Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to talk about the Commonwealth Bank. By way of background I should say that when the Commonwealth Bank closed the branch at Emerton and opened it at a new shopping centre, notwithstanding the difficulties that posed, I opened that branch. When the Commonwealth Bank refurbished the Mount Druitt branch they came and saw me and I opened that branch.

You can understand perhaps my shock to receive a letter addressed to me, the Hon. Roger Price MP, which said, ‘Dear Mr Lowles,’ not ‘Dear Mr Price’. It said ‘Dear Mr Lowles,’ who happens to be the mayor, and advised that the branch at Rooty Hill that had existed for more than 40 years was going to close. As it turns out they proposed to close it the day before Anzac Day, bearing in mind that Rooty Hill RSL is the largest RSL in New South Wales, and one that hosts the state conference of the RSL.

I am a reasonable person, and I sought a request from the bank and travelled into town to speak to the head of government relations and the head of retail banking. I was very anxious to find out why they were closing the bank branch. You would think, Mr Speaker, if the bank was unprofitable then it would be a reasonable approach by the bank to close it. But that was not the case. Was it not meeting expectations in terms of profit? Was it below what they tend to expect from a branch? No, that was not the reason they were closing it. There were two reasons why they were closing it—not because it was not profitable and not because they were not getting the return on investment: they were closing it because the lease was expiring on the branch. Of course, there were opportunities for them to seek further premises—probably on the north side would have been better anyway—or indeed extend the lease. So that was the first reason that triggered the closure of the Rooty Hill branch. What was the other reason that they closed the branch? They said that there were not enough transactions occurring at the branch.

In my experience with banks in recent years, they have done everything possible to ensure that their customers do not bank at their branches. They encourage them not to: ‘Use internet banking, use SMS banking, use an ATM but for goodness sake do not come and see us’. So this really surprised me. Neither the state member or I were given an opportunity to rally the community to save this branch. I expressed the view that it would be deeply offensive to close this branch on the day before Anzac Day, on the 24th. The head of retail banking assured me that they would move the date. Well, the truth is that they did not move the date. They have denied ever making a commitment to me—and I regret that, because a commitment was made. They promised that there would be a Commonwealth Bank ATM at Rooty Hill, and there is no ATM. Ralph Norris is the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Bank, and I wrote to him. Richard Amery, the state member, also wrote to him. And quite a number of their customers wrote to him. Richard Amery sent a lot of representations to him. But this CEO was too busy, too important, too isolated to respond to any of those letters. He refused to respond—the height of arrogance in my opinion.

The Australian Bankers Association have guidelines for closing branches in rural areas. I support those protocols and those guidelines. I have been party to these processes when other banks have come to me about having to close a branch and, as difficult and as painful as it was, I really appreciated them coming to see me. But there are no protocols for closing any branch in the metropolitan area. It is an absolute disgrace. Mr Norris is the chairman of the ABA, and no wonder they are not responding. I do want to congratulate the economics committee, which I have written to, because they are pursuing the issue of this arrogant, out-of-touch behaviour by the Commonwealth Bank, who complain that they have too many branches compared to their competitors and want to close more.