Mr WILTON (1:36 PM) —As much as it was a privilege for me to second this motion submitted by the member for Chifley (Mr Price), I am equally and obviously a bit disturbed by some of the comments made by the member for Wannon (Mr Hawker), who, whilst he has done a fair and decent job as Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Financial Institutions and Public Administration, I think on this occasion has made comments which serve no greater role than as the banks' official apologist.

I challenge the member for Wannon to circulate the speech he just made to parts of his own world—in Timboon, Simpson or Macarthur—where banks have closed and monitor the response of his constituents. They might agree that in many areas the committee which he chairs, and which I have the honour to also be a member of, has done some good work but I think we would have done much better work had the Treasurer (Mr Costello) thrown the committee more than a few crumbs as a result of the Wallis inquiry.

The member for Wannon cites the Wallis inquiry as being a major inquiry into bank activity, but he fails to mention that no consumer protection at all is cited within the outcome of the Wallis inquiry. If Mr Costello does, as I am sure he has already done, accept the Wallis report and recommendation that government keep out of fees and charges, he will—and he already has effectively—be telling banks to go for their lives. Those banks have already been jacking up their fees to make up for the money that they are losing on their housing margins when faced with competition from the new home lenders. They have now been given the green light to push those fees and charges even further.

The member for Wannon knows that these regressive bank fees and charges should be the subject of government scrutiny and government control. But, under this government, these rising fees and charges have just been ignored. In fact the Treasurer has given a green light to banks charging more and more for basic services. Your average Australian is being charged a substantial amount of money for what is a basic need. This government has indeed turned its back on the battlers. Two years ago today it promised to govern for all Australians.

Under Labor the banks were pressured into providing a no-frills account where over the counter transactions were free. This helped people on low incomes such as pensioners and students. But banks of course are again putting up these charges. Choice magazine, in an often quoted article from March 1997, stated:

Banks are systematically raising existing fees and charges. They're also coming up with new charges that hit every aspect of your transactions. And they're making some fees harder to avoid. The fees and charges are also confusing, as each financial institution has its own particular combination, making comparison very difficult.

This article is from a year ago, yet fees and charges in this regard continue to rise. The people hit hardest are those on lower incomes. The facts and figures cited by the member for Chifley are worth repeating. He said that that same Choice article found that a low bank account balance, usually under $500, would attract bank fees from anywhere between $49 and a staggering $139. Mr Costello tells us that competition under these Wallis reforms will lead to lower bank charges and fees. But there has been no evidence of this. There has been no evidence of this in my part of the world. There has been no evidence of this in Horsham or Hamilton. There has been no evidence of this anywhere. Low income people are still paying far too much for a service that they cannot afford to be without.

Mr Price —It's regressive.

Mr WILTON —Competition is not going to fix that problem. It is regressive, as the member for Chifley has said. I urge the Treasurer to re-examine the Wallis report in light of these submissions. It is time that the government did come good on its promise to govern for all of us. The Treasurer does need to act to restore the ACCC's role in monitoring bank fees and charges. He needs to accept that this blind faith in the markets will not result in the sort of equitable and just society that he suggests it might.