Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697646693354.pdf (Australia)
SUBMISSION BY MAXWELL DOWNHAM Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020 To The Secretary, Senate Standing Committees on Economics Parliament House, CANBERRA Dear Sir or madam, What follows is my brief submission to Senate Economics Legislation Committee on the Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020 as introduced by Sen. Malcolm Roberts on the 27th February of this year.

The current legislation is unclear and therefore ambiguous and defective.
An amendment is required prevent that ambiguity being used to allow banks to use the public’s bank deposits by way of a bail-in.

I implore the Senate Economics Legislation Committee to achieve the following minimal requirements: • Amend the banking act 1959 to provide that the conversion and write-off provisions do NOT extend to the bail-in of deposit accounts.
• Provide that nothing in the act or other Commonwealth legislation gives APRA the authority to implement, authorise or direct the implementation of bail-in of the public’s bank deposit Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020Submission 131 accounts.

• Give protection to the public’s money deposits so as to give a badly-needed confidence and clarity in to the shonky banking industry exposed in the recent Royal Commission.
• If these immediate things can be done, we’ll be in a better position to understand—as we don’t seem to yet—that if private banks are so sacred as to never be let fail, and to merit bail-in of ordinary bank depositors, the banks have to be brought under the control of those who foot the bill.

The amendment asked for here is the first step in that process and a return to the days when gambling with other people’s money was illegal and punishable in law.

Thank you for hearing me out.


Maxwell Downham Banking Amendment (Deposits) Bill 2020Submission 131