Wednesday, 20 March 2019

Mr BURGESS: I have been approached by a number of very concerned community members who have been shocked and disappointed with the changes the Andrews Labor government is making to banking arrangements of all government bodies, including all state schools. The question has to be asked about what the Andrews government is getting from such a deal, which will see all state schools forced to move their banking away from local community banks to Sydney-based Westpac. The result will be that local banks like the Bendigo Community Bank will lose a lot of the local business they were built on through the community pledges, and that will see many tens of thousands of dollars of community grants coming from those local branches to local community, schools and sporting and other community groups completely disappear. One community bank in my electorate has almost $400 000 invested by the school and will lose these investments under the new policy— (Time expired)