NAB Fleecing Struggling Farmers – Now they must pay Restitution.

The Fleecing of Australian Farmers.

The headline on the front page of The Australian of July 24, 2018,  ‘NAB promises to stop fleecing struggling farmers’.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘fleecing’ as;  ‘to take someones money dishonestly by charging too much or by cheating’. The Legal dictionary defines ‘restitution’ as; n. 1) returning to the proper owner property or the monetary value of loss. Sometimes restitution is made part of a judgment in negligence and/or contracts cases.

The NAB has admitted that it has fleeced (stolen from) some of its farmer customers and now, having realised the error of its ways, promises it won’t do it again. Isn’t that great?  Will the other banks now admit to stealing? They should, because they all behaved in the same callous and reprehensible manner if the evidence presented to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is anything to go by. Only a few of the many, many farmers who have been ‘fleeced’ will get the chance to testify, how many nobody knows, but the commissioner in reply to a question from Bob Katter MP has indicated that they won’t be forgotten. It may well be that Bob Katter has secured an extension of time for the Royal Commission to hear more from farmers. There is never any question where Bob Katter’s heart is, it’s with the people on the land. It’s a pity there weren’t a dozen politicians from rural electorates in court to give the commissioner a reminder, not that it seems he needs one, of the fleecing that has gone on in the bush.

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