Over the past couple of months, thousands of you signed our petition calling on Federal Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones to take action and save our local bank branches.
As you know, the Senate Inquiry into regional bank closures recently handed down its report and the recommendations largely reflect what we have long been calling for. This includes a recommendation to declare banking an essential service, develop a mandatory industry code and for a regulator to approve or defer any closure request.
This week, we met with Minister Jones in Sydney to hand over our thousands-strong petition and call on him to urgently implement the recommendations from the report.
FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano (left) and FSU National President Wendy Streets (right) hand over our Save our local bank branches petition to Federal Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones (middle).
Minister Jones said he is committed to addressing the issue of bank closures but acknowledges it will not be an easy fix. He will be reviewing and considering the recommendations of the report over the next couple of months, so we’ll be meeting with him again in the near future for a further update.
In the meantime, it’s really important that we continue to keep the pressure on not just Minister Jones, but on our local MPs and Senators as well, to fully implement these recommendations with regulatory oversight and processes.
It’s been a long journey to get here, but we need one final push to help protect vital banking services and jobs in our regional communities and across Australia.
Please reach out to your local MPs and Senators on their social media pages and ask that they take action before it’s too late.
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