Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing my observations about the Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2013 I will cite three examples that have been brought to my attention and that I think are relevant to this bill. But I also want to discuss this bill in context. The context is this: it had been thought in the past that if money had remained in bank accounts unclaimed, if those accounts had been dormant for some seven years, that the legitimate holder may no longer be aware that those funds were there—they may have died; there may be any number of explanations—then that money should not be left in an account available to essentially benefit the institution that holds it, but the government should take it on trust.

Provisions have been included in the legislation to enable the money, if it has been found to be missing by the person who was the owner, to be able to reclaim it. And seven years seemed not unreasonable. What the government has sought to do is to reduce that period to three years. You ask yourself: what are the policy reasons for doing that? Given that seven years was there and it deals with the situation where people may have lost track of the funds, why does it need to be reduced to a period of three years? What is the logical reason for doing so? I cannot think of any logical reason for doing so, other than the government—not because they are putting the money into a trust account available for the person to whom it belongs to be able to reclaim at a later date and holding it in trust for them, that is not is what is happening; what is happening is the money is being paid into consolidated revenue—is taking the money that is unclaimed and, in effect, spending it. That is what is happening.

It may be that if the government is not broke at some later period people can claim it back—maybe—but the government needs to be in pretty good odour for that to happen. What we have is a government that has billions of dollars—$340 billion or $350 billion—worth of debt. This money is about taking the funds of Australians, ostensibly on the basis that they have been lost or unclaimed, and using it for the government's use. In any other situation it would be called theft. I make the point that it may not be unreasonable when there is a fairly long period of time, but what is the reason for reducing the time? The reason for reducing the time is it is going to put money into consolidated revenue and reduce the debt.

It seems to me that when people have not claimed funds for seven years, it may reasonably be the case that nobody is going to turn up and claim them. But I suspect, with the period being three years, there are going to be a lot of people anxious about that situation and wanting to get it back. I do not know the extent to which Treasury have tried to understand the nature of those claims and to take it into account and to put it as a contingency. I hope they have done that. And you might find that if they made that study and it was a contingency, then the $100 million that they are expecting to benefit is illusory.

I want to deal with some of the circumstances that do arise. The honourable member who spoke before me, the member for Wright, mentioned accounts that grandparents and others might establish in the names of grandchildren—maybe for school fees, maybe to help them when they get engaged or married—but, if they fall on some hard times, they may not be able to add any money to the account. That there has been no transaction for three years may not be an unreasonable period but, because there has been no transaction—an additional amount added or money taken out—these funds will be forfeited to the Crown. That is essentially what is happening. You have to ask yourself: is that likely to happen? I think it is likely to happen quite frequently. My wife does this for our grandchildren, and as long as we are in a position to be able to afford to contribute it may well be that we are not going to be affected by this. But if you do not know that you have to make a transaction every year on that account, or at least every three years, you will suddenly find that the funds that you expected have been stripped away.

I have had a number of people raising this matter with me. One was an 86-year-old lady whom I know very well. She has something like $8,000 deposited in an account. She is a pensioner; she has not been able to add or subtract from that account. The money was set aside for her funeral costs and that has been stripped away. She is alarmed at the prospect that that is happening in her case.

I have had a real estate agent talk to me. He runs a business of letting properties. In relation to the tenants, he takes a bond to guarantee that if the tenant vacates the property and leaves it damaged, there can be restitution. But if there is no damage at the end of the lease, or when the tenant leaves, the funds are paid out. He has been in the situation where he has hundreds of accounts for each separate deposit. It is not a large trust account; he has to keep them separately. So he put the funds separately in an account for those tenants but if the tenants stay in the property for over three years the bond is lost. How reasonable is that? In his case, there are hundreds potentially.

When you go through it and look at what is required you are surprised, as I was, by the nature of the bureaucracy that we are implementing in relation to these matters where, to get your hard-earned cash back, you have to search ASIC's MoneySmart website to find out that your unclaimed money has been taken. If the search discloses that it is there, you have got to take the OTN, the original transaction number, and then you have got to contact your bank and, in addition, with the original transaction number you may be required to provide proof of identification, so people are then asked to provide bank statements, passports, drivers licences. When the bank is satisfied that it has a claim from the rightful owner, it informs ASIC and the funds may then be returned.

This is a bureaucratic procedure that is being put in place because the government wants to deal ostensibly with its deficit and what it is essentially doing is taking the funds of Australians and appropriating them for the government's purpose. If you did that as a private person, so you expropriated somebody's account on the basis that they had not been using it, it would be fraud—but in this case it is the government. As I have said, there were arrangements that were in place. There is no suggestion they were not working appropriately. I do not think there is any evidence that there was a need for change and I have not heard any evidence of the need for change. What I have heard is that the government thinks it has found a way by which to obtain money for consolidated revenue by taking the bank accounts and the superannuation funds and the other deposits that have been identified for its purposes—a little over $900 million—and I suspect that the government will find that it will get far more claims from people that have had funds taken after a shorter period of three years and that this will not address the substantial issue which the government has advanced as being the reason for this measure.

In my view, there is no justification for it and it is appropriate to oppose the measure. I will continue to draw the attention of my constituents to the way in which this matter is being done, because I think that it is occasioning a very considerable anxiety amongst people who should not be losing their funds in these circumstances.

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