Cairns Council Cancels Cashless Crusade
Jul 21, 2023
Citizens of Cairns—a city known as the gateway to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—have successfully rallied against a council decision to ban cash payments.
Cairns Regional Council launched a cashless policy in July 2022 that would cover all its facilities, including libraries and waste transfer stations. Locals rapidly mobilised against the decision, with an online petition receiving more than 5,000 signatures. Ultimately, less than a year later, the council reversed its decision, making the announcement in a session attended by hundreds of locals.
Amongst them was Frankie Hogan, who created the petition. She said it was ‘a win for the people’, many of whom were unaware of the council’s intention to go cashless until the petition began circulating.
We have lived with cash for such a long time. It belongs to the people. [Someone] might want to go to the buy-back shop and buy something for $2. Why should they have to use their card and pay fees on top of that?
While cash is currently used for comparatively few point of sale transactions across Australia—around six percent, according to FIS research—it is a highly valued payment method for small businesses, with cafés recently expressing a preference for cash payments. On the consumer side, cashless businesses across the nation are also facing boycotts from groups arguing that a refusal to accept cash infringes people’s personal rights and freedom of choice.