Banks forcing Australia to go cashless

 MP Keith Wolahan’s dark warning of the consequences of a cashless society as hundreds of bank branches close across Australia: ‘They could switch off your banking just like that’

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• READ MORE: Australia goes cashless, branches shut

By STEPHEN JOHNSON, ECONOMICS REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A federal MP has issued a dark warning about Australia going cashless as hundreds of bank branches are closed in just a year.

Keith Wolahan, the Liberal member for Menzies in Melbourne‘s north-east, has warned of a totalitarian society where banks can ultimately cut Australians off completely from being able to spend money – as fewer people use cash.

‘For the convenience of the bank, just to know what your ID was, even if you had been with them for decades, they could switch off your banking like that,’ he told Parliament on Wednesday.

‘They could disconnect you from your ability to be part of the economy.’

Less than one in six in-person transactions are now done in cash.

Mr Wolahan, a first-term backbencher, said the minority of Australians who still used banknotes needed to be listened to, especially when it came to privacy.

‘Very few people carry cash after Covid,’ he said.

‘There’s even a push to get rid of cash. We make people vulnerable to that. 

‘So you can understand the suspicion that people will have with how their digital identification is used and the suspicion that they have with how vulnerable they are in the digital economy.’

Keith Wolahan, the Liberal member for Menzies in Melbourne ‘s north-east, has warned of a totalitarian society where banks can ultimately cut Australians off completely from being able to spend money – with fewer people using cash