THE Federal Government’s ‘Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport’ committee’s inquiry report has just been presented after fifteen months of deliberation.

The inquiry was chaired by the National Party Senator Matt Canavan.

Much of its hearings were held in rural and regional areas due to the public angst at banks closing branch offices in small and isolated locations.

It is a pretty dry reading report but because of the level of bank bashing in the community, it had to respond in order to answer many accusations.

Being a bank comes with full Commonwealth Government security for depositors’ money and holding a banking licence is a prized asset.

It sets them up as a higher being than a building society or credit union who hold only a partial guarantee for smaller sums of their depositors’ money.

This banking licence means that the public and government expect a higher social and moral performance from our major banks.

This is why the public exerted pressure on the politicians to hold an inquiry in order to discuss these moral and ethical expectations, including offering better access and service.

Of the recommendations provided by the Inquiry, the two that are attracting political reaction are as follows.

Firstly, during the Covid downturn the major banks sought to become an essential service and receive the benefits so provided.

Now we are over that period, they find it prudent not to have to respond to that position or concede to those requirements.

The most important recommendation which followed was that the best way to have banks perform to community expectations was to provide competition in the form of a government owned bank, similar to how the Commonwealth Bank originated.

The Post Office was the most obvious government-owned institution to be the source of a new bank as it was once a de facto branch for the Commonwealth Bank; every kid with a passbook could deposit their pocket money there or withdraw it when needed.

The fact that now many Post Office outlets are now privately owned should not be an issue; many offices of the Bank of Queensland (a full bank) are also privately owned by their managers.

We now have a lengthy report and a list of recommendations, so it will be interesting to see if we eventually get any action from our political factions.

I like the idea of a Post Office bank and know how successful it has been in New Zealand, which has a much smaller population base than in much of regional Australia.

I am not one of the bank bashers so prevalent in today’s society.

I can remember my grandfather on my mother’s side telling me – when I was nine-years-old and just going to big school – that if ever I moved into running my own business that I should only ever trade with his bank.

“Why should I do that Granpa?” I asked.

“Because you will never go broke,” was his reply.

“It is the policy of my bank to never lend you enough money to go broke.”

I’m happy to report that Granpa’s bank has been marvellous to me all my life after I opened an account there in the late 1950s.

By John BLACKBOURN