The Senate Economics Legislation Committee is conducting an inquiry into the Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020 that Senator Malcolm Roberts introduced on 27 February, to amend the 2018 bail-in law so it cannot be used to either convert into shares or write off—“bail in”—our savings in bank deposits.
Senator Roberts’ bill is very simple: it merely puts in writing, in legislation, the government’s assurance that our bank deposits won’t be converted or written off in a banking emergency. The problem with the government’s assurance as it stands is that it isn’t in the legislation, and is therefore effectively meaningless.
Click here for an explanation of the Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020.
All concerned Australians should make a submission to the inquiry to insist this protection for depositors is put in writing in the legislation. The deadline for submissions is this Friday, so don’t delay—make a submission today to send the Parliament the loud message: “Hands off our deposits!” And everyone should demand the Committee hold at least one public hearing so experts who are warning about bail-in can testify.
Click here https://www.aph.gov.au/…/C…/Senate/Economics/BankingDeposits for the Senate inquiry website with submission instructions.
The Committee is expecting a flood of submissions and is preemptively warning they won’t all be published. To maximise the chance of having your submission published, save it as a PDF file and use the Upload facility on the above website, which requires creating an account. Otherwise, emailing your written submission to the Committee at economics.sen@aph.gov.au is perfectly fine. Please send a separate copy to the Citizens Party: info@citizensparty.org.au
Here is what I wrote:
To The Members of The Senate
Dear Members,
Part of the structure of this economic framework is that shareholders buy shares as a part owner of a corporation in order to hopefully enjoy the gains and, if necessary, the losses involved with being a part owner of a trading enterprise.
Both the hoped for capital gain of the shares and the dividend from trading profits are unknown, unspecified and uncertain and the purchaser of the shares is well aware of the risks associated with his purchase.
A depositor on the other hand is a person seeking to invest with a lower risk and a more certain, if potentially lower, return on his investment. He does not anticipate a capital loss on his deposit.
A bail in of depositor’s money removes the burden of risk of ownership from those who knew in advance of the up and down sides of their investment and transfers it to the depositors, most of whom had no iodea of the fact that the government could change the rules of the game mid-term.
This is unfair and dishonest.
Please do not allow depositor’s money to be used to protect the investment of shareholders.
That action is not necessary to “protect” the depositors as their funds are more than adequately protected by the many times their funds have been used to lend money to borrowers under the fractional reserve banking system.
If anyone is to take a loss on the misfortunes of the bank it should be the owners of that bank, not the depositors.
Respectfully yours,
Tom Grimshaw