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Speaker 1: Let's have a look at the use of cash, because

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Speaker 1: we've been saying forever in a day, fewer and fewer

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Speaker 1: people have been using cash. The use fell to thirteen

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Speaker 1: percent of the population not that long ago. Well it

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Speaker 1: seems to be up because for some reason from September

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Speaker 1: and goodness knows what happened, but there's a lot more

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Speaker 1: people wanting to use cash of late. Robert Barwick, research

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Speaker 1: director Australian Citizens Party, on the line, welcome news, Robert,

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Speaker 1: good morning.

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Speaker 2: It is Matthew. Good morning to you too.

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Speaker 1: What's the reason, Well, it's.

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Speaker 2: Important people understand how these particular figures come about. This

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Speaker 2: is cash use sort of cash on issue by the RBA,

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Speaker 2: and that actually tells you that there's definitely more demand

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Speaker 2: for cash out there. So the way to understand it

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Speaker 2: is this year especially, there's been some there's been some

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Speaker 2: real campaigning about it in cash Use Up. Our party

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Speaker 2: for four years has been well in the public, use

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Speaker 2: it or lose it because the banks are trying to

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Speaker 2: get rid of it and you've got to prove the

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Speaker 2: demand there. So there's a couple of days this year

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Speaker 2: where people have had cash out days, big campaigns through Facebook,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. They were enormously successful. The first one, and

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Speaker 2: I think was on the first of April, five hundred

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Speaker 2: million dollars taken out of ATMs in Australia in one day.

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Speaker 2: And that's center real Yeah, that sent a real message

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Speaker 2: to the banks. But see the banks, the banks can

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Speaker 2: keep stocking these ATMs with the amount of cash and

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Speaker 2: circulation if the cash demands stay is pretty steady. But

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Speaker 2: when the RBA reports that the amount of cash that

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Speaker 2: they have the issue has gone up, that's because the

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Speaker 2: banks have gone back to them and saying we don't

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Speaker 2: have enough, we need more, and that is a So

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Speaker 2: that's that's a like a wholesale transaction of what's happening

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Speaker 2: at the retail level, which indicates there's definitely a consistent

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Speaker 2: demand for increased use of cash in the community.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So is this a message to banks like the

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Speaker 1: A and Z they need to have some of their

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Speaker 1: branches go back to stocking and dare I say dealing

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Speaker 1: in cash as a bank, Well, it certainly is.

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Speaker 2: The question is whether am z's going to get that message.

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Speaker 2: We've just last week we were part of that. If

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Speaker 2: the Citizens Party was part of trying to bring attention

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Speaker 2: onto ATM's terrible amz's terrible decision to close it's Katomba

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Speaker 2: branch in News, South Wales where the Three Sisters you

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Speaker 2: know monolithic monument is because when Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer,

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Speaker 2: approved AMS's takeover of some corp, he put a condition

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Speaker 2: on it that said no regional branch closures for three years,

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Speaker 2: and am Z agreed to that, but then turned around

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Speaker 2: and said to Tumber, which is on the land side

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Speaker 2: of the Blue Mountains, was not regional, it was major city.

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Speaker 2: And they went and closed. They went and closed at

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Speaker 2: any Yeah, they went and closed at anyway. And they

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Speaker 2: in terms of actually retailing to their customers, they are

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Speaker 2: clearly the most arrogant and the worst at this. But

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Speaker 2: the public have to start moving with their feet for

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Speaker 2: them voting with their feet, for these banks to get

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Speaker 2: the message and demanding cash and not accepting these cashless branches, which,

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Speaker 2: as I've also explained in the past, that doesn't even

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Speaker 2: meet the definition of a branch anymore, because the definition

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Speaker 2: of a branch in law has to provide cash. So

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Speaker 2: the public have to start demanding this, and at a

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Speaker 2: certain point am Z will increasingly be the odd man

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Speaker 2: out if the public keep vic drawing cash at this rate.

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Speaker 1: Well hopefully hopefully we do, because you know, anecdotally and

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Speaker 1: my observations in that my mum has a past book

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Speaker 1: account still and the cheese with A and Z the

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Speaker 1: branch you used to go to, sorry, no more cash.

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Speaker 1: So you now go to the city branch where A

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Speaker 1: you can't get a park within kuwe or the building

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Speaker 1: to start with. And when you do get in there,

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Speaker 1: it's usually a queue of five, six, seven people waiting

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Speaker 1: for the one teller to go through and deal with

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Speaker 1: all the cash inquiries. It's the most ludicrous. There could

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Speaker 1: not be a better example of an organization saying to

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Speaker 1: its customers, we actually hate you.

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Speaker 2: Well absolutely, And it goes back to twenty eighteen when

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Speaker 2: every bank signed up to Christine Holgates deal to allow

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Speaker 2: their customers to access their accounts of post offices except

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Speaker 2: A and Z. And so when am Z goes cash

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Speaker 2: lists or am Z closes the branch, the worst thing

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Speaker 2: for those customers is they can't go to local post

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Speaker 2: office and get their cash out right. AMZ just really

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Speaker 2: doesn't care. And you know the public has to have

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Speaker 2: to think in terms of no, no, We're not going

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Speaker 2: to tolerate this anymore. We're not trying to cling to

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Speaker 2: an out of date lifestyle here. Australia as an economy,

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Speaker 2: and no economy in the world, by the way, can

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Speaker 2: truly function without cash. It is just a complete practical impossibility.

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Speaker 2: And the older people, it's not. The issue for them

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Speaker 2: is not oh that they're no good at keeping up

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Speaker 2: with technology. When you deal with money, you need peace

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Speaker 2: of mind, you need certainty, and so the elderly people

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Speaker 2: there certainty comes from using what they know, which is cash.

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Speaker 2: And the bankers know this, Matthew, they know this, but

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Speaker 2: they don't care. And that's why our organization has been

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Speaker 2: working with others such as the people represent post officers,

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Speaker 2: to say, okay, let's put these banks on notice, let's

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Speaker 2: really compete with them. Let's have a government bank again,

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Speaker 2: like we're able to become off bank and open it

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Speaker 2: up in all post offices so people can actually pull

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Speaker 2: if as is going to treat them like this, pull

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Speaker 2: out and go to a government bank and that will

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Speaker 2: guarantee service at that post office location forever. You can

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Speaker 2: always keep the cash.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Robert, look, thank you for your insights this morning.

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Speaker 1: Appreciated as always and good to see anyway that cash

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Speaker 1: is not yet dead. Hopefully it keeps going for a while.

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Speaker 2: No rumors of its death were greatly exagerated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, down to thirteen I wonder do we have

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Speaker 1: a percentage has it actually increased from thirteen percent?

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Speaker 2: Thirteen percent? Even the thirteen percent figure I'd take with

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Speaker 2: a grain of salt. It's based on a it's based

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Speaker 2: on a three year survey that the a RBA does

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Speaker 2: of about a thousand people. I think that's what we

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Speaker 2: question the methodology of the survey. We don't think it

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Speaker 2: ever got as low as people claimed. And now when

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Speaker 2: you didn't take much to have five hundred million dollars

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Speaker 2: pulled out of ATMs in Australia one day, that's the

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Speaker 2: level of feeling out there. So that's that's more reflective.

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Speaker 1: Got to have more days like that. Got her. Good

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Speaker 1: on your Robert, Thank you, thanks, thank you. Robert Barwick,

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Speaker 1: the research director Citizens Party