Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 to regulate digital assets under Australia's financial services laws. Under the current laws, there are major gaps in the regulation of these digital assets. We must ensure strong consumer protections and fair regulations that align with other equivalent financial products. It's incredibly important that ASIC has the power to regulate these platforms and that our laws are tailored to actually apply to these new technologies.

We need to make sure, though, that people are not left vulnerable to scams and exploitation—something that's happening far too often in this space—while also ensuring an innovative and competitive market. We also need to ensure that these new technologies and services don't displace traditional banking services for those that still use them. We've seen far too many closures of local bank branches in this country, including the impending closure of the local Commonwealth Bank branch in Kenmore in my electorate of Ryan. The closure of the Kenmore branch will have a devastating effect on the community, particularly older and more vulnerable residents who are reliant on in-person banking services. The Commonwealth Bank made a $10 billion profit last year—$10 billion; that's more than the other major banks—and yet they just can't seem to manage to actually service the community. They can't bring themselves to do that. Instead, they'll just keep reaping profits off mortgage holders and small-business owners, which will increase especially now thanks to yesterday's rate rise announcement. It's not too much to ask that they continue to provide basic, accessible service to the community.

The Commonwealth Bank was privatised by the Keating Labor government in the nineties, and the Howard coalition government then finished the job when they were elected in 1996. It was a bipartisan affair. They sold it off without any guarantee of service levels to the public, and now we're in an absolute crisis of bank closures in regional, remote and outer suburban areas. That crisis led to the Senate inquiry into bank closures conducted in 2024, which made a number of recommendations, good recommendations, that could likely have prevented this Kenmore branch closure and other branch closures around the country, like looking at a public banking option and a mandatory code of conduct for branch closures. These recommendations, made by a multipartisan committee, were handed down in May 2024. Since then—utter radio silence from the government. They were meant to respond within three months. Instead, their response is almost two years overdue. It's frankly disgraceful, and it's hugely disrespectful to the countless Australians affected by this issue. I have written about this to the minister responsible, the Assistant Treasurer, and I know my constituents in Ryan are expecting a timely response.

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