Mr GRIFFIN (5:48 PM) —I rise today to talk about a recent report of the Economic Development Committee, a Victorian state government parliamentary committee, and its inquiry into the impact of structural changes in the Victorian economy. This particular inquiry encompassed a range of different issues. The terms of reference mentioned banking, in particular; postal communications; municipal services, including the reduction in the number of municipal outlets due to the recent municipal amalgamations; public transport; and employment services. The committee also assessed the impact of the withdrawal of the above services, including the reduction in the number of municipal outlets due to the recent municipal amalgamations on small and medium sized towns.

The committee has seven members: three from the Labor Party, three from the Liberal Party and one from the National Party. Last month, the inquiry came down with a broad consensus and a range of findings and recommendations which, I believe, are certainly worth having a look at with respect to what could be done to deal with some of those issues that are faced in rural and regional areas. The chair of the committee, the Hon. Neil Lucas, is an opposition member of the upper house in Victoria and is a former local government chief executive in the Berwick area. In his foreword he said:

The committee received some 61 written submissions, and approximately 110 people attended public hearings throughout Victoria. The committee came together with a consensus on all findings and recommendations contained within the report. As I mentioned earlier, the report covers a range of different areas of services that are seen to be absolutely crucial to the operation of small towns, in particular.

I would like to focus on the issue of banking services and some of the findings and recommendations which have come forth from this committee on this occasion. I stress that I do not think that some of the recommendations are practical or necessarily desirable and also I do not necessarily agree with some of the findings. With respect to trying to encourage some debate about the development, or lack of development, of these sorts of services currently in rural and regional areas, it is important to air some of those ideas and to get people thinking about what might be the way to go in the future.

When we talk about banking services in Australia, we can say that the banking industry has been facing up to some fairly massive technological changes, particularly in recent years. The increase in the levels of electronic banking and the withdrawal of face-to-face direct services not only in metropolitan areas but also in regional and rural areas has been significant. It has certainly created a good deal of passion and angst in the community. It has had quite a direct impact on the operation of rural and regional communities.

If you look at this report, you will find figures that have been provided by particular small towns and particular impact studies. For example, one of the figures relates to when a local branch closed and there was a drop of about 40 per cent in local business for butchers and a range of other services. I note that the member for Eden-Monaro on the other side is nodding his head, which he not often does when I speak, but on this issue I think he also has an understanding of the sorts of problems faced in those areas. When you look at some of the examples given, you see that branch closures is a severe problem. Although this report is about what is happening in Victoria, I do not think it is that different in other states—in fact, in some areas in other states I think the problem is probably worse.

The findings and recommendations in the report cover a range of issues that are worthy of looking at for the future. There are some figures in this report which refer to the number of branch closures, and the number of branches that have gone in the past seven or eight years is phenomenal. Although there have certainly been technological advancements with Internet facilities and things like GiroPost and Australia Post that have improved accessibility post those closures, the fact of the matter is that it has altered the basic character of banking in a range of locations and that creates real problems for those communities in maintaining themselves. It has certainly created some real difficulties for them.

I have been a bit amazed by the lack of action by the government in respect of this— and we saw that most recently with the announcement by the National Australia Bank of the closure of some 56 agencies across the country. Ministers of the government have come out and said, `This is terrible.' The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Warren Truss, came out publicly—he put out a press release, as I recall—decrying the fact that the National Australia Bank had done this and calling upon them to remember that they were a bank that had been built largely on rural investment and development and to take it into account. But words are cheap in this sort of exercise. The government has to look at taking some direct action to ensure that banks take into account the needs of those areas.

At the last election, the Labor Party went forward with a proposal for a social contract on banking services in rural areas in particular but also in general. The whole design of that was to try to ensure that there was certainty about service delivery, that we evaluated what was required for particular communities and in that way put a system in place which would ensure access to affordable banking services for all Australians. I urge the government to look at that again. It is one thing to say, as the Treasurer has on occasion, `Shop around.' It is one thing to say, as the minister for agriculture has, that the National Australia Bank is not really doing the right thing by the communities that helped build it. There is scope to take action, and that action ought to be taken by this government.

It is interesting to look at the recommendations in the report of the committee— which included members of the coalition in Victoria—as they go across some of those issues. For example, one recommendation stated:

· assessing the capacity of existing, alternative services and the appropriateness of these alternatives for specific target groups (elderly, disabled, unemployed, business customers); and

· providing a resource guide that facilitates the adoption of alternative banking methods, promotes the benefits of establishing and supporting a community bank through case studies of towns successful in overcoming bank branch closures and provides referrals to local, state and federal sources of assistance in acquiring and establishing alternative banking services.

There is a range of recommendations which go to the detail of what can be done to try to alleviate the concerns of particular communities—not necessarily to stand in the way of change but to try to ensure that aspects that occur around the question of those changes are done in a way which minimises disruption to communities that are already seeing it pretty tough.

Going beyond that, a range of other points is being made in this report. There is quite a deal of encouragement of community banking facilities, putting forward the view that in certain circumstances they will be quite successful, and there is a good deal of concern about the operation of the banks in a wider sense. Those points are worth making. There are also concerns about electronic banking and Internet services. It is one thing to say that they are part of the future—and they certainly are—but, when you are looking at the question of access to those sorts of facilities in rural and regional Australia, you see that that access is not as good as it is in metropolitan areas. I guess that comes back, in a range of ways, to the debate that has been going on particularly within the National Party regarding issues like the sale of Telstra, as proposed by the current government. When you look at some of these services and issues, it is clear that there is still a long way to go to ensure that the communities in rural and regional areas have a fair and reasonable level of service delivery.

I urge members to have a look at the report if they are concerned about these issues. It brings forward a range of concerns which people on this side of the House have been speaking about for some years. It certainly highlights the fact that over the last seven or eight years in particular those communities have had a massive gutting of services which is having an extremely detrimental effect on the operation of those communities and on the families, the Australians, the Howard battlers who live in those locations.