Thank you Michelle Rowland MP for raising this remittance debanking issue in Parliament. One of the last remaining banks to keep open these accounts, Westpac, has recently made the decision to close these accounts. This has caused great anxiety in the community, including in the Somalian and Eritrean communities in Melbourne and the Pakistani and Filipino communities in Sydney. I welcome the shadow finance ministers decision to make a formal request to the finance minister asking that the government take action on this. It is vital that these communities find a way for remittance services to be resumed. There are occasions when specific transactions can and should be stopped for national security reasons, but to stop all remittance services in the manner that has occurred is, as I said, a disproportionate response and prevents many Australians from providing vital assistance to their family members, who are in many cases completely reliant on the finances received via remittance services.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 09:23:13 +0000
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