Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday or the day before, the Commonwealth Bank notified that they were closing their branch in western Tasmania at the Queenstown site. That is a very isolated area of Tasmania, and we all know how those sorts of communities depend heavily on their bank in those regions. I think it's appalling that, on the day that they announced that they were closing the Queenstown branch, their profit jumped 19.7 per cent—19.7 per cent their profit jumped—when they announced that they would close their branch in this important regional town and not provide this service to the west coast people. The bank announced an $8.8 billion profit to the share market and, at the same time, they have demonstrated contempt to the people and the businesses of Queenstown, in an area that relies on it very heavily, where there are not a lot of people who have internet connections and can do their banking in that way.