by Felicity Hingston
Aussie banknotes are printed with a message: “Legal Tender throughout Australia”.
However, according to 1959 Reserve Bank Act, banknotes and limited payments in coins to certain amounts are legal tender, but it’s not “unlawful” to refuse to accept cash payments – the provider of goods or services sets the terms of payment, but they must specify means of payment prior to the contract.
If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.
It has been claimed that cash contributes to the spread of coronavirus. Presumably, touchscreens and keypads can be ‘disinfected’ between customers. However, a 19 June 2020 Citizens Party press release conveys a different message. It refers to an article by Richard Bardon published in 10 June 2020 Australian Alert Service. Documents released under FOI laws by the RBA indicate that, according to a 1995 CSIRO study, polymer notes used in Australia “pose minimal risk of transmission of disease”. Far better to practise good personal hygiene.
In March 2020, according to the FIO released documents, the RBA’s Amanda Evans advised that they – Note Issue Department – would not “be disinfecting banknotes as a result of COVID-19”. In April, Australian Alert Service warned that avoiding cash may even be counterproductive as it could lend a false sense of security to cashless payments.
Make of it what you will, the above media release states that RBA has made no public statement for or against cash, but suggests it has “a vested interest in eliminating cash” and why.
Interestingly, the statistics indicate it is poorer and/or older Australians who still use cash – and it is these people that will therefore be disadvantaged.
So, how is this happening?
The first I heard of this was a café in North Sydney refusing cash on 18 June.
Now I read of Woolworths Metro rolling out the cashless system: (Incidentally, HSBC, J P Morgan, National Nominees and Citicorp are the four major shareholders of both Woolworths and Coles) all for ease and convenience – “making shopping as seamless as possible”.
It appears that there is an all-out push to trace us any way ‘they’ can. The COVIDSafe app will supposedly save us from a ‘second wave’.
Perhaps the uptake hasn’t been as successful as hoped, so how about being able to trace our every-expenditure – what and where – and that’s what cashless will enable. With the propaganda totally behind the push “slowing the spread” and “saving lives”.
The banks, among others, seem intent on this change becoming permanent. It won’t end with COVID-19 elimination.
I’m sure many Gumshoe readers will remember the big fail of the proposed Australia Card (1985). At least back then we had gutsy defenders working for us. Now the tables have turned – our politicians no longer seem to be our gatekeepers, but rather out jailers.
It could be argued that any ‘card’, like a driver’s licence, a student ID, or a social benefits card serve the purpose well — to be presented at any reasonable request of an ‘authority’– but for those of us who truly value our freedom and/or privacy, the “papers please” rings a loud warning bell. What better way than for no one to have to ask us?
We present it willingly, the convenience of a cashless society.
I suppose cash; protected in a Aldi plastic bag will still be acceptable to the Labor party, membership dues to all political parties, electoring contributions and pollie’s sausage sizzles.
Seems that I will not be shopping at ‘sheepleworths’ any more or contributing to some Bunnings sausage sizzle charitable cause.
Feel sorry for the beggars wanting some spare change.
“Incidentally, HSBC, J P Morgan, National Nominees and Citicorp are the four major shareholders of both Woolworths and Coles.” Wow, Felicity, I wouldn’t exactly cal that “incidental.”
Explains the vested interest behind the reduction in DIY cash checkouts at the supermarket, we are so close to being totally stitched up by the big corporations, the correct term for this is fascism
Felicity, would you please explain the Covidsafe App to older persons, not mentioning any names.
On second thought, maybe I don’t want to hear about it….
Australian Government Dept of Health: “COVIDSafe app is a tool that helps identify people exposed to coronavirus (COVID-19). This helps us support and protect you, your friends and family.” “It supports the current manual process of finding people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19” – completely voluntary, but something you can do to protect….and “save the lives of other Australians”. “You can delete the COVIDSafe app from your phone at any time”. “When the Minister for Health declares the COVID-19 pandemic over, users will be prompted to delete the app from their phone. This will delete all app information on a person’s phone. The information contained in the National COVIDSafe Data Store will also be destroyed at the end of the pandemic”. Further reassurance: “the app has a range of privacy and security safeguards built in. It uses secure encryption and does not collect data on your location”.
Of course, we can trust our government implicitly…
Just happens a pollies wife was instramental with the design & $$$ of the app? Conflict of interest maybe! Shove it & wake up!
Australians have already spoken and members of Parliament, know it. The pollies have been hounded for the last twelve months by the awake population saying NO to a cashless society. Never-the-less bankers and other players will continue to push for “card only” payment, to increase there profits.
A cashless society will enable, “Big Brother” to follow your physical position and all of your financial dealings. It will also provide banks with the ability to increase interest and fee charges, on those cards because there will be no competitive ways of settling debt.
It is a very sick society that would accept that using bank notes instead of cards would increase the risk to our health. How many infectious diseases have circulated the planet in my lifetime? Unknown, but all of a sudden this one virus, no more dangerous than the common cold, and “the powers that be” try to entirely change our way of life by taking more freedoms and liberty from us, using any excuse.
The implementation of the credit card is one reason why many people are not able to live within their means and the cause of numerous bankruptcies.
Aussies, take a stand against these offensive beings and their draconian ideas before it is too late.
“the implementation of the credit card” is a designed transition in my view. Many school canteens now operate on a card system, topped up by parents. This serves well to ensure the children get used to a bottomless pit, they don’t have to do the maths nor, as my generation had to do, prioritise items. Just gather all your desired items and swipe. SIMPLE! It is conceivable that some kids might not even know what cash is…
I’ve never used ‘tap and go’ in my life and seldom use my debit* or credit card.
( *The debit card is used exclusively for withdrawing the maximum amount of cash permissible from the ATM).
Aside from paying for utilities using electronic banking, it’s ALL cash for me and always will be for day to day purchases.
If I’m ever confronted with a retail outlet that won’t take cash, I won’t just walk away stealthily into the night.
I’ll be demanding that I speak to the manager and will be loudly and conspicuously remonstrating with them, so that all other patrons are aware of it, that a cashless payments system is intolerable and that we should all BOYCOTT any establishment that tries it.
Troof, get a megaphone, seriously.
Mary, that’s not a bad idea at all.
Anyway, Gumshoe followers are well aware that I’m plenty loud.
I’ve already expressed my displeasure at a big store I’ve done business with for some 13 years. I have run at a minimum $10,000 through the business, they know that, they have the records.
When I was told that they only take ‘plastic’, I told them it was the last time I did business with them. The manager did a quick fiddle and I paid the $419.95 with $420 in cash (so they didn’t have to make change). A week ago I walked in and wanted a re-fill on a gas bottle, plus I wanted to drop off a bottle of my homemade vodka to one of the staff that had helped me on a previous issue.
Surprise, surprise – they didn’t blink when I offered cash for the gas bottle. If they had, that would have been the last time they saw me.
I think they like put the sign up but it’s crazy to turn away business. Having the sign is good for getting the super paranoid customers in, those germophobes who go to the doctor every week because of some new mystery illness
Do any Gumshoers know if there is a charge to upload a commercial video onto http://www.youtube.com ?
I make this enquiry, as I have found out that some videos about a week old are no longer available. They were not taken down because of “unsuitable material”. Just “no longer available”.
It would seem to me to be a waste to post a video for a very short time period.
Mal, there are two or three other video platforms available.
Vimeo is one, bitchute is another.
I was told today that a post office can refuse to accept a payment in cash if it is over $3000. Is this true?
“Papers please!!”
Wry sense of humour there girl!
On 30 March I cancelled my internet banking
Subsequent purchases from on-line stores have been made by debit-card via my land-line phone
Not much, but if more people did it it could help to slow down the tide
Actually at 1st glance I thought that “papers please” was a jab at the phantom economy
And now mandatory masks in Melbourne. Prison Planet here we come.
As Melbournians are, generally speaking, known for being aloof/unfriendly it’s not exactly surprising they should be the 1st to cop it.
Lot of good people there I’m not saying.
“Fashion conscious” would be a different way of expressing it
“Conservative” is the word that commonly gets, somewhat euphemistically, used. Conserving what exactly?
The point is that, disregarding everyone outside one’s own little clique renders one very vulnerable to manipulation: Those who never venture out of their comfort zone leave themselves wide open to attack
I thought papers please, was my gyprocing mate was doing up a bathroom, looking for help in the lunch break for free bog substance.
Thanks Felicity nice article
So the March/April TP episode was just a warning of what lies ahead ?
Could well be
Snap, Dee
The night is young. Let’s see if we can smoke Julius out.
Julius, what is the face mask situation in St Petersburg?
*1. Tchaikovsky-Hymn of the Cherubim – is there a more divinely inspired piece of music? Who was Tchaikovsky in touch with?
*2. Face masks are not needed in Russia because “[bloody] Putin has hacked our Coronavirus vaccine inside knowledge”. I have seen conflicting headlines but recall seeing that the requirements for face masks have been lifted in Moscow at least.
*3. This is very deep but when I read Robert K Massey’s “Peter The Great” I was left with a very empty feeling and MANY questions. You would of course recall that I have raved that Catherine is my favourite. (I may have even over-rated her.)
Matthew Raphael Johnson explains many things about Peter The Great that have blown my mind – but resonate perfectly with my unanswered questions. Given his depth of study and other writings and talks, I accept his interpretation and insights.
Take this slowly at your convenience – he is interpreting Alexander Dugin and setting a few records straight. (I left a comment.)
PS – I had just finished listening to Matthew Johnson’s four-part series on Dostoyevsky and the first four in another playlist ‘Matthew Raphael Johnson’ on that channel. Struth!!
Mary, this is the face mask situation as of a few days ago in Moscow so St Petersburg may soon be playing catch-up :
https://russia-insider.com/en/moscow-mayor-announces-masks-no-longer-needed-covid-not-big-threat-after-all/ri30906
That was it! – thank you TV
As Chapter 2 of “The Romanov Royal Martyrs: What Silence Could Not Conceal” gets underway our emotions are turned to a sombre mode as Nicholas’ father Alexander (III) confronts his fate as he lies on his death bed. Alexanders words of advice to Nicholas should be instilled in the minds of anyone, anywhere, considering a position of leadership. The whole passage is worth framing but I just cite the concluding line by Alexander:
• “Strengthen the family, for it is the foundation of any state.”
We are then buoyed with the marriage and coronation of Nicholas and Alexandra. To the casual observer the coronation may appear all just “pomp and ceremony” but to the contemplative it is a very sombre and spiritual event.
The playing of the Polychronion
reminds us of the links of the Eastern Orthodox Church to Byzantium and opens up a vast new area of reflection and inquiry into the history of Moscow as the “Third Rome”.
In passing, here is the full liturgy …
• Tchaikovsky: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
The possibility of cash spreading disease had existed for decades. I’ve never seen an outbreak due to cash. Don’t let them BS you with this one.
The ‘spread of cash’ may indeed be uplifting for those deprived of it.
Meanwhile, Belarus never had even the pretence of a lockdown and yet their Covid mortality rate was so low that it was making the rest of locked-down Europe look bad in relative terms.
So, in comes the IMF promising a loan on the condition that the President of Belarus locks down the country (thereby bringing the death rate up via deaths of despair. eg: suicide, substance abuse, domestic violence etc).
The President responded thus :
https://russia-insider.com/en/imf-made-loans-belarus-conditional-lockdown-president-tells-them-pound-sand/ri30926
This Lukashenko is someone with a moral compass willing to stand up to the cabal.
Keep on eye on him in case he gets a fast acting cancer or a CIA funded coup is organised to overthrow him.
BEDBUGS IN THE GULAG
Julius and Troof, I went to the russian insider website and on the sidebar was a piece about Solzhenitsyn. It contained exactly the quote I most remembered from reading the Gulag umpteen years ago. Here ’tis.
“The bedbug-infested box has already been mentioned. In the dark closet made of wooden planks, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bedbugs, which had been allowed to multiply. The guards removed the prisoner’s jacket or field shirt, and immediately the hungry bedbugs assaulted him, crawling onto him from the walls or falling off the ceiling. At first he waged war with them strenuously, crushing them on his body and on the walls, suffocated by their stink. But after several hours he weakened and let them drink his blood without a murmur.”
Note: I had misremembered it as guards actually pouring the bedbugs down the prisoner’s shirt.
Felicity dear, I’m sure you don’t think that is off-topic. I mean it really IS your topic, no?
Why don’t you get a story about Bolton and all the wars
Dear Felicity, sorry to use the airwaves here to communicate but phone calls between me and the boss are largely blocked these day. I ask you to ask another member of household if he has a followup on the Clare Bronfman case, for us.
As to bg’s request for war talk, I do not have any special insight to offer. Certainly there could be an “Iranian” attack on US ships. I find both Scomo and Trump to be “not there.” Whom can one approach?
request submitted, Mary.
as for ‘bedbugs in the gulags’ being my topic… I would simply say there are gulags with bedbugs everywhere, threatening anyone who dares to challenge the narrative. Sadly, essential oils may not be as effective as they were for those five (?) thieves. I wish!!
“threatening anyone who dares to challenge the narrative”
Thank you felicity. I was looking for a place to share this
• Education system corruption, knowledge, rationality – Matthew Raphael Johnson
And while I am at it –
• How Do I Wake Up My Friends and Family? – Questions For Corbett