Jenny Macklin

ATM fees have long been a sticky topic. For many people, paying an ATM transaction fee is an unwelcome but accepted fact of life.

For Indigenous Australians in remote communities however, ATM fees can have a significant impact on their life, swiftly eroding their humble bank balance.

This is the finding of a report released late last year by the feisty Australian Financial Counselling and Credit Reform Association (AFCCRA), titled “ATM Fees in Indigenous Communities”, which focussed on excessive ATM fees in remote communities.

Continue reading "When banks rob people at ten bucks a hit" »

When it comes to waste and mismanagement, Julia Gillard’s Building the Education Revolution debacle is recognised as the gold standard, but it has a new challenger in the form of the Labor government’s Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP).

However, federal Labor – like its state Labor counterparts who gave themselves glowing reports for their management of the BER – has insulted our intelligence by their boasts in early January that it has exceeded its 2010 targets for building houses in remote Indigenous communities.

The reality is the government has blown the same amount of taxpayers’ money on administration costs and inflated salaries for consultants under SIHIP as the disastrous schools halls project, in relative terms.

Continue reading "The next BER debacle: indigenous housing" »