Agmates member Roger Crook writes:
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Roger Crook
Australia’s banking culture is rife with corruption and standover tactics and according to one academic, farmers bear the brunt of it.
I believe my story is testament to that and I feel compelled to share it. Even though I’ve had a professional journalist help me research and write this article the mainstream media refuses to publish it here in Western Australia.
Political Economist at the University of Sydney Dr Evan Jones says that since deregulation banking culture had changed and advertising suggesting that banks are farmers’ friends are “total lies.”
“The problem is that since deregulation the bankers have turned into money lenders. They don’t care about businesses and if anything goes wrong then they simply it sell up. But borrowers don’t understand the culture has changed.
Farmers have been easy pickings because they’ve got those valuable assets in land and they are more vulnerable then even small business because of the weather.”
My story is just one example of what Dr Jones is saying. I used to farm at Porongurup Western Australia and had dealt with my financier, Wesfarmers, all my farming life. I experienced first hand the change in the banking culture Dr Jones talks about when the Landmark businesses was bought out by AWB in 2003.
Our troubles started when our 200 acre horticultural enterprise was quarantined with a previously unknown disease. As a result we were unable to trade for nine months. At that time AWB Landmark began what what can only be described as a campaign of intimidation against us to recover their debt.
Our debt that was initially covered by more than four times the value of our farm soon spiraled out of control as AWB Landmark continued to charge compound interest.
When a legal battle with the investors involved in the horticultural enterprise began, I kept AWB Landmark fully informed, as they were when the stress of the matter manifested itself in a mental illness.
We were literally locked down and that had a dramatic effect on our cash flow. There was no compensation available from the government.
I was unable to work (but) in essence AWB’s behaviour showed that didn’t matter.
No sooner had we won the legal battle with the investors I contracted cancer and was forced to sell our property.
However when that sale didn’t happen quickly enough AWB Landmark began to employ threatening behaviour and an aggressive legal team.
In the midst of treatment for my illness, myself and my family were receiving calls sometimes more than once a week from AWB’s legal team and we were threatened with being thrown out on the street.
After finally selling at a fire-sale price, AWB Landmark then loaded our debt with the fees of their legal team, leaving myself and my wife with not even enough to buy a house.
Despite writing to the Banking Ombudsman, I was told that because AWB Landmark was unregulated as a finance provider there was nothing that could be done.
Dr Jones has repeatedly highlighted legal bias, the unwillingness of the legal system to act on cases of bank fraud and even the “creation of financial debt” as major problems within the banking system.
Despite writing submissions to parliamentary inquiries investigating bank’s behaviour for nearly a decade, Dr Jones says there has been little action from either the legal system or politicians and -
“The legislation is already in place (to protect the borrower) but regulators will not enforce it. The judiciary system is loathe to find in favour of customers in the civil court, Australian Securities and Investments Commission has done absolutely nothing and is belligerent about its inaction.
That puts people in a terrible position – the bank victims are assumed to be victims of their own incompetence.”
Dr Jones says there are no statistics to indicate how widespread the problem is because the issue gets little coverage in mainstream media and victim’s stories often don’t get out.
“All one can say is that the cases we do know about, the banks adopt a belligerent attitude – the banks feel they can get away with it,” he said.
And my experience has conclusively proven to me that he is right, they can and do.
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