless you’re fully vaccinated and yet foreign citizens are able to leave at any time. What is the rationale behind this? What is the science behind this? Is this not more the sort of thing that we’d see in communist North Korea—stopping citizens leaving their country?”

Kelly replied:

“The advice in relation to people exiting Australia, was in relation to our obligations under the International Health Regulations for protecting other countries.”

Australia’s Biosecurity Act 2014 is littered with references to the IHRs and Australia’s “obligation” to legislate the regulations “into effect”.

Part 2, Clauses 44-45 cover ‘Exit Requirements’ which the Explanatory Memorandum say are primarily for:

“ENSURING AUSTRALIA’S INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS UNDER ANNEX 1B OF THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS ARE MET.”

Sub-clause 45(2) states “determinations” are laws, but cannot be “disallowed” by Parliament and are therefore not subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

During the 2015 debate on the Bill, there was no mention of the IHRs or ‘Human Health’ provisions, apart from a brief mention by the introducing Minister, Barnaby Joyce, who said:

“IT IS EXPECTED THAT THE HUMAN HEALTH PROVISIONS CONTAINED IN THIS BILL WILL BE SELDOM USED”.

Only Senator Nick Xenophon understood the danger.

He moved a motion that:

“..DETERMINATIONS BE MADE SUBJECT TO DISALLOWANCE AND PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY”.

A day earlier, he said:

“I remember the strong advocacy by former Senator Boswell, …he was absolutely right. WE ARE MUGS INTERNATIONALLY AND WE ARE SCHMUCKS INTERNATIONALLY… BECAUSE WE DO NOT PROTECT OUR NATIONAL INTEREST”.

“At the very least”, he said, a “risk analysis” should be tabled in both houses, and referred to a committee.

“We have to be extremely vigilant about this” he warned.

“Do not leave it to the bureaucrats”.

“THAT WOULD BE A VERY DANGEROUS PATH TO GO DOWN.”

His words all fell on deaf ears, however, and the Bill passed with bipartisan support.

All of which begs the question – how many other laws are being passed simply to ‘put into effect’ the dozens of secret international treaties and agreements our reckless governments are signing each year?

…..

Sign the Petition to ensure this never happens again: 

PANDEMIC TREATY AND AMENDMENTS TO THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS

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Director-General Determination

ROYAL COMMISSION NEEDED ON AUSTRALIA’S SECRETIVE AND UNACCOUNTABLE TREATY-SIGNING PROCESS

 

The above IHR amendment would have given away Australia’s sovereign decision-making powers for declaring and managing ‘Public Health Emergencies” to a foreign entity, the World Health Organization.

It still might, given we have only been granted a reprieve, NOT a pardon, from these appalling amendments.

Once we have all breathed a collective sigh of relief, however, important questions need to be asked to ensure this never happens again.

How exactly did it happen that not a single member of Government OR Parliament, thought to notify the Australian People that such a dangerous and treacherous step was being considered by Canberra?

At no point, as far as I am aware, did anyone in authority, alert the Australian public of the existence of these Biden amendments or their implications for our national sovereignty.

The only reason the public here became aware of the Amendments was when an independent US researcher came across them by chance in April and posted them online.

Without that, the Australian people would have had no idea their Government intended on signing away their sovereignty, without any recourse to the ‘Will of the People’.

Australia has one of the most secretive and unaccountable treaty-signing systems in the world.

It’s practice of tabling treaties in batches in Parliament, AFTER they have already been signed, is a joke.

In 1996, the British Minister for Overseas Development, compared the Australian practice to the ‘Ponsonby rule’, which requires treaties in the UK to be tabled at least 21 sitting days prior to signing.

She told Parliament:

“Your lordships would be right and, indeed, would have every reason to complain had we followed such a practice of tabling treaties in bulk. We have not done that. If our Australian friends had used something like the Ponsonby Rule on treaties effectively one by one, THEY WOULD NOT BE IN THE SITUATION IN WHICH THEY NOW FIND THEMSELVES.  We are very different from the Australian Government in this.  We are committed to a policy of open government.”

Australia’s practice of treaty signing has eroded our sovereignty and democracy, in ways most of us are still not fully aware of.

It is also why there is so much confusion amongst Australians as to why so many impenetrable laws are being rammed through our State and Federal Parliaments, without being either asked for or needed by the Australian people.

That’s why we need a full Royal Commission into Australia’s Treaty signing process, to get to the bottom of all this.

Please sign share the Queensland E-Petition:
PANDEMIC TREATY AND AMENDMENTS TO THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS

 

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Rise of the Elites

AUSTRALIA FALLS TO A BUNCH OF VIRTUE-SIGNALLING ELITES AND THEIR MASTERS

Saturday’s count saw massive swings to far-left green candidates in leafy inner-city areas, where privileged ‘elites’ now hold profoundly radical views on everything from climate change to ‘gender equity’.

And for all the rhetoric around conservatives and their so-called ‘racist’ agenda, it was One Nation who ran a far more diverse range of candidates across every measure of race, class and life experience, than all the pseudo left parties combined.

But that’s not something you’ll hear about from the mainstream media.

No.  They’re all too busy proclaiming a mandate on radical climate action and wokedom to notice how riddled with inconsistency and hypocrisy their side has become.

Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council, led the way calling for a “RADICAL RESET” on climate action.

Others quickly followed, including Adam Bandt, Penny Wong and Albanese, who told Australians he would be adopting much more radical emissions targets now.

“We have an opportunity to end the climate wars in Australia” Albanese told the BBC, who smugly noted “he has a mandate now”.

If ordinary Australians needed a reminder about just how much contempt the country’s elite, inner-city green ideologues feel about their struggles, then Saturday’s election coverage just handed it to them in spades.

There really are two Australias now and the political fault lines dividing the two were set in stone by this election.

The Australia that won the count on Saturday is one I barely know, or care to know.

It is a leafy place of wealth and privilege, where all the residents have cushy jobs and a string of letters after their name; not to mention a whining sense of entitlement Prince Charles would blush at.

And yet, when you boil everything down, Australia has a new government that nearly 70% of the country didn’t vote for.

That’s astonishing.

Labor won with the lowest primary vote ever recorded in our history.

The party also saw significant swings against them from its own traditional support base – blue-collar workers.

Areas with lower incomes and lower levels of education, are now much more likely to vote conservative than Labor – even people on welfare have shifted.

Waleed Aly commented on this historic shift, saying voters in wealthy electorates shifted left, while people in less wealthy seats moved right.

In the end, it was the hard swings in a few key bastions of inner-city privilege that proved decisive.

Sadly, the weekend’s losers are all those in the suburbs,  households, small business and regions.

The people Menzies once famously described as Australia’s ‘forgotten people’.

Only this time, there’s no Menzies coming to save them.

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Australian Election 2022

THERE NEEDS TO BE A RECKONING …

In Shanghai right now, nearly 25 million humans have been put under house arrest.

Imprisoned in high-rise apartments, they can’t leave their homes for anything – even food or water.

‘Essentials’ are delivered to them by a nightmarish army of white-garbed, masked ‘health workers’.

The city’s streets and parks are no-go zones and medical-testing is mandatory.

Groups of people are frogmarched to testing sites where anyone testing positive is forcibly taken away and incarcerated in vast prison-like quarantine centres.

House arrest, invasive tests, detention, starvation rations and countless other human rights abuses are now the norm.

Once upon a time, this would have provoked outrage and condemnation from leaders of the ‘free world’.

Not anymore.

Governments everywhere, including Australia, are utterly silent in the face of this tyranny.

Something Australians should consider an ominous sign for their own future.

When, during this whole campaign, did we hear a single Minister or shadow Minister, make reference to what has gone on over the past two and a half years?

How many apologised for the part they played, or didn’t play, in that nightmare?

A nightmare that saw countless lives ruined, dreams smashed, businesses destroyed, relationships broken and jobs/careers stolen.

Not a single one.

Even today I find it hard to credit the sheer lunacy of it all.  And cruelty.

I received literally thousands of letters and emails over the past year, many from Australians who have been deeply traumatised by recent events.

Most heartbreaking are those who say how “sad” they feel all the time now.

As though all feeling of happiness or hope for the future has been drained out of them.

Many of these are young people.

By rights, our youth should be brimming with joy, looking forward to a future filled with brilliant career opportunities, overseas travels, new friends, activities and adventure before meeting someone, having children and everything else that goes with that.

That’s why I’m saying:

There needs to be some kind of reckoning for all this.

My hope is that tomorrow will be that reckoning …

……………………………………………………………………..

Please REMEMBER all those standing who fought tirelessly, and continue to fight, by the side of the PEOPLE and AGAINST TYRANNY.

ABOVE ALL

REMEMBER TO VOTE MAJORS LAST!

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SIGNING AWAY OUR SOVEREIGNTY!

BOTH LEADERS SAY THEY SUPPORT HAND-OVER OF OUR SOVEREIGNTY TO WHO – BUT NEITHER THOUGHT TO LET AUSTRALIANS KNOW BEFORE NOW!

The WHO is making a power grab over Australian sovereignty this weekend in Geneva.

Australians were NEVER told that this was happening, until TODAY!

Both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader were caught RED-HANDED today when  confronted by the media for the first time at separate press conferences.

Albanese looked like a deer in the headlights, mumbled something about being a big WHO supporter, then scuttled away.

Morrison, meanwhile, is made of sterner stuff, decided to bluff his way through, waxing lyrical on how the whole thing was just the most brilliant idea.

If it was so brilliant, PM, why did neither you or your Ministers think, even once, to alert the Australian people on what you were planning to do behind closed doors?

#SaveOurSovereignty

Click here to watch Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese SIGN AWAY YOUR SOVEREIGNTY

 

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WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!

WORLD GOVERNMENTS WILL MEET IN GENEVA IN 5 DAYS AND SIGN AWAY THE SOVEREIGN RIGHTS OF THEIR PEOPLE

Turns out things are far worse than I realised.

The REAL POWER PLAY that will put national decision-making powers in the hands of WHO, is set to take place on 22 May 2022, when the world’s governments all sign off on the Biden Administration’s proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations in Geneva.

The Amendments are described as “complementary”, but separate to the proposed Treaty.

Like the Treaty, however, they will be “legally binding and enforceable” under international law.

More alarming, however, is that they are the primary instrument through which national sovereignty is to be ceded to the WHO, and the globalist funders who pull its strings.

Funders that include the Chinese Government and billionaire entities like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and George Soros.

Michele Bachmann, Dean of the Robertson School of Government and a former U.S. Congresswoman, has rung the alarm bells in the US, saying it is: “the most dangerous power grab by an unaccountable organisation in history”.

Once the amendments are signed, she warns America, WHO technocrats will have the authority to intervene in the policies and laws of “any nation in the world without its permission.”

Chinese-style lockdowns (which WHO has NEVER criticised or condemned) could be mandated “for whatever pretext they want, they don’t have to show data, they could do this”, Bachmann said.

Why is there almost no public discussion or debate on this issue in Australia?

The amendments were presented to the World Health Organisation by Biden on 18 January 2022, but there is NOTHING about them from before mid April – and even that’s only in the alternative news outlets.

Biden has released a list of countries who he says have agreed to sign away the constitutional rights of their people.  AUSTRALIA is top of the list!

Was this the REAL reason world governments suddenly, and ‘in lockstep’, toned down their previously harsh rhetoric on the virus, and even lifted many of their restrictions and mandates?

Was it all just to lull people into a false sense of security?

Anyone who cares about this country and future generations, needs to drop everything right now and focus on this ONE issue.

We only have three working days to turn things around!

An unequivocal message needs to be sent to every member of our UNI-POLAR Government in Canberra, including the wolf-in-sheep’s clothing GREENS Party, that under NO circumstances are these Amendments to be signed before there has been a full public debate and, more importantly, A NATIONAL REFERENDUM.

More to come….

#STOPWHO

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