Suncorp has recently started sending insurance jobs offshore. A few weeks ago they announced that 50 Claims Payment Team jobs would go to India. The next week they announced another 17 jobs would disappear. They will continue to make offshoring announcements until early next year, and then there is no guarantee that offshoring will stop.

A number of banks, including Suncorp, have already sent thousands of Australian jobs offshore. Suncorp's actions mean that thousands of back office insurance jobs are now also at risk.

We need your help to get a message to hugely profitable employers in our industry that they should invest in Australian jobs and skills.  One way you can do this is to sign the e-petition to State Parliament which you can find here.

Signing the petition will also send a message to our parliamentarians that we want them to act to encourage profitable companies to invest in local jobs. We also want politicians to act to ensure private customer information will only go overseas with the consent of the customer and to ensure that important insurance services are delivered locally.

The petition is sponsored by the Member for Waterford, Evan Moorhead. In a speech to the Queensland Parliament, Mr Moorhead said:

The No. 1 complaint I have through my office on insurance and banking matters is that call centre based services do not provide anyone with authority to consider their individual circumstances. I understand that Suncorp is looking to cut its wage costs by moving to jurisdictions with lower working standards - I understand that that is what many modern companies are trying to do - but I think we need to be clear that these cost-cutting measures come at a price. They come at the price of 50 jobs to Queensland with more to come.

Successive governments, both state and federal, have sought to move Australia towards manufacturing and service sectors. How can we build a financial services sector in this country when we offshore our jobs? Queensland consumers have lived through the offshoring of banking processing.

These changes have not lead to better services, nor have they lead to lower costs for banking. The Queensland community does not believe that the offshore processing of insurance claims will lead to either better services or lower premiums. That is why today I have launched, with Michael Clifford from the Finance Sector Union, a petition to call on Suncorp to reconsider this decision and move away from proposals to offshore insurance processing jobs. I urge the Queensland community to sign this petition and have Suncorp hear their view about the offshoring of jobs from our finance sector here in Queensland.

Suncorp's move to send jobs offshore will put out of work some of the people who helped the company build a great reputation in the aftermath of the natural disasters of 2010 and 2011. Experience in our industry shows that offshoring detrimentally affects service to customers and may exacerbate problems for those accessing insurance services after traumatic events.

If you believe that Australia needs a comprehensive finance industry, that profitable employers should invest in jobs and skills in the communities from which they profit, and that insurance and banking service is better when its delivered locally, please click here to sign the petition.