Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You saw that coming, didn't you? The 2015 Reserve Bank of Australia annual report noted the continued trend of cash payments falling, signifying the increase in card payments in Australia, so it is all the more important for us to deal with this in the way we are dealing with it today. The growth in electronic payments in our economy is a clear trend and obviously one that will not be turning around any time soon. It is a trend which it is reasonable to expect will go through the roof over the next few years as we as a society become even more technology driven. This is sad in some respects, if I could hark back to the more traditional days when we supported our local businesses and shopped locally. We walked into a store and tried on some shoes, bought them and took them home in a bag or a box. Compare that with today, where people are choosing to spend their money online.

It is not necessarily part of this bill, but I will take the opportunity, given that I have a few moments, to mention a specific example of the damage that can be done by our change of spending or payment culture. I will not give away the name of the town, but in a small town in my electorate that I visited recently I said to the person in the shop that I was in, 'What happened to the shop on the other side of the street from you? I can't remember exactly what shop it was.' There was a big empty space left. She said, 'That was the local shoe shop'—the only shoe shop, I understand—'but it has closed down.' I said, 'Why did it close down?' She said, 'Everybody around here was buying their shoes online.' I said, 'How do you know? It could have just been poor business, bad selection of shoe products for people to choose from, or bad service—how on earth would you know that it was purely to do with the purchase of shoes online?' They said, 'We're a pretty small town. You only have to talk to the local postman and he will tell you exactly what's happening.' The shape of a shoe box is pretty distinctive in anybody's language, and the postman was exceptionally busy over the previous year delivering more and more shoes to residential and even business addresses.

You could argue about why people chose to do that. Maybe they were not getting the product or the service, but I doubt it. I think that the place I am talking about would have given very good service, but it is just a change in spending and payment culture. I said to the person, 'How is that going down in your town?' She said, 'Not very well. People are very unhappy.' I said, 'Why would they have a right to be unhappy when in fact they themselves, by their spending payment habits, led to this outcome?' She said, 'They're really angry now, because when they do need a pair of shoes really quickly, or if the children rip the sole or heel off their school shoe and they want some this afternoon ready for tomorrow's school, they no longer have a shop to buy them.' This is quite a small town. So in a sense we need to be very careful what we wish for. We need to be very careful about what our habits and behaviour lead to, because at the end of the day there is nothing better than shopping locally, spending locally, supporting our local businesses and making sure they are there tomorrow.

As the pattern of growth continues in this way, it is vital for the health of our economy and for the bottoms of people's pockets, where they keep their loose change and notes, that the regulatory framework surrounding card payments is effective, efficient and fair

The consumer needs utmost confidence in the payments system. The integrity of this system is compromised when merchants can place excessive surcharges on products most of the time without the consumer's knowledge. The average consumer does not have access to the information to be able to determine if the surcharge they are paying is representative of the true cost of the payment to the merchant.

Once the reforms in this bill are implemented, consumers can have confidence that any surcharges they do pay will be representative of the true cost of that transaction to the merchant. More importantly, the consumer will not see excessive flat fees when it comes to the final stage of processing. Won't it be a great day when that ends! Consumers may still be asked to pay a card payment processing fee, but it will be a fee that is not disproportionate to the cost to the merchant. It will no longer be unfair.

Although businesses will no longer be able to charge excessive card payments, as I said, there is no stopping them from increasing their pricing. So I ask consumers to be aware and watch out to make sure that such price gouging is not in fact happening.

I am confident that the changes to the legislation will make consumers in Australia better off overall. As you add up those surcharges and those unfair fees through the course of the year—whether it be at the cost of you or your partner or your children who are old enough to have their own money who are also getting charged these fees—you will see that this will add up to a significant amount of money in each household's budget on an annual basis and should not be underestimated for one moment.

I support the reforms that this government has put forward to strive for greater efficiency and fairness in the Australian economy, and I thank the House for the opportunity to speak.

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