Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
Home

Printer-friendly version

Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Thursday, 12 May 2016

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Election 2016: CEC announces Operation Glass-Steagall

The Citizens Electoral Council is intervening into the 2016 federal election to force the nation’s political leadership to address the urgent need to protect Australians from an imminent banking crash. The combination of Australia’s collapsing resources sector, overstretched housing bubble and massive mortgage debt, and the worrying signs that a new, deeper phase of the global financial crisis is looming, spells disaster for Australia’s banks and economy.

The CEC’s campaign, called Operation Glass-Steagall, will require every sitting MP, and every candidate, to publicly declare their position on two related issues: Do they support a full Glass-Steagall separation of commercial banking from risky financial activities to protect Australians from a banking crash? Do they support or oppose the “bail-in” policy of seizing people’s savings to prop up failing banks?

Get involved in Operation Glass-Steagall by writing to your local MP, and the other candidates in your seat, and asking them to declare their position on these issues. Click here for a list of federal MPs.

The CEC has just printed 200,000 copies of an election edition of The New Citizen newspaper, which comprehensively exposes the bail-in policy and explains the importance of the Glass-Steagall alternative. Click here to order your own free copy, or multiple copies to distribute in your area.

To spearhead this campaign, the CEC is running a full slate of Senate candidates in every state and the Northern Territory, and a number of House of Representatives candidates. Click here for a list of CEC candidates.

Following are the CEC’s election policies, which all CEC candidates are committed to enact:

  1. NO “BAIL-IN”. The City of London and Wall Street bankers who caused the global financial crisis have come up with the criminal policy of “bail-in”: seize bank customers’ savings, whether in deposits or investments, to prop up failing banks. The bankers can then continue the reckless financial derivatives gambling that causes banks to fail, with the assurance that when they get into trouble they will be able to seize our deposits to stay afloat. This policy is now legislated in Europe, the USA, and New Zealand.
    Due to opposition mobilised by the CEC, bail-in has not been legislated here in Australia; however, our bank regulator APRA has asserted it has the power to do it anyway. This is a huge threat to everyday savers and the superannuation of retirees. The CEC will stop bail-in, cancel all derivatives as worthless gambling debts, and protect the essential parts of the banking system by breaking up the Too Big To Fail banks, prosecuting banking crimes, taxing speculation, and putting all banks under the authority of a strong national bank.

  2. GLASS-STEAGALL BANK SEPARATION to regulate banking, protect depositors and stabilise the economy. The CEC will legislate to break up the TBTF Big Four banks, Macquarie and any other banking conglomerates into smaller but safe deposit-taking banks, regulated and protected by the government, which will be completely separated from riskier parts of the financial system—investment banking, stockbroking and insurance. The success of the USA’s Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 proved that the best way to protect bank deposits is to stop deposit banks from taking risks.

  3. ESTABLISH A GOVERNMENT-OWNED NATIONAL BANK (like the original Commonwealth Bank) to create masses of new government credit to invest into the productive sector, for example infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture and engineering.

  4. TAX FINANCIAL SPECULATION, instead of increasing income taxes and the GST. More than $130 trillion per year is turned over by financial speculators who gamble in currencies, stocks, bonds and derivatives. A 0.1 per cent tax—$1 in every $1,000 speculated—will raise more than $130 billion, discourage reckless financial gambling, and keep money in the real economy.

  5. CREATE AN ECONOMIC SCIENCE-DRIVER PROGRAM for future progress, using government-directed credit from the new national bank to fund new technologies and major 21st century infrastructure of national significance, such as a high-speed magnetically levitated train network, and major water and power projects. This would generate meaningful and productive work for our youth and unemployed.

  6. SHIFT AUSTRALIA’S STRATEGIC POLICY TO ALIGN WITH THE BRICS countries’ global development vision. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as nations such as Egypt, are already building major infrastructure projects at home and abroad; they have invited all countries to participate in this “win-win” perspective. Australia must join their World Land-Bridge shipping and rail network to transform our trade and economic production.

  7. DEVELOPMENT FOR PEACE, NOT ALLIANCES FOR WAR. The London and Wall Street power brokers who concocted bail-in to protect their system see the BRICS model of collaborative economic development as a threat to Anglo-American financial dominance; therefore, their neo-conservative political lackeys—the same people who embroiled us in the regime-change disasters in Iraq, Libya and now Syria—are targeting China and Russia for war, which would be a calamity for Australia and the world. Australia must push our key allies, the UK and USA, to also embrace the above policies of collaborating with the BRICS on economic development, as a real alternative to geopolitical rivalry and war.

Click here for a free copy of the CEC’s weekly Australian Alert Service magazine, which reports on important local and international financial and political developments, and the progress in the global fight for the Glass-Steagall solution.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.

Follow the CEC on Facebook Follow @cecaustralia on Twitter Follow the CEC on Google+




Citizens Electoral Council © 2008
Best viewed at 1024x768.
Please provide technical feedback to webadmin@cecaust.com.au
All electoral content is authorised by National Secretary, Craig Isherwood, 595 Sydney Rd, Coburg VIC 3058.