There are “dole bludgers” and “corporate bludgers”. When it comes to 24 carat bludgers, Australia’s banking oligopoly – National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Westpac and their little brother Macquarie Bank – take the cake. The Treasurer Scott Morrison has done the big four banks (who between them control over 80% of Australia's financial system) a big favour by introducing a six basis points (0.06%) banking debt levy which will claw back approximately 1.5 billion dollars a year over the next four years. It’s incontrovertible the introduction of this tax helped to preserve Australia’s AAA financial sovereign rating. Only 12 sovereign nation states around the world retain the AAA rating.
The retention of Australia’s AAA rating meant the big four banks retained their AA- rating. This meant they saved 0.10% (ten basis points) on any future loans they took out. What most Australians don’t understand is the Australian government continues to guarantee Australian bank’s deposits. This guarantee is estimated to be worth about 850 billion dollars. The government guarantees all deposits under $250,000 that are held by Australian banks. There is no banking tax on the government’s guarantee and no government bureaucrats sit on the major banks boards although we, the people of this country, have given them a leg up internationally by providing a government guarantee for up to 850 billion dollars of depositors’ funds in the banks.
On top of this, the government provides a 200 billion dollar liquidity fund in case of emergencies which banks can access at a very very reasonable 1.99% interest (if only we could access funds at this rate!) So when you talk about bludgers, the taxpayer (government) provides the banks a subsidy of over 5 billion dollars a year, while allowing them to trade in the big wide world with daddy and mummy taxpayer (you and me) bank rolling them out of trouble if they don’t invest and trade with due diligence.
Talk about being ungrateful. I’ve never seen so many ungrateful, naughty children in my life.
We, the Australian people, ensure Australia’s banks make extraordinary profits every year. We ask them to kick in to maintain the country’s sovereign AAA rating so they can keep their AA- rating and borrow money internationally at ridiculously low prices. All they can do is bitch and moan about how tough it is and how they will have to pass on the government impost to customers first and shareholders last.
It’s about time they were forced to cough up at least 0.5% annual tax on the government’s free depositors guarantee. It was so easy when the government owned the Commonwealth Bank. You put your money in it, that money was government guaranteed.
It’s time for a New People’s government owned Bank.