Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank my colleague Senator Joyce for giving me an opportunity to speak in the very, very limited time that we have because of the gag that has been put on the Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2013, as it has been put on another 54 bills this week. Thank you to the Labor-Greens government for doing that! I will speak briefly, because I do not have any other choice on this bill. I would just like to remind senators and those listening that, in the whole three years of the Howard government from 2004 to 2007, there were 32 bills where a gag or guillotine was applied. This government has almost doubled that with 55 just this week, and with ridiculous time limits like 20 minutes for the debate of an entire bill.

What we have here today is a bill to fix a bill, which of course is quite common with this government, which could not implement its way out of a paper bag. It is just appalling that it had this wonderful legislation all lined up and passed in December last year but now, less than six months later, it is putting through amendments because it did not listen to the comments made by the coalition and by the Australian Bankers' Association at the time.

The first thing that this government proposed was that they would change the timeline for unclaimed moneys from seven years to three years and that the banks would implement that the day after it was given royal assent by the Governor-General. I have spoken often in here about this government's complete lack of knowledge of the real world and of how a corporation, a company or, indeed, a business of any sort behaves. But to expect that every ADI—every deposit-taking institution in Australia—was going to be able to identify the customers whose bank accounts had been inactive for three years, within 24 hours, when seven years had been the benchmark, was just crazy. But of course this government could not see that, and now they are back here trying to sort out the mess that they have created by saying, 'Well, let's have a deadline of December; well, no, let's have a deadline in May; oh well, let's have another deadline now,' and trying to recoup the damage that they have done in the meantime.

I was interested to see on the website of ASIC—the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which is the body that has to accept these funds from the government before they go into consolidated revenue—that they give a huge amount of detail around claiming your moneys and looking for lost money. They point out that there is more than $750 million in lost shares, bank accounts and life insurance currently in the system. They go on to suggest to people other ways that they might 'find' money. One way they suggest—in fact, the first way they suggest—is to do a budget. You might find extra money if you do a budget, says ASIC. It is a shame that ASIC did not mention that to the Treasurer, Mr Swan, because his budgeting abilities are pretty appalling.

One other amendment that this bill makes is to return the money to the people who took money out of their accounts when this government had decided they were inactive accounts, even though they were not inactive accounts. There have been two examples in Queensland of this. This government tries to suggest that that is somehow the fault of the banks—that they have acted prematurely. This is the banks that were being told they had 24 hours to act initially. It is suggested that they have acted prematurely in moving money across. They have not acted prematurely. They have acted in the way a corporate body the size of a bank will always act. They cannot move in 10 seconds to the next thought bubble in the way that this government does.

A 75-year-old Toowong pensioner emerged from a quintuple heart bypass to find that his bank account was empty. More than $22,000 had been handed over to the federal government. That 75-year-old spent 21 days in hospital following his bypass surgery. When he and his wife went to check their Suncorp account, they found that there was not $22,616 in it, as they had expected; there was $0. They had been carefully putting money aside for 14 years to pay for health-related costs. That money was simply going into that account and being kept. Mr Duffy, the gentleman from Toowong, said:

My understanding of the definition of stealing is to take something without somebody's knowledge and not tell them. As far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what happened - (the Government) took it without telling us.

That is stealing, and that is what this government has done. We also have the case of a Brisbane woman, Ms Margaret Franklin, who is a financial planner and accountant—so someone who is financially knowledgeable. She had an account with $157,644 in it cleaned out. She was out of town and did not react to the one letter she received from her bank. But, as she points out, she notified a change of address on that account less than 12 months ago. Would this suggest that that is an inactive account? No, it would not. But, with the way this government went about it, anybody who has put some money aside and done nothing except let it build up interest is considered to have an inactive account after three years. There are literally thousands of accounts like this and there are literally hundreds of reasons why an Australian—a careful, prudent Australian—might set up an account and leave it with nothing but the interest coming in. Of course, the government would not understand 'prudent' and 'financial' in the same sentence, so no wonder they do not know what it is all about. Ms Franklin, who has two children, made what I think is a very relevant point. She pointed out that her finances are none of the government's business: 'It's my opinion that I can transact as often or as infrequently as I like, because after all it's my money.'

In both these cases, the money was appropriated before the new rules came in, and that is squarely and only on the government. It is the government's fault. One of the ASIC commissioners, Mr Peter Kell, gave evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services last Friday, and pointed out that there is currently $709 million in unclaimed money across banking, life insurance and companies. But, as he pointed out, as a result of the change from seven years to five years, there was a one-off increase at the end of May of $471 million. It went across in one lump. As has already been mentioned, this was a pathetic attempt by the government to try and meet the budget surplus way back when, before they gave up trying to keep their promise on this. Yet the government somehow suggest that it is the banks' fault that there is this mess going on, and we have this bill to fix the bill that should have been fixed in the first place—and it would have been if there were the slightest knowledge in this group of how to be competent. There is not.

What is more, half a per cent of all Australian bank deposits is in unclaimed money. That strikes me as being quite a lot of money: one in 200. Half a per cent—it is ridiculous and this government should be condemned utterly for it. (Time expired)