E&OE...................................................................................................
Thank you very much Larry, ladies and gentlemen.
I am here as I think you all know as part of an almost week long visit
to rural and regional parts of Australia to learn more of the opportunities
as well as the problems and challenges of that part of our country.
I have certainly learnt or have confirmed for me, I understood it before
but there's nothing quite like having it driven home in many face-to-face
discussions. But one of the things that people in the region value most
of all is the maintenance and expansion of basic services and whether
those basic services are provided by the Government, provided by the private
sector or provided through a cooperative effort of the two the outcome
is the same. That is the community has a better service, has an enhanced
opportunity of access to those services.
And one of the areas of great concern to people in the region is to have
adequate access to financial services. And the opening of this Credit
Union here in Ocean Shores today will improve the availability of financial
services in this part of Australia. Today is not an exercise in simply
maintaining an existing service level it's an exercise in increasing
and improving an existing service level.
And this has been made possible by the efforts of the Summerland Credit
Union which has made such an enormous contribution to this part of Australia.
And it's also been made possible as a result of the improved regulatory
environment of the credit union that came out of the Wallis inquiry. The
Wallis inquiry which really updated the Australian financial systems was
established by the Government just after we were elected in 1996. And
the recommendations of that inquiry have largely been adopted. And one
of those recommendations was to give credit unions enhanced access to
chequeing and other facilities, to have them more closely linked to the
payment system. In other words, to enhance the role, the viability and
therefore the capacity of credit unions throughout Australia.
And increasingly as we go around Australia we find credit unions replacing
the role that was performed by banks. We see because of the change in
the flexibility in Australian financial systems we see new opportunities
opening up for credit unions. And I applaud the credit union movement
and I congratulate the Summerland Credit Union in particular for the initiative
that is displayed genuinely and particularly for the initiative that is
being displayed here in Ocean Shores.
But in addition to that, the Government itself recognised that apart
from improving the regulatory climate and therefore making the expansion
of the credit union movement possible the other thing the Government has
done is to provide some $70 million out of the proceeds of the sale of
the second part of Telstra to finance the establishment throughout Australia
of 500 rural transaction centres.
And these are clusters of services. I opened the first one of them in
Eugowra which is near Parkes in New South Wales, a town of probably 500
or 600 people. I opened it up in the old Westpac banking chamber. And
the facilities that this transaction centre contained were basic financial
services, Medicare easy claim facilities, Internet services, copying facilities
and also provision for the establishment of other facilities.
Now, what these rural transaction centres will do is to provide on a
cooperative basis in small country communities around Australia a capacity
for the local community with seed money from the Federal Government to
bring basic services back to rural Australia.
So when you have the combination of the credit union bringing new services
to Australia and you have these rural transaction centres bringing services
back to rural Australia I think you can actually see the beginning of
turning around of the changes that have occurred. So having local facilities
is important for any local community and people want a sense of local
identity. This is a very nice part of the world in which to live, it deserves
basic services and the credit union movement is to be congratulated. And
Summerland Credit in particular is to be congratulated for the initiative
and the foresight and the commitment it is making to this community. And
from now on there will be a new enhanced local financial facility in this
part of the world. It's been made possible essentially by the credit
union movement but in turn the changes we made to the financial system
created the right environment and the right climate for the credit union
movement to expand.
I therefore wish the Summerland Credit Union well. I congratulate it.
I thank it for the contribution that it's making to the local community
and I have great pleasure in declaring the Summerland Credit Union here
in Ocean Shores officially open for business. Thank you.
[ends]