The $10,000 Cash Ban, Prelude to a Cashless Society

“To ban cash is to claim total control. Once trapped within the banking architecture there is no escape from the financial tyranny of excessive fees and extortionate taxation.”

The Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 has been put before Parliament. As the consultation period of the Economics Legislation Committee comes to an end, their report is due on the 7th of February 2020 before it is put to the House for a vote.

This bill introduces a raft of criminal penalties for any cash transaction that occurs over the new cash payment limit of $10,000. Penalties include prison sentences of up to 2 years and fines of up to $25,000 per offence. We must ask ourselves why are they seeking to implement this legislation?

The publically stated purpose for these laws is to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion by criminal syndicates who operate within what the government terms the ‘black economy’. However the government has not produced any evidence that large scale cash based money laundering exists, or even any proof that introducing these criminal penalties will have an effect on mitigating this type of behaviour.

Meanwhile there is actual evidence of large scale tax evasion and money laundering occurring within the banking system itself, aided and abetted by the big four accounting firms, many of whom are authors and supporters of this bill. Thanks to the Panama Papers we now know that anyone that earns huge amounts of money is placing their wealth in offshore tax havens and trusts to avoid their national tax obligations.

However we must look beyond what they say and examine the intent of the bill. The gradual and increasing penalties on cash transactions reveals that the long term agenda is the removal of cash entirely. This bill aims to transform Australia  into a cashless society.

The number of $10,000 is itself arbitrary. Picked because it is large enough that average people will not notice its effect and are unlikely to protest in mass. It would only take a simple proposed amendment to the bill to reduce the cash payment limit down to $5000, then to $1000, then to $500 before eventually criminalising cash transactions entirely. The intention is to have all payments and transactions occur digitally through banker controlled channels.

For governments the cashless society serves two purposes. If all transactions are monitored and recorded no one can operate outside the eye of big brother and secondly all transactions can be taxed. Citizens who run afoul of government authorities for any reason can have their banking capacities frozen by the government.

For the bankers the cashless society serves another purpose. With global interest rates at record low levels, extending to negative rates in many jurisdictions, when individuals begin receiving negative rates on their deposits naturally they will withdraw their funds in cash. A cashless society traps consumers within the banking system, forcing consumers to bear the costs of negative rates and allowing the private banks to extort whatever fees and charges they like.

The freedom to transact between parties outside of government control and bank racketeering is an inherent human right which needs to be defended. This bill is a Trojan horse towards financial dictatorship and must be resisted.

SAY NO to the Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019