Ms LIVERMORE (5:16 PM) —I join with the member for Werriwa in saying that it seems the member for Deakin wants it both ways. With this motion, he wants to bash the Labor Party, but at the same time he is expressing support for measures which effectively reflect Labor's policies on banking. Clearly it must be an election year, because all of a sudden the Liberal Party is concerned about the poor practices of the banks in relation to the community. Suddenly, it is very anxious to be seen to be listening to the community—and I have to say it is about time. But it is a bit late to expect the community to have their faith restored in a government that has ceased to govern for them.

Over the last five years, while this government has sat on its hands, the banks have forced up fees and closed bank branches throughout regional and even urban Australia. The current situation with regard to bank fees was investigated thoroughly during the inquiry into fees on electronic and telephone banking carried out by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Securities. The trends that emerge from the evidence before the inquiry point clearly to the need for action to address the increasing inequities within the banking industry. For example, banks earned fee income of $1.8 billion from households in 1999. When that is broken down, the figures show that the revenue earned from deposits has increased by 44 per cent since 1997, while the revenue from transactions has increased by 160 per cent.

The inquiry highlighted the size of fees and also the reality that social security recipients and low income earners bear a disproportionate burden when it comes to bank fees. Banks are opting to offer cut-price rates for services they wish to promote, such as Internet banking, or fee exemptions for those with large deposits or loans, while the branch based services relied upon by many elderly and low income people in the community attract high fees. This sort of reverse cross-subsidisation is extremely disadvantageous to those who can least afford bank fees.

This attack on reasonable and equal access to an essential service has gone on for some years without a murmur from the Howard government. Now that the banks have finally responded to the slump in public confidence in their performance and have come up with a response to try and win back some credibility, the government is playing catch-up—pretending, through devices such as this motion, that it was in there all along pushing for fairer practices in banking and recognising that banks, as providers of an essential service, carry certain obligations. In fact, the government sat back and waited for the banks to act. On 26 March this year the Australian Bankers Association released a package of initiatives aimed at making banking more affordable and accessible for a range of people who have been hardest hit by the changes in banking practices resulting from deregulation and technological change.

In the meantime, the Labor Party had developed its own comprehensive policies to directly address these serious issues of access, affordability and the impact of branch closures. It is interesting to note in the context of this debate that, while the member for Deakin heaps praise on the Australian Bankers Association's measures, he is critical of the ALP even though the measures it would encourage banks to adopt go further than the ABA's. For example, the ABA promises a safety net bank account for customers in possession of a health care card, a seniors card or a pension card. Labor's proposal is for banks to provide a completely fee-free service to social security recipients in addition to a low fee, no frills account for other customers who wish to take up that option.

The social charter that Labor will negotiate with banks will also include more scrutiny of bank fees, requiring full disclosure of ATM fees at the time of the transaction as well as the number of fee-free transactions left for that customer. We will also require monitoring of all bank fees by the ACCC. Labor's social charter will be legally enforceable through the oversight of the financial services advisory board and the requirement on banks to submit a six-monthly social obligations statement, which would include information on any reductions in banking services, details of the promotion of basic banking services, including the take-up rates of basic bank accounts, and financial education initiatives undertaken by the bank. This is the deficiency in the ABA's announcement and also in the code of banking practice recently reviewed by Richard Viney.

The question has to be asked: what happens to the code of practice and the measures announced by the ABA when the heat goes out of this issue and the PR exercise has been successful? Without these enforceability measures, they are fairly hollow promises. The Viney report makes some significant recommendations to reform the banking code, but communities will not be satisfied unless the code has some teeth. Labor's social charter is all about giving these measures some teeth. The banking industry since deregulation has shown that it needs guidance in meeting its social obligations. That is where governments have a role to play. The government must meet the obligation to its voters to represent their interests, especially in the post-deregulation environment. (Time expired)

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.