Cash Distribution Framework Bill 2026, Cash Distribution Framework (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026
Mr FRENCH (Moore) (17:29): I rise to speak on the amendment to the Cash Distribution Framework Bill 2026 and the Cash Distribution Framework (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026. At their heart, these bills are about something very simple—Australians who want or need to use cash should still be able to use it. That includes older Australians, people on lower incomes, small business and people living in regional and remote Australia.
It includes every Australian who has ever stood at the checkout during a power outage, a communications failure or a banking system outage and has discovered that their phone or bankcard suddenly cannot buy anything. We live in an increasingly digital economy, and that is not going to change. Most Australians now use cards, phones or online banking for much of their daily spending.
But digital payments becoming more common does not mean cash has stopped being important. The Reserve Bank's 2025 Consumer Payments Survey found that around 15 per cent of payments were still made using cash. About half of all Australians use cash in a typical week.
Older Australians and lower-income households use cash more often than other groups. About one third of Australians said they would face financial hardship or major inconvenience if cash became difficult to access or shops stopped accepting it. That should tell us something.
The future of payments cannot simply be designed around people who have the newest phone, reliable internet, a bank account that works perfectly and easy access to digital services. A modern payment system has to work for everyone. That means protecting choice, it means protecting access, and it means making sure no Australian is pushed out of the economy simply because they still use cash.
That is why the Albanese government has committed to maintaining access to cash for as long as Australians want to use it. We've already introduced the cash acceptance mandate. Since 1 January this year, supermarkets and fuel retailers that meet the relevant criteria have been required to accept cash between 7 am and 9 pm for purchases of $500 or less.
Requiring a business to accept cash is only part of the job. The cash still has to get there. A supermarket still needs cash for its registers.
A petrol station needs to be able to deposit the cash it receives. A bank branch needs notes and coins. ATMs need to be stocked.
Businesses need cash collected, counted, processed, stored and transported. The system behind the scenes is called the cash distribution system. Most Australians will never have much reason to think about it, and that's probably a good sign.
When an essential system works properly, people generally do not spend their day thinking about it, but, if it stops working, people notice very quickly. The challenge is that our use of cash has fallen over time, and that creates a difficult economic problem. The trucks still have to travel, cash still needs to be stored safely, workers still need to collect it, processing centres still need to operate, security still needs to be maintained, and Australia is a very large country.
Moving cash around Perth is one thing; moving it across regional Western Australia is another. A declining number of cash transactions does not mean those costs disappear. In fact, it can mean the cost of handling each transaction goes up.
At the same time, Australia's cash-in-transit industry has become highly concentrated. The sector is now centred around one dominant provider. That combination creates risk.
Cash is still an essential service for a large group of Australians, but the commercial system needed to move that cash is becoming harder to sustain. Government cannot simply wait until the system fails and then start looking for a solution. These bills create a framework before we reach that point.
The framework has two main regulators—the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The Reserve Bank will be able to designate a provider that has a significant role in Australia's cash distribution system. The idea is not to place unnecessary regulation on every small operator.
It is to focus oversight on providers whose failure could have a serious impact on access to cash. The ACCC will then have an important role in overseeing the commercial side of the system. It can approve standard terms for services and pricing.
Those terms can provide a baseline offer for customers using cash distribution services. Designated providers will also be required to negotiate in good faith, and that is important. Where one provider has a major role in a market, customers need confidence that prices and service conditions are fair, transparent and non-discriminatory.
The ACCC will also be able to set service level standards. Those standards can deal with issues such as where services are available, how often they are provided, how quickly they are provided and how they are priced. Businesses will also have access to dispute resolution and arbitration if negotiations cannot be resolved.
That gives both sides a pathway to settle the dispute without allowing a breakdown in negotiations to threaten the wider cash system. There are also reporting and record keeping requirements so the regulator actually has the information it needs to do its job. During the transition into a new system, the ACCC will have additional powers and to issue directions where necessary.
That provides a bridge to the longer term standards being developed. This framework is particularly important for regional Australia. Distance changes the economics of cash distribution.
A cash delivery service travelling hundreds of kilometres to reach a regional community operates on exactly the same basis as a service travelling between sites in a capital city. But Australians living outside a major city should not lose reasonable access to cash simply because of their postcode, nor should a small business in a regional town be placed in the position where accepting cash becomes impossible because it cannot get reasonable collection or delivery services, and that is why fair pricing and reliable service are both important.
You cannot forever rely on customers in profitable metropolitan markets to subsidise expensive regional routes. That is not a long-term stable answer. The better answer is a transparent framework that recognises different costs, different regions and different customer needs while supporting the long-term viability of the entire system.
I now turn specifically to the amendments before us. Those amendments deal with the interaction between this new cash distribution framework and the road transport contractual chain orders, the RTCCOs. The name sounds complicated but the principle is not.
The road transport contractual chain orders are made by the Fair Work Commission. They can set the minimum standards for people and businesses within a road transport contractual chain. Their purpose is to help ensure road transport operations are safe, sustainable and financially viable, and that can include both price and non-price conditions in commercial arrangements.
There is good reason for that. In road transport, commercial pressures do not stop when the contract is signed. If prices are pushed too low or unrealistic delivery demands are imposed, that pressure moves down the chain.
Eventually, it reaches the people doing the work. A transport business still has to pay for vehicles, it has to pay for fuel, it has to maintain those vehicles, it has to meet safety requirements, and workers need enough time and resource to do their job safely. You cannot build a safe transport industry on contracts that only work if someone at the bottom of the chain cuts corners.
That is why these orders exist. The cash distribution framework has a different purpose. It is designed to keep cash distribution reliable, sustainable and accessible.
In most cases, the two systems should operate alongside each other without difficulty. One regulates key parts of cash distribution. The other sets standards within road transport contractual chains.
But there is a possibility that an obligation under the cash distribution framework could clash with an obligation imposed by the road transport contractual chain order. The amendments deal with that possibility before it becomes a problem, and that is sensible law-making. The amendments make clear that the new cash distribution framework is not intended to override these Fair Work Commission orders.
Where both systems apply, regulators will need to take the relevant order into account. When the ACCC is approving, changing or revoking standard terms, it must consider any relevant contractual chain order. The same principle will apply when the ACCC sets service standard levels.
It will apply when the ACCC exercises relevant interim powers, and an arbitrator will also need to consider a relevant contractual chain order when making a decision. That means industrial standards are not treated as an afterthought once commercial decisions have already been made. They are brought into the decision-making process from the beginning.
The amendments also allow the ACCC to consult with the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman. They support information-sharing between the agencies; again, this is practical. If two regulators are dealing with overlapping legal duties, they should be able to speak to each other.
We should not create a system where one regulator is required to make a decision while pretending another regulator does not exist. That would be an impressive way to create paperwork and not much else. The amendments also establish a clear process if a designated cash distribution provider believes it cannot comply with both systems.
The provider will have to notify the ACCC. It will need to explain why complying with the cash distribution requirement would cause it to breach the relevant contractual chain order. It will also need to explain the extent to which it does not intend to comply with the cash distribution obligation.
That gives the ACCC an opportunity to address the problem early. Where possible, the two requirements can then be brought into line. But if a genuine conflict remains, and the provider cannot comply with both, the road transport contractual chain order is protected.
The provider will not be penalised under the cash distribution framework for failing to comply with an obligation where complying would require it to breach the Fair Work Commission's order. That creates certainty and protects the authority of the Fair Work Commission, and it avoids putting businesses in the absurd position of being punished whichever law they follow.
This is also an important protection for workers. Cash does not move around Australia by itself. Behind every ATM refill, every bank delivery and every collection from a business are workers.
Somebody drives the vehicle, somebody handles the cash and somebody works within the security system to keep those people and that money safe. A sustainable cash distribution system cannot be built by weakening the standards that support safe and viable road transport work. If the price paid for moving cash is pushed below a sustainable level, that pressure does not vanish; it lands somewhere else.
It can land on wages, it can land on vehicle maintenance, it can land on staffing, it can land on schedules and, eventually, it can land on safety. The amendments recognise that keeping cash distribution financially sustainable and keeping road transport work sustainable are not opposing goals; they should reinforce each other. There is one important limit to these amendments: they do not apply to the Reserve Bank's crisis readiness and crisis resolution powers—and that distinction is necessary.
The bills give the Reserve Bank powers to act where a critical cash provider is facing serious financial trouble or where essential cash services may stop. Those powers can include issuing directions, appointing a statutory manager and transferring a business or shares where the legal tests are met. These are emergency powers.
They are designed for situations where delay itself could cause serious harm. Applying the same conflict process to those crisis powers could prevent the Reserve Bank from acting quickly enough. That does not mean the road transport contractual chain orders disappear during a crisis—the Reserve Bank would still be expected to consider relevant legal obligations—but the amendments do not create a legal barrier that could prevent urgent action where Australia's access to cash is at risk.
That is the right balance. There is a wider point here about resilience. Australians sometimes hear about the fall in cash use and assume cash is becoming less useful.
But there is another side to that story: cash becomes particularly useful when everything else stops working. During a telecommunications outage, cash still works. During some power outages, cash still works.
During natural disasters, when networks and digital systems may be disrupted, cash can become extremely important. Recent natural disasters and payment outages have highlighted this role. A resilient economy does not rely on a single way of paying; it has back-up systems, and cash is one of those systems.
These bills are about keeping the system available. They recognise the way Australians' pay is changing. They do not try and stop the change, but they also recognise that progress does not require us to abandon people who still rely on cash.
They support fair and transparent pricing. They provide minimum service standards. They give businesses a pathway to resolve disputes.
They provide the Reserve Bank with tools to respond if a critical provider is in serious trouble. These amendments make an important clarification: the new framework must work alongside Australia's industrial relations system, not cut across it—and the road transport contractual chain orders exist for that reason. I commend the bills to the House.