804 fewer schools by 2041: the delayed impacts of closed borders - .id Informed Decisions

 

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Editors Notes: I always admire the way .id Informed Decisions prepares and publishes its posts. I can further say that I tend to understand where they are coming from in this article. I would definitely suggest reading this article. 

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Media Release – Elsie Young Playground Officially Opened - Shoalhaven City Council

 

31 May 2021

Shoalhaven City Council's brand-new Elsie Young Playground at Old Erowal Bay was officially opened Saturday by Shoalhaven Mayor Amanda Findley.  

Fully funded by Shoalhaven City Council, the $100,000 cost to install the new playground has come from Council’s Playground Replacement Fund.  

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor Amanda Findley hopes the new equipment will better meet the needs and desires of the community and will encourage families to spend longer periods enjoying the outdoors all year round. 

“Old Erowal Bay is a growth area, located close to Jervis Bay’s white sand beaches and scenic Booderee National Park,” said Clr Findley. 

“Providing fun play experiences for children is important. We have 128 playgrounds across our beautiful region and all playgrounds are designed to safely meet Australian Standards,” Clr Findley said. 

Prior to replacing the playground, Council consulted with members of the Old Erowal Bay community to ensure the new playground facilities meet the current and future needs of the community. 

Rylee Spencer - (Unkown) – Mayor Amanda Findley – Zoe Carrol – Gabrielle Delhaise-Cawood – Jacob Spencer - (Unknown)– Liam Vale

The community have advocated for increased social infrastructure in the area. Items on the wishlist for the reserve include public toilets, increased seating, BBQ and a water tap. 

The Old Erowal Bay Progress Association, nominated the name ‘Elsie M. Young Memorial Park’ for the reserve in The Coronado, Old Erowal Bay in 1980.  

Elsie Marion Young worked hard for her community, raising funds for the Bushfire Brigade. She was a founding member of Huskisson RSL and was the main instigator in getting the Ambulance station and service for the Huskisson area and surrounding districts. With her family, she started the first deliveries of bread, meat and milk in Old Erowal Bay. 

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Media Release - Learn to Ride Bike Path, Yulunga Reserve, Manyana - Shoalhaven City Council

 

31 May 2021

The installation of a learn to ride facility at Yulunga Reserve, Manyana was officially unveiled on Saturday by Shoalhaven Mayor, Amanda Findley.

The project was funded by Shoalhaven City Council, with contributions from the Yulunga Management Committee with a total cost of the facility being approximately $51,000. 

Clr Amanda Findley praised the Bendalong Manyana Community who strongly supported the project, with the community group conducting several working bees at the site, including the removal of the sandpit and installation of turf. “These projects have been identified by the community during extensive consultation and have been undertaken with the valuable assistance of community members and groups. 

“The new learn to ride bike path will benefit the community by assisting children to safely and confidently learn to ride. Toddlers, pre-school and school-aged children will have the opportunity to improve their early bicycle riding skills. A two-way, black concrete path with signs and line marking has been installed to imitate the appearance of a road setting. This enables children to develop the skills they need to ride a bike safely and independently on roads and paths”. 

This facility is a complement to the recent playground upgrade, constructed in late 2019, and made available through funding from Council’s playground replacement program and funding from the New South Wales Government which provided 85% of the $135,000 total budget. 

The design of this playground was developed in collaboration between the local community and Council. It contains a custom fire truck spring ro

cker identifying with the local Rural Fire Service brigade. It also boasts a crawl tunnel, triple swing set (nest swing, infant seat), spinner and see-saw. 

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What were the early impacts of COVID-19 on population growth in Regional Australia? - .id Informed Decisions

 

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ClubGRANTS applications for community projects and services open now - Shoalhaven City Council - Media Release

27 May 2021

Applications for Category 1 ClubGRANTS are open now until Friday 18 June 2021, proudly hosted by Shoalhaven City Council. ClubGRANTS is one of Australia’s largest grant programs, providing more than $100 million in cash each year to a variety of worthy causes across NSW. Charities, sporting organisations and not-for-profit community groups are among the tens of thousands of worthy causes funded through the program each year.  

 Category 1 funding supports: 

• community welfare and social services 

• community development 

• employment assistance activities 

• community health services and projects aimed at improving the living standards of low income and disadvantaged people 

Community organisations can apply for funding towards local community service needs and priorities. 

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor Amanda Findley said, “We’re proud to push up our sleeves and help with the application and assessment process for this worthy initiative which supports our commitment to making the Shoalhaven an inclusive, thriving community.” 

Community sporting and cultural organisations are at the heart of many of our communities. ClubGRANTS aims to support our community to foster equity, social inclusion, and participation. The challenges of the last 18 months have had a significant impact on our communities and these grants will help these organisations beyond just keeping their doors open—they will help them grow and thrive. ClubGRANTS funding is designed to give community organisations a boost when and where it’s needed most. 
 
Community groups such as Jindelara Disability Services, Lifeline South Coast, Culburra Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade, Shoalhaven Neighbourhood Services, Foster Care Angels Inc and Ulladulla Local Aboriginal Land Council are some of the many organisations that have benefited from the support provided by clubs through ClubGRANTS. 

Applying for ClubGRANTS funding is quick and easy. All funding is processed locally and community groups can contact their local clubs easily and at any time for information and advice. ClubGRANTS is also flexible, allowing clubs to provide support quickly, efficiently, and often as soon as a need emerges. 

How to apply 

The ClubGRANTS are open now and will close on Friday 18 June 2021. 

Applications can be lodged online on Council’s website or via the ClubsNSW website.  

For more information, contact Joanne Seibright, Administrative Assistant, Community Connections, Shoalhaven City Council on (02) 4429 3440.

Update on Catholic Plenary Council For 2020

 

Welcome to PlenaryPost There are a number of important and uplifting stories below, including about a couple of milestone moments at Pentecost -- the launch of a new prayer campaign and the Council's formal convocation. While there is a somewhat inevitable focus on the Plenary Council's Assemblies, the Council has been and remains a journey of the whole Church in Australia. It is always encouraging to hear about the local initiatives that are underway in various parishes in engaging with the Council, seeking to understand how they can "Listen to what the Spirit is saying" in their own context. We recently heard about a group of three parishes that have come together to enliven their local communities and to aim to "build confidence and trust in the Church that will ultimately increase the spread of the Gospel". Another group of parishes has been inviting local conversations through a dedicated website that also captures the key Plenary Council documents. In some dioceses, consultations are taking place about the instrumentum laboris -- or working document -- for the Council, entitled Continuing the Journey. If you haven't yet read it, we would encourage you to do so. Click here to access Continuing the Journey. Read on for more information on some of the topics mentioned above. And keep an eye out for editions of PlenaryPost on the last Thursday of each month through 2021. Send suggestions on local content that can be included to plenary.council@catholic.org.au FacilitatorFocus: The Holy Spirit is moving amongst us by Sr Marion Gambin RSJ Dear Friends,  “Stories are really important. People in all times and in all places have told stories. They help to shape identity and well-being. They carry religious, moral and ethical codes. They are the glue that hold societies and cultures together. Stories are carriers of our memories and memories are containers of grace. Think of how much our lives are contained and conveyed in stories.”  -- Mary Pelligrino CSJ In the last few weeks, the Facilitation Team has been so inspired by the good news stories, of what is happening in several parishes and dioceses in response to the Spirit moving amongst us. You will be able to read some of these good news stories in this edition of Plenary Post.  Over the last month, the focus for the Facilitation Team has been our involvement in preparing the program for the Members' formation sessions which will take place across several days in June and July. All Members will be attending a set of four sessions across three days and key to these formation, or preparation, sessions will be an experience of engaging in the discernment process to be used during the Assembly in October. Everyone will be in breakout groups and discern with other Members from across Australia. Also, during the formation sessions it will be an opportunity for the Members to experience this engagement online and hopefully begin to establish a familiarity with using the online platform of Microsoft Teams. Meanwhile, we know that there is much activity happening for each of the Hubs to operate in Western Australia (Perth), South Australia/Northern Territory (Adelaide), Victoria/Tasmania (Melbourne), Queensland (Brisbane) and New South Wales/ACT (Sydney). This is where the Members will be geographically located while they engage online, as one Plenary Council Assembly, with all Members from across Australia. We are now only four months out from the first Assembly. We call on the Spirit of Pentecost to continue to inspire us all to tell our stories and listen to others tell theirs as we encourage each other to be hopeful for the future of our Church in Australia. Blessings of Peace,  Marion CuriosityCorner We will address a new question in each e-newsletter. To catch up on previous editions, you can check out the Plenary Council FAQ page. If you have a question, email it to us and we will include it in future editions of PlenaryPost. The question for this edition is… Five locations, one Plenary Council Assembly. How?  COVID-19 permitting, the approximately 285 Members of the Plenary Council will gather in person in a Hub in the capital city of the state they live in. Northern Territory-based Members will join the South Australia Hub, ACT Members will join the New South Wales Hub and Tasmanian Members will join the Victoria Hub. This is for community-building, for sharing meals and praying together. The Plenary Council Assembly program, though, will be one and the same for all Hubs, albeit time differences will require some adjustments. Members will gather online for several hours of "shared" time, while liturgies, social gatherings and other encounters will happen locally. TalkTheology 'Connecting communities of believers' by Bishop Anthony Randazzo of Broken Bay In our Church of Broken Bay, we have gathered to re-animate our participation in the Plenary Council because we are part of a holy communion. Our local Church is part of the Universal Church. [...] The journey towards the Plenary Council has been an engagement in connecting communities of believers from all over Australia. Thus far it has been an exercise of listening. "Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches" is repeated seven times in the Book of Revelation. This has become the predominant guide for the Australian Catholic Bishops when we called the Plenary Council. There is a novelty in the Fifth Plenary Council that was not part of the first four in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia. The novelty is born from the Second Vatican Council and the 1983 Code of Canon Law. For the first time, the Bishop Members of the Council will be joined by Delegates who have been called to the Council. Among the delegates are lay women and men – married, single, and religious. The delegates also include clergy from the local Churches. One of the aspirations of the Second Vatican Council was the engagement of all the baptised in the life of holiness and the mission of evangelisation. That holy Synod, held from 1962 to 1965, has given rise to the spirit of synodality in our Post-Conciliar Church. -- From Bishop Randazzo's homily at the Mass of Commissioning for Broken Bay's Plenary Council Members. Click here to read the full homily. News&Notes Prayer campaign launched for Council journey A new campaign launched at Pentecost seeks to reignite the prayerful journey towards the Plenary Council's first Assembly, which will take place in October. The "Fan the Flame" resources were developed by a national liturgical committee that is supporting the Plenary Council. It builds off other months-long prayer campaigns and seeks to cater for the needs of people in all Catholic contexts. The campaign material has resources for each week from Pentecost until the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – the final weekend before the first assembly of the Council. The materials include multimedia files, weekly reflections, bulletin notices and suggested musical choices. “These are simple – yet profound and meaningful – ways in which parishes, Catholic schools, aged care facilities, universities, hospitals and families may journey in prayer with the Plenary Council,” Plenary Council president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB said. Sr Kerry Willison RSM, who is leading the national liturgy committee, said the committee hoped that "through these resources, all people will find ways to enter more deeply into their own prayerful preparation for this national event, and to pray for those with special roles during the Council assemblies". Click here to read more about the Fan the Flame campaign. Click here to access the Fan the Flame resources. Bishops Conference formally convokes Council One of the major final steps towards the Plenary Council has been taken, with the Bishops Conference formally convoking the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia. The bishops approved the decree of convocation at their plenary meeting earlier this month, with Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge signing the decree on Pentecost Sunday. The convocation follows the approval of the Council's statutes and regulatory norms, the approval and February publication of the Council’s working document Continuing the Journey and the recent approval of the Council agenda. “The journey of the Council began long ago and this is just another step on the way towards the first assembly in the first week on October,” Archbishop Coleridge said after signing the decree. “And on Pentecost Sunday we have invoked the Holy Spirit upon the entire journey of the Plenary Council but in particular upon the first assembly – to which we now move.” Click here to read more about the convocation. Click here to watch a video of the signing of the decree. Photo and video courtesy of the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Maitland-Newcastle holds second synod session The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle held the second of three sessions of its Synod last weekend, drawing together more than 300 members, participants and observers at six sites. Teresa Brierley, director of pastoral ministries for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, described the landmark event as a wonderful experience, with people gathering to reflect the movement of the Spirit and to affirm the "Five Foundations" as the spiritual framework: Identity and Community; Worship and Prayer; Formation and Education; Mission and Outreach; Leadership and Structure. “I found the day to be very prayerful as we invoked the Holy Spirit to guide us and give us the courage to imagine what might be while being attentive to our past,” she said. “I recognise that what we are being called to is being revealed as we walk together. This is not a comfortable journey for many because it involves trusting other fellow pilgrims along the way.” According to the MN News website, following this second session, the Diocese will adopt "Statements of Intent" regarding desired outcomes emerging from parishioner feedback. At the third session this November, there will be voting on a variety of "Proposals for Action". If adopted, these proposals become recommendations to Bishop Bill Wright for his consideration as possible actions appropriate to the needs of the diocese. Click here to read more from MN News. Vatican announces new approach to global synods An international Synod of Bishops on the concept of synodality has been postponed until 2023, but will take on a new flavour with the event to unfold in three phases: A diocesan phase; A continental phase; A universal phase. In an announcement last week, the Vatican said the three-stage process “will help to make possible a true listening to the People of God to ensure the participation of all in the synodal process". “It is not just an event, but also a process that involves in synergy the People of God, the College of Bishops and the Bishop of Rome, each according to their proper function,” the communique said. Pope Francis is expected to inaugurate the diocesan phase of the synod on October 9-10 this year, with bishops around the world to open that phase the following weekend. Click here to read more about the Synod of Bishops from Vatican News. Planning continues for Adelaide assembly About 400 people are expected to attend Adelaide's Diocesan Assembly in September to reflect on the life of the local Church community, in conjunction with ongoing discernment for the Plenary Council taking place at a national level. In a video inviting all parishes and migrant communities to contribute to the assembly's preparation, Archbishop Patrick O'Regan said the assembly will be “us sitting down as a family, talking about what’s really important, maybe airing our grievances, thinking about what we can do to make a difference in our world today”. “This is not just something where we’re looking inwardly, we’re trying to look outwardly…as missionary disciples,” he says. “And we all have a part to play in that. Together we can make a difference.” The assembly will take place on September 17 and 18. Read more from The Southern Cross. Online conference seeks to grow faith communities  An online event in July will invite people in Australia and beyond to think about how faith communities can emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for the first Assembly of the Plenary Council. Alive in the Spirit will feature more than 30 on-demand workshops exploring areas such as best practice for RCIA, how to engage beyond the margins of existing faith communities, planning for mission and renewal, supporting pastoral care, social justice initiatives and much more. Keynote speakers include Plenary Council facilitator Lana Turvey-Collins, Boston College professor Fr Richard Lennan and Leisa Anslinger, associate director of pastoral vitality for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Alive in the Spirit is a joint initiative of the Pastoral Ministry Network, Christian Initiation Australia Network and the Mission Planners Network Oceania. Click here to read more about the event. Perth Archdiocese unpacks discernment themes West Australian educator and Plenary Council Member for the Archdiocese of Perth Gemma Thomson has invited a gathering to consider how the Church can be a more "humble, healing and merciful" place. Ms Thomson spoke as part of a series of talks on the six national themes for discernment for the Plenary Council that emerged from the Listening and Dialogue phase of preparing for the Council's assemblies. Papers were prepared on each of the six themes. According to a report from the Archdiocese of Perth's website, Ms Thomson said the paper on the "Humble, Healing and Merciful" theme encompasses much of the pain experienced in the body of the Church in Australia, providing the analogy of “pain has many faces” that resonates with Ms Thomson because it gives pain a human element. “Sitting uncomfortably in a place of pain is not what we would ever opt to do willingly, but instead, it is something that we are called to do to move forward," she said. “Healing cannot occur if we are not willing to acknowledge, accept and work together in the hope that a new Church can emerge from these current times." Click here to read more and to access a recording of Ms Thomson's talk. Follow us online The Plenary Council is active online. You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click here for the previous post

Shoalhaven City to Receive Resilience Funding Boost - Shoalhaven City Council - Media Release

 

27 May 2021

Shoalhaven City Council is set to receive $2 million from NSW and Commonwealth funding to better prepare the region for future natural disasters.  

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor Amanda Findley joined Minister for Local Government and Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock at the Shoalhaven Emergency Operations Centre in Nowra for the funding announcement.  

The event was also attended by Councillors John Wells, Patricia White and Kaye Gartner along with representatives from NSW Police, RFS and Fire and Rescue.   

Mrs Hancock said the funding will be used to provide new resources for the Shoalhaven community including handy checklists and informative workshops, aimed at improving resilience in emergency situations and major incidents.  

“The Recovery into Resilience Project by Shoalhaven City Council is designed to enhance the community’s resilience in emergency situations and capacity to respond to major incidents like floods and fires,” Mrs Hancock said.  

“This is an exciting project which will strengthen community resilience and reduce the impact of future natural disasters in Shoalhaven. 

“We’re going to see the Shoalhaven community working towards improving readiness to natural disasters in a practical way, including the development and distribution of information such as checklists and booklets.  

“In the long term, Council will strengthen its partnership with Griffith University and run workshops focused on community-led resilience.  

“A crucial part of the project is to deliver official, real-time local information and connectivity to the Emergency Operations Centre in Nowra which will be implemented across 23 community buildings in the Shoalhaven.  

“I look forward to seeing this project progress in the coming months and would encourage all members of the Shoalhaven community to get involved.”  

Shoalhaven City Council Mayor Amanda Findley said the community has endured a lot of challenges over the last year with several floods and fires and was very excited about the Recovery into Resilience Project.  

“We are delighted to receive funding support from the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund and acknowledge the assistance of both the NSW and Australian governments to make it possible,” Clr Findley said.  

“We want to do all that we can to help ensure our residents and the local community are safe and informed, now and into the future.  

“Improving the short-term readiness will allow residents and visitors to feel prepared in emergency situations while long term resilience planning will ensure our communities can work together and bounce back faster.  

 from left to right: Front row: Recovery into Resilience Project Coordinator Vince Di Pietro, Mayor Amanda Findley, Minister for Local Government and Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock. Back row: CEO Stephen Dunshea, City Lifestyles Director Jane Lewis, NSW Police Regional Trish Malone, SES Richard Findsen, Fire and Rescue Rick Jones, Local Emergency Management Officer Kim White, RFS Angus Barnes, NSW Police Local Emergency Operations Controller Dave Cockram, Councillor Patricia White, Councillor Kaye Gartner, Councillor John Wells.

“What we know from past experiences is that having timely access to up-to-date information in an emergency is critical to saving lives.  

“I am really proud that Shoalhaven City Council is taking a lead to help this happen as effectively as possible.”  

The Recovery into Resilience Project will be rolled out over the coming fifteen months. 

For more information about the project visit Shoalhaven City Council’s Get Involved page.  

I reached Scepulchre Island....

Each day that I have been taking my Kayak down the Basin, I wanted to reach this island. It was a challenge to do so, within myself. It was a personal challenge. It was paddle after paddle and then 'Oh no, the weather is changing' or 'I'm too afraid to get there' in previous kayak trips.....

And so today was like discovering a piece of Australia but it was only my discovery of Scepulchre Island. This was the first time I had ever been on an island by myself and there was no one on the same land. Amazing!

The win-win post office ‘people’s bank’ solution - Citizen's Party - Media Release

 

Australian Citizens Party

Media Release Wednesday, 19 May 2021

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: info@citizensparty.org.au
Website: https://citizensparty.org.au
 

To free community post offices from bad management and banks, and guarantee financial services in regional and abandoned communities, turn each post office into a branch of a people’s bank.

The campaign to achieve justice for Christine Holgate and the thousands of licensed post offices (LPOs) she saved has exposed glaring deficiencies in the structure and management of Australia Post. Given the importance of post offices and postal services to Australian communities, reforming Australia Post to fix these failings would be good for the whole country, as well as LPOs. A post office people’s bank that guarantees financial services to everyone and the long-term financial viability of LPOs, is a win-win solution for all Australians.

The 2,850 small business LPOs are the most vested stakeholders in Australia Post; on average, they each have more than a million dollars of their own capital ($3 billion collectively) invested in their businesses that provide postal services to the Australian people. LPOs exist because the government corporatised Australia Post and established the model of running post offices under license as small businesses to make Australia Post a self-funding service. Before Christine Holgate became CEO, however, LPOs were going bankrupt, and had been for decades. “The busier they are, the more money they lose, which is a pretty crazy business model”, Senator Nick Xenophon said to ABC in September 2014, during a Senate inquiry into LPOs. Yet neither the government nor the management of Australia Post cared. All the years LPOs were going broke the government kept extracting around $200 million from Australia Post in annual dividends for the federal budget—the LPOs were effectively subsidising taxpayers out of their own pockets! The management of Australia Post were just as bad. Their callous advice for struggling LPOs was to combine their post office businesses with other businesses like coffee shops and florists. The community-minded LPOs were appalled, as this would mean cannibalising other small businesses in their towns to subsidise a service the government should have ensured was properly funded.

It is well documented how Christine Holgate turned around the fortunes of the LPOs, starting with the 2018 deal that required the major banks to pay a $20 million annual community representation fee for post offices to serve customers abandoned by the banks through branch closures. Achieving this deal was a miracle. The board of Australia Post predicted she couldn’t do it and gave her a deadline of 30 September that year to land a deal, otherwise they would scrap banking services at post offices. The big four banks did not want to pay, despite the fee being less than 0.4 per cent of each of their mega profits. They complained about Christine Holgate to then-Treasurer Scott Morrison, who didn’t lift a finger to help her. Only after Josh Frydenberg took over as Treasurer and Christine Holgate convinced him to support her plan, and he called the banks on her behalf, did three of the big four agree to pay. (ANZ refused, which is why ANZ customers can’t bank at post offices now.)

LPO Group Executive Director Angela Cramp revealed in an 8 February 2021 Citizens Insight interview that the deal increased payments to LPOs by 50 per cent on average, depending on how much banking LPOs do in their particular locations. This made a world of difference to their businesses—Angela Cramp said for the first time she was able to sleep soundly instead of fretting over whether her business would survive. It’s why the LPOs were so loyal to Christine Holgate two years later when she was attacked in Parliament for buying Cartier watches as rewards for the executives who worked on the deal.

By contrast, the government and Australia Post management were not loyal to Christine Holgate at all. Despite paying lip service to her brilliance as a CEO, they were treacherous, shunting her out as quickly as they could and then lying to cover up their intent. This underscores the ongoing problem facing the LPOs: the government and management don’t care if they survive. As for the two-faced banks, they may renew the deal, but only if it suits their management priorities; in the meantime, they have jacked up the fees on Bank@Post transactions to a ridiculous $4.50. This means the future viability of the LPOs is at the mercy of banks that continue to demonstrate their disregard for their retail customers by shutting down bank branches en masse and ripping out thousands of ATMs all over Australia, especially in the regions.

Win-win solution

The Citizens Party has drafted a bill for a Commonwealth Postal Savings Bank (CPSB) that will solve many problems, for Australia Post and the nation:

• Permanently secure the financial viability of Australia Post and the LPOs. The CPSB will be a custom postal bank to permanently operate through post offices, based on a legislated agreement with Australia Post that guarantees the LPOs share the revenue—their income will not be at the mercy of the private banks deciding whether or not to renew their Bank@Post deals, nor of the fickle management of Australia Post.
• Guarantee financial services for all Australians. The private banks have abandoned small towns in regional Australia and low-income suburbs, but they all have post offices, through which they will be able to bank with the CPSB.
• Guarantee bank deposits. The CPSB will be a public bank, owned by the government, which will guarantee all deposits, so Australians who bank at the postal bank will know they won’t lose their savings in a financial crisis or deposit “bail-in”.
• No “de-banking”. As a public bank, the CPSB will not be allowed to discriminate by de-banking lawful businesses, as the private banks do.
• Support cash payments. The private banks are trying to do away with cash, which would be a disaster; the CPSB would allow people to always access cash (as Christine Holgate ensured post offices do now).

The CPSB would be a people’s bank that serves all Australians and breaks the monopoly of the Big Four banks, which makes it more than just a good idea—it’s an urgent necessity. Join the fight to make it a reality.

What you can do

• Sign and share the Citizens Party’s petition (below) for an Australia Post people’s bank.
• Contact the Citizens Party for copies of this release as a colour flyer that you can distribute through your town or suburb, especially to the local LPO and small businesses which use its services.
• Tell your MP and Senators to support a post office people’s bank.

Click here to sign the petition:
An Australia Post ‘people’s bank’—a win-win solution for the nation

Click here to join the Citizens Party as a member.

Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Party.