Bills

Public Finance and Audit (Cash Payments) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. S.L. GAME (16:02): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Public Finance and Audit Act 1987. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. S.L. GAME (16:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak in defence of all South Australians who carry, use and prefer cash. The scope of the Public Finance and Audit (Cash Payments) Amendment Bill 2024 is necessarily specific, but make no mistake: it strikes a blow against government control and aims to restore freedoms being quickly and worryingly lost to overreach. These are simple freedoms we took for granted not that long ago, like the freedom to keep our money where we want to and to use cash as legal tender.

My office has been inundated with responses since this campaign to defend our right to use cash gained publicity. That campaign, which has turned into this bill, was sparked by a string of troubling and alarming examples put to me and my office staff of cash being refused as legal tender right here in South Australia.

Earlier this year, I alerted the honourable Minister for Infrastructure via written account about a consumer who attempted to pay for their vehicle registration with cash at the Service SA outlet in Mount Barker but was turned away. This case is an example of which practices would be outlawed by this bill, but it also goes to the broader picture of what I consider an insidious trend of government bullying, monitoring and ultimately control, and it all starts with cash.

Why? Because cash remains the most practical and important peer-to-peer monetary vehicle, and cash does not discriminate, unlike, it seems, government agencies. This bill would compel designated authorities, including our 68 councils, to accept payments of legal tender in the form of cash for any transaction under $10,000.

The best way to explain the outcome of this bill is to give some practical examples and extrapolate the possibilities of life without cash, possibilities that without action currently appear inevitable, given the rapid rate at which cash is being pushed out the door and wholly electronic personal banking, purchasing and selling is being pushed down our throats.

These examples—derived, unfortunately, from that feedback I referenced earlier—include councils shunning cash from their local ratepayers for things like paying their parking or paying their library fees. Imagine that: digging deep into your pockets to pay your ever-ballooning council rates each quarter and then getting told to take a hike when you attempt to pay one of that very same council's other charges with cash.

I make an effort to visit South Australia's rural and regional areas regularly, and on these trips and in subsequent communications with community members I have been advised that some residents still prefer to pay their council rates in cash. In an effort to make their $2,000 or $3,000 or more annual rate charges more manageable on their tight personal budgets they squirrel away a certain amount of cash per week or fortnight and they keep it in a safe place. Why should they not be allowed to pay cash?

In the Service SA example, preventing people from renewing their driver's licence because their cash was not accepted could lead to motorists driving around the streets unlicensed and, worse, uninsured. If allowed to continue and expand, this no-cash trend could and would be wide reaching, given Service SA undertakes millions and millions of critical and, in fact, compulsory transactions every year.

Why is legislating to protect the right of South Australians to pay in cash a big deal? It is because right now government authorities and service providers could go cashless overnight. There is no legislation to stop it; it is that simple. My feeling is that if these authorities and bureaucracies are given a chance to eliminate cash, they will. They see it as part of their job.

My bill is spelt out in black and white, and I am seeking the support of fellow members to make the stated amendments in order to ensure that government authorities must accept cash payments under $10,000. But let's be clear: I believe cash should be even more widely accepted. Cash should be accepted for amounts over $10,000 in government agencies.

I believe the onus is on banks and private businesses to ensure that cash does not die. Firstly, with reference to banks, it is widely recognised that the transition to a digital economy is disproportionately affecting rural communities. This phenomenon led to the 'Bank closures in regional Australia' report, which followed the closure of 700 bank-owned ATMs and 400 branches in 2023 alone and which referenced the economic and social impact of bank branch closures, including the removal of face-to-face cash services.

I believe banks have an obligation to provide services to their communities, including and especially rural communities. Due to the closure of more bank branches, rural customers are being forced to travel further to banks to access their own money. To add insult to injury, people are being forced to use other banks' ATMs because their bank has left town and are also getting charged for the privilege of accessing their own money—but they have no choice. So not only do we support the right of people to use cash, we support their right to access their own cash without being expected to travel unreasonable distances to do so. If banks stop people from accessing their own cash they effectively stop people from using cash.

One Nation does not trust the government to make decisions on what method people use to spend their money, nor do we trust banks to make decisions on what method people use to spend their money. There is a relentless drive towards a cashless society, but we are pushing back against this. This bill can accurately be interpreted as drawing a line in the sand. We are prepared to fight for people's right to use cash.

In introducing this bill, I am also urging private businesses to seriously consider their position on cash. One Nation encourages all South Australian businesses to accept cash where and wherever possible. I believe accepting cash can be an appreciable advantage for many businesses and, in fact, some have actually gone cash-only because they have had so many problems with digital payments.

At this point we have not yet been able to legislate to protect people's right to use cash when dealing with private businesses. That is more difficult and less straightforward, but be in no doubt: that is a battle we are willing to fight too. Our position is that at the end of the day this is about consumer choice, and introducing this bill is a clear signal that we will do what we can to protect the choice and defend society against the creeping attack on our freedom.

In aiming to preserve that freedom to use cash, I also remind members present of the need to protect ourselves from the vulnerability of IT systems going down, as illustrated by the 19 July CrowdStrike incident that temporarily brought the working economy to a screeching halt. For example, the outage caused Coles supermarkets in Rundle Mall to only accept cash payments, while Woolworths closed their self-serve checkouts. Many people who do their grocery shopping after work were unable to pay for their goods due to the worldwide outage.

Government services, including SA Power Networks and SA Water, were also significantly impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. I have previously used this chamber to flag the war against cash and have warned of a government goal to eliminate cash and replace it with central bank digital currencies.

We live in an age of ever-expanding data collection, much of this harvested without our meaningful and explicit consent. We are monitored more now than ever, and even the topics of casual conversations somehow pop up moments later on our social media feeds. It is time to start taking back our privacy and freedom of choice, and introducing this bill to the house is a first meaningful step towards that aspiration.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. R.P. Wortley.