One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts has tabled a motion to disallow Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Treasury regulation to mandate cash acceptance by supermarkets and fuel stations, which came into effect on 1 January. The Senate has 15 sitting days to disallow the regulations, meaning the Roberts motion will be voted on in March. The Citizens Party is urging all concerned Australians to call and email their Coalition, Greens, and Independent Senators to tell them to support the disallowance motion, for the reasons elaborated below.

Clayton’s mandate

At a time when the banks have been doing everything in their power to get rid of cash and to force Australians into a cashless society, a cash acceptance mandate is a good thing—many countries have them to ensure the ongoing acceptance of cash as an independent, private and reliable method of transacting. The banks hate cash because it allows people to transact independent of their information systems, so they can’t skim a percentage of the transactions and collect data on consumers.

The problem with Jim Chalmers’ new regulation is that it is a Clayton’s mandate, devised in consultation with the banks that want to get rid of cash, which exempts the vast majority of businesses and thus could possibly hasten the demise of cash acceptance. It is such poor public policy that even the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office of Impact Analysis gave the policy scoping behind the regulation the second lowest grade of “adequate”, just above “insufficient” and below “good practice” and “exemplary”.

Alternative

If the disallowance motion passes, Chalmers will be forced to address the cash issue properly, instead of with this Clayton’s mandate devised to please the banks.

Chalmers should go back to the bill introduced in early 2024 by Independents Andrew Gee, Bob Katter, and Dai Le, which would have mandated all businesses accept cash as a means of payment up to $10,000, with only specific, reasonable exemptions.

Despite promising to work with the Independents, Chalmers debased their bill into a mandate applying only up to $500, and only to supermarkets and fuel stations, and even then the supermarkets and fuel stations can seek to be exempted.

The Treasurer claimed he exempted all small businesses, i.e. 98 per cent of all businesses, from his so-called mandate, because he didn’t want to impose additional costs on small businesses from having to bank cash earnings. The real issue, which he is avoiding, is the massive wave of bank branch closures he has allowed as Treasurer.

A proper cash acceptance mandate can only work if every community has easily accessible banks to take the money, but Chalmers is too gutless to stand up to the banks and demand they stop closing branches, so he has done their bidding and devised this Clayton’s mandate instead.

There is a solution that would actually address the problem at his fingertips, which is the May 2024 report of the Senate inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia, but he has ignored it. The report recommended the government designate access to banking and cash an essential service, and that the government should commission an expert panel to investigate the feasibility of establishing a new government-owned bank, including one that operates in post offices.

With more than 4,000 post offices in Australia, a government bank in post offices would serve all communities, including with cash services that would make a full cash acceptance mandate work.

All concerned Australians should contact Coalition, Greens and Independent Senators to tell them to 1) vote for the Malcolm Roberts disallowance motion; and 2) demand Jim Chalmers instead support the Gee-Katter bill and respond to the 2024 Senate inquiry report.