1. Return to a government bank — Aussie Post Bank
Break the oligopoly of the Big Four banks, which are arrogantly (mindlessly) closing branches, debanking lawful businesses, restricting credit for productive purposes and reducing access to and availability of cash. We MUST establish a public Aussie Post Bank. Using post offices as branches (and thus ensuring the viability of the Australia Post network, including licensed post offices), the Aussie Post Bank will guarantee full, low-cost banking services (deposits and loans), 100% deposit security, and guarantee access to cash for all Australian individuals, businesses, and communities.
2. Aussie Post Bank to invest in Australia’s infrastructure
3. Aussie Post Bank to support Australian manufacturing and family farms
4. Protect homeowners and farmers from mass evictions
As of June 2024, more than 1.6 million Australians or 30.3% of property owners who hold a mortgage are facing mortgage stress, according to a report by Roy Morgan. As interest rates remain the highest since 2011, on record high levels of household debt, the danger of a housing crash, which risks a banking crash, requires protection for homeowners and farmers from mass evictions. The ACP would declare a foreclosure moratorium that keeps families in their homes while the government directs a reorganisation of failing banks, including write-downs of mortgage debt.
Through their policies that encouraged the banks to concentrate their lending on mortgages at the expense of the rest of the economy, the government, Reserve Bank, and bank regulator APRA inflated house prices into a speculative bubble, which they have continued to prop up, making housing unaffordable for young families; therefore, the government bears responsibility for ensuring households survive adverse events that result from these policies. In the event of a crash the foreclosure moratorium will enable the government to manage it in an orderly way to ensure nobody loses their family home or farm, and avert a banking meltdown.
