Cash Distribution Framework Bill 2026, Cash Distribution Framework (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026
Ms MASCARENHAS (Swan) (19:14): I thank the member for Spence for that speech. It was interesting to hear cash described as 'unofficial important infrastructure for the nation'; I would absolutely agree with that. Realising that one in 10 people use cash for the majority of purchases does indeed say that this is important infrastructure.
It's interesting because these days you can pay for your coffee with the tap of your phone, the flick of your watch or even, as I learnt today, a ring on your finger. The pace of change within the digital economy has been extraordinary, and it has, indeed, made our lives more convenient, but, like all things, these advancements don't always work 100 per cent of the time for 100 per cent of the people.
For example, when your iPhone or smartphone goes dead or your watch battery dies or when your ATM card stops working at the local cafe because the chip has broken or the machine goes down at your local cafe, cash is the one thing that still works. I remember when my husband went shopping with the two kids at the local grocery store, and he had a couple of cards on him.
He doesn't have his cards on his mobile phone, and neither of his ATM cards worked, and he'd bought about 30 bucks of groceries. He was standing there with two little kids and was like, 'Okay, I can't pay for this. I'm going to have to leave,' and a stranger then went and paid for his groceries, which was very gracious.
The thing that I always do is have $20 in the back of my phone. Let's see, do I have it today? Oh, I don't know!
My hot tip is that it's useful to make sure that you've got a little bit of cash on you at all times because cash is a universal currency. Luckily, my husband was able to give the kids lunch that day, and I have to say that cash has a really important role. In a world where more of our daily lives are automated and made seamless, often this is at the expense of human interaction, and we can lose sight of the moments that cash still creates, such as a someone paying for a stranger's groceries or chatting with the person at the till as someone counts your change or joking about the mental maths of calculating the right amount of change, which I love doing and I'm teaching my son how to do that as well.
Cash gives us more chances to connect with people around us, and many older Australians rely on this. It's what small businesses fall back on when the terminal fails. It is what gets tucked into a birthday card—and Grandma Mary, who lives in Warracknabeal, is known for still slipping in a $20 note for birthday cards—or when you've got a raffle tin at the footy club or when you hand over $5 for a punnet of strawberries at local farmers' markets.
My preference for weddings is making sure that you put green notes in the wedding card. That's a tip for punters at home. For any parent running the sausage sizzle or a cake stall or a teenager earning their first pocket money through a babysitting job or making lemonade for the neighbourhood, which is something that regularly happens in my neighbourhood, cash remains essential.
It is still how a large amount of ordinary life gets paid for. In 2025, the Reserve Bank of Australia reported that around one in 10 Australians use cash for most of their purchases. That's nearly 2.8 million people, particularly consisting of older Australians, lower income households and those in rural and regional communities.
No-one should be left behind in payment systems. That is why the government is introducing the Cash Distribution Framework Bill. This bill will establish a regulatory framework for cash distribution so that systems that get cash into ATMs, into bank branches and into the till at the local IGA can keep on running.
Right now, that system is under real strain. Demand for cash has been falling over two decades. The cash-in-transit sector, the businesses that physically move cash around the country, has consolidated down to one dominant provider with a market share of more than 90 per cent.
This has consequences. In parts of regional Australia, it has already meant that there are fewer ATMs and that the ones that remain are often further away. For someone in a country town, it can mean a long drive to withdraw cash.
For an older Australian without a car or without the ability to make that trip easily, it can mean going without or relying on neighbours or a family member to get to the nearest branch. Access to cash should not depend on how far you live from the nearest town or how many suburbs away the closest shopping centre is. Through the framework of this bill, the Reserve Bank will have the power to designate an entity as significant to the cash distribution system, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will have the power to oversee the terms to ensure that providers do not manipulate or take advantage of their dominant market share.
The bill also provides regulators with information-gathering and enforcement powers they need to actually make this framework work in practice, including civil penalties for entities that do not meet their obligations. We know that maintaining a cash network is getting more expensive to run as fewer people use it for everyday transactions. This framework does not pretend that these problems disappear.
What it does do is put fair rules around how those costs are shared, instead of leaving a near-monopoly provider free to set its own price and its own priorities and instead of leaving regional and vulnerable Australians to simply lose access because the market found it convenient to withdraw. There is also a question about what happens if a provider gets into real trouble.
This bill gives the Reserve Bank the power to step in before that happens. If a designated provider is at risk of becoming financially unviable, the bank can issue directions, appoint someone to manage the business or oversee its transfers so that cash distribution does not simply stop while a company works through insolvency in the background. These powers mirror the crisis and resolution framework that already applies to banks, insurers and clearing and settlement facilities in Australia's financial system.
This bill builds on commitments that this government has already made. Since January 2026, major supermarkets and fuel retailers have been required to accept cash for everyday purchases. Last year, the Treasurer secured commitments from Australia's big banks to hold off regional bank closures until the middle of 2027.
This bill follows those decisions to make sure that Australians who rely on cash are not left behind. We are also building resilience in our economy. When the power goes out, when the internet stops, when a flood or bushfire takes down the local network, cash still works, especially Australian cash, since we have our fancy polymer notes, which are waterproof.
When a community faces a natural disaster, there is usually no signal and no power. Card readers don't work. Online banking doesn't work.
During these times, Australians rely on cash to buy fuel, food and water and pay for emergency repairs and to get by in the days before power and communications are restored. A payment system that only works on a good day is not a resilient payment system, and this bill treats cash distribution as the piece of critical infrastructure that it indeed is. Cash still matters to millions of Australians, and the system that delivers it should not be allowed to fail simply because it became less profitable to run it.
That is the standard that this government holds itself to across the board, not just on cash. The Albanese Labor government understands that inclusion is not just something you achieve once; it's something that you work on every day. It shows up in the decisions we make and in the people who make them.
This is the most diverse parliament in Australia's history, and, for the first time, women make up more than half of the Labor caucus. That matters because, when the people at the table come from a diverse range of backgrounds, the injustices facing everyday Australians are less likely to be missed. It is why we made cash acceptance mandatory at the check-out.
It's why we kept bank branches open in the regions. It's why this bill exists—to make sure that the systems behind the till keep working for the people who need it most, not just for the people who had the privileges of adapting to the digital age. Access is not something you legislate once and move on from.
It is something that you keep on building into every part of government. This includes something as ordinary as how people actually pay for their groceries. Cash is an important part of the Australian economy.
We will make sure that all communities continue to have access to this. Because of these amazing changes, I commend the bill to the House.