Shadow Portfolio — 25 March 2026

Senator McKenzie, the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, used a Senate debate on 25 March to mount a sustained attack on the government's mandatory industry cash code, arguing it has failed to deliver on the Treasurer's November 2024 pledge to protect cash access for everyday essential purchases [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s053]. The core of her critique is structural: while the code covers supermarkets and petrol stations, it leaves pharmacies, clothing retailers, utilities providers, and medical and dental services entirely outside the mandate.

Retailers subject to the code are required to maintain only one cash terminal and may lawfully refuse cash for up to 10 hours each day — limitations Senator McKenzie presented as rendering the protection nominal in practice [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s053].

Senator McKenzie sharpened the political edge of the attack by pointing to what she characterised as government self-exemption: federal museums, galleries, and Parliament House itself are not subject to the cash requirement, meaning cash cannot be used to buy a coffee on the parliamentary precinct despite cash remaining legal tender. This detail gave her a concrete, vivid illustration of the broader argument — that the code's coverage is selectively drawn in ways that protect government-run venues while imposing obligations only on private retailers.

The rural and regional dimension of her argument was equally pointed. Senator McKenzie noted that a $500 cap on individual cash transactions sits alongside more than $100 billion in cash circulating in the broader economy, and that communities without bank branches cannot fall back on local business acceptance as a substitute for banking infrastructure. She described the legislation as retrograde and designed to disenfranchise everyday Australians — framing that positions the Nationals as the parliamentary voice for cash-dependent communities the code has left behind [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s053].

The strategic coherence of this intervention is clear: Senator McKenzie is holding the government to a specific, dated promise from the Treasurer, cataloguing the gap between that promise and the code's actual coverage, and using the government's own behaviour in publicly operated venues as evidence that the policy is not taken seriously even by those who designed it.

The rural disadvantage framing reinforces the Nationals' core constituency case that digital payment mandates impose asymmetric costs on regional Australians who have fewer alternatives.