January 2019

In the 1990s, the ALP – under Paul Keating & Bob Hawke – pushed a deregulation and privatisation agenda that included Keating (as PM) selling the Australian people’s bank – our Commonwealth Bank.

The recommendations came from the 1981 Campbell Inquiry instigated by then Treasurer John Howard. The common understanding is that this ushered in an age of economic growth and prosperity. Many people have done well, but numbers such as GDP are misleading.
A people’s bank – in any country – is not a concept welcomed by international private banking interests. The Australian people’s bank was slowly and deliberately weakened & degraded for decades before its shell was finally sold off.

A push to get banks to fund legal aid for banking disputes is gaining momentum, as Coalition MPs listen to the pleas of victims of financial misconduct in the wake of a scathing interim report from the banking royal commission.

Customers have struggled to match the legal power of the big banks, while consumer action law centres are turning away thousands of cases each year. The Commonwealth funding agreement for consumer law centres prohibits them from acting for small businesses or sole traders, including many farmers, and limits them to acting on behalf of individuals.

By D.K.Burton The history of debt The idea of debt stems from the Babylonian economic system of more than 4000 years ago, around 2000 BC….