Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had a person come in. They had lost $32,700 out of their account. They're just an ordinary person. She looked like she'd retired, and $32,700 was taken out of her account. It was robbed from her through the bank's operations. My own wife had $746 vanish out of one of our accounts. Monique Ryan called a meeting here, and over 200 people—I counted—came to the meeting. The government is doing nothing about this.

Before, if you robbed a bank, it was the bank that took the hit and quite rightly so. It was a shortcoming in their security system that led to the robbery. But there's a shortcoming in their security system and there are robberies going on 100 times a day, and there is nothing being done about it. The banks take no responsibility for their own incompetence.

They've also knocked back cheques. Carol Mackee, a constituent and a very prominent person in the sugarcane industry in northern Queensland, tried to cash a cheque, and the bank said, 'Oh, no, we don't cash cheques.' Banks don't acknowledge cheques anymore. What the hell do they do? They can't secure our money, they can't provide a medium of exchange and they don't provide any money for housing, outside of principal— (Time expired)