People's Choice Branch Closure (Safety and Wellbeing of Staff)

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Rural and remote branches often close for no specific reason, weasel words often used and budget cuts usually implicated, but this one has closed for other reasons, rather clearly stated …

They are not alone - many businesses have packed up and left Alice Springs in the last few years, while others (Coles and Woolworths) have reduced trading hours and other services as a direct result of criminal activity.

Of course the customers are also at risk, probably moreso …

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Hi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

As a valued member and user of our Alice Springs branch, I’m writing to let you know that this branch will permanently close at 4:00pm on Friday, 30 August 2024. I understand that this may be an unwelcome change, so I’d like to share the reasons behind this difficult but necessary decision.

We recognise the important role that branches play in local communities. We are proud to be part of the communities that we serve, however, the safety and wellbeing of our people is our top priority.

Over the past year, we have made every effort to keep our people safe so that we could continue to help our members with their banking needs. However, following the substantial rise in the number of serious incidents that have threatened the safety of our people, the decision has been made to close the branch.

All employees at the Alice Springs branch will be offered an alternative employment opportunity with us.

Changes to our Alice Springs branch operations
To ensure minimal disruption to our members, we’re implementing the following transition period:

  • 18 July – 30 August – The Alice Springs branch will remain open from 9.30am to 4:00pm Monday to Friday.
  • 30 August – Final day of trading at the Alice Springs branch.
  • Specialised phone support will be available to affected members for six weeks post-closure.
  • Ongoing support will be available for members via our National Contact Centre on 13 11 82 daily from 7:00am to 10.30pm.

We’re committed to supporting you during this transition and beyond
As a member-owned bank, we greatly value each and every one of our members and are committed to supporting your banking needs and minimising the impact of this change.

While the branch will close on 30 August 2024, a number of measures will be in place to ensure members continue to have access to their products and services.

Our team at our Alice Springs branch and National Contact Centre are available to discuss how we can continue to serve you through the following alternative banking options:

24/7 Internet and Mobile Banking

Our Internet Banking and Mobile Banking App provide a safe and secure way to manage your banking anytime, anywhere. If you’re not already registered, please visit the branch or call 13 11 82 for help getting set up.

Accessing cash

You can withdraw cash fee-free from ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac ATMs. We encourage you to check for any fees or cash limits when using the ATM before completing a transaction. You can also access free cash-out facilities at supermarkets and participating retailers when making card purchases. Australia Post outlets also offer Bank@Post services, which allow you to deposit and withdraw cash fee-free. The Alice Springs Australia Post is located at 33 Hartley Street.

Speak to us

Our National Contact Centre are able to help you on 13 11 82 daily from 7:00am to 10.30pm.
We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and are committed to supporting you through this change. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us on 13 11 82 or visit our team in branch.

Best regards,

Maria-Ann Camilleri
Chief Customer Officer

Unclear what “alternative employment opportunity” staff might be offered, but if it’s not telecommuting it looks to be a 1200 km+ commute or move :wink:

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Sorry to hear about another of the trials and tribulations of living in Alice Springs; there is extensive coverage about the ongoing issues on the ABC National News. Sadly, the Alice is not the only place where these thing are happening.

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Have heard of the curfew in Alice Springs on the news. At about the same time in Melbourne there was the happening a horror crash by teenagers in a stolen car, which killed the innocent driver of the other car. There’s concern here about the unwillingness of courts to keep teenagers in juvenile detention and they go out unpunished to commit other crimes.

We’re not new here to bank branches closures either (but luckily not due to violence) they notify and redirect us to the ever further away few branches that are still open to the public. The ANZ calls them Specialist Hubs, I guess it’s where we go to have our loans applications refused.

Keep safe @draughtrider :pray:

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I am never sure about it being unwillingness or because the courts, at the end of the day, have to answer to government(s) of the day in one way or another.

Every incarceration no matter how justified or not requires a cell, supervision, and day to day services and supplies. Many in the communities are already raging about their taxes and so on, and every juvenile added to the system is another cost and I doubt judges are impervious to the pressures to keep costs down, costs being a separate issue to the debates on how to best address juvenile crime in complex long standing situations that seem to be getting worse.

Disclaimer: The following is an activist group in the US that has a bias so counter views are to be expected, yet the points presented are worth a think.

A problem with ‘programs’ is that they need full on 24x7 oversight, funding, operation, and near universal community support, mostly lacking locally.

The traditional status quo of putting people in prison can be counter to good outcomes. The following report suggests many questions but few solid answers.

https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi284.pdf

FWIW we have a local-ish crime spree that has been found to be the work of a small number of juvenile males. They have been caught but how they are being dealt with remains outstanding.

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Sure, government spending eventually ends up as a financial cost to society, and in Vic it would add up to our already huge debt.
But then society pays also for the cost of crime: stolen cars, damaged properties…all add up to the cost of insurance premiums etc..but most importantly a precious life which would not have been lost had the alleged offender be detained. (If I remember correctly he had committed 7-8 offences and always been let go.)

What price this innocent life?

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It seems to me that Australia should have a close look at Norway’s prison system, where the emphasis is rehabilitation and recidivism is low. This is a big change from the 1990s, when their prison and reoffending record was more like the USA’s.

I think Australia should adopt such a system, and it’d make sense to start with young offenders. Don’t put them in adult prisons, but do keep them confined, prevented from doing more harm, while efforts are made to rehabilitate and educate them.

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/Soapbox

It is very sad when a life is lost, every life is precious. Not knowing what the prior offences were of the offending youth and knowing that there are some very substantial barriers to addressing the reasons why some youth are offending, it is hard to create a system that fixes the faults.

We have large populations in very small areas, there is a lack of services that properly address poverty, training, education, and DV (youth are victims as well), as well as a burgeoning homelessness crisis. Governments often pay lip service to any real action on all these and more fronts. It seems there are a lot of citizens whose first reaction is lock them up, and there is a concerted media effort to push this hard stance. It is easy to push people to extreme measures as that panders to many who wield and seek power. This lockup causes many youth to become quite wise in the ways of offending without being caught and in later life becoming hardened criminals with no hope of society being able to rehabilitate them. Locking youth up is the last thing that should be considered as a means to curb recidivism, real money and effort needs to be put into breaking the cycles that create the criminals out of our youth. Sure, there will be some youth whose offending was going to happen and some whose crimes will be and are heinous, in those cases jail might be the only answer to their offending.

The youth driving the car crashed it, was their intent to kill someone? It appears unlikely their intent was to create such an outcome, they were probably seeking an outlet that while it was criminal was not any worse than a drink driver causing death (and some getting away with it with only minor inconvenience in their lives), or a drug affected driver doing the same, or indeed the person who is so drug/alcohol affected that they could easily cause similar serious harm to both property and life…What about unlicenced drivers who are just given fines and banned from driving…some who re-offend again and again. Should we jail them all or should we be finding ways to address the problems, and address them before they become an issue that affects more than just the offender.

Jail time is a simplistic, and often backward way of addressing the problems. It adds an inordinate cost both monetarily and wasted life (not just the cost to keep them incarcerated but all the others costs) to society to keep people locked up when if that money had been spent properly in early intervention, many would not be offenders. Build more jails, lock more people up, drop the age of legal responsibility are often the cries we hear, not as often do we hear the ways or see the effort to properly address the underlying issues that create the offending.

Until we fix the issues that create the problems, we will continue to need bigger and bigger jails and more and more of us will get locked up. Creating a society of haves and have nots is not the answer, thought it is often the cause of societal aberrant behaviour.

Much of the trouble we face now has been due to a lack of effort in the past. We now have generations of youth that have grown up in a very awkward world, it will take as many if not more generations to fix the past mistakes, lack of attention to the rising issues, and the under-spending that caused it all.

/End of soapbox

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To be clear I am in favour of rehabilitation especially of young offenders, but at the moment society is bearing the brunt of the ‘no consequences’ climate regarding juvenile offenders. All that is teaching them is that it’s ok to do whatever they like, to steal, to injure, even to be responsible for a death, as all that’s going to happen is being sent home to mama, in fact if the mother hadn’t alerted the authorities no one had been aware that her son had violated bail conditions. This is not rehabilitation, this is failing to keep society safe. IMO.

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I do not disagree but to my point prisons, juvie detention, and even rehab cost. Costs are paid by taxes. Not to diminish costs to society but $1 million per juvenile is a lot of crime. It would be a brave pollie who tried to sell higher taxes (or diverting taxes from something else) for juvie detention centre or more adult prisons. Without funding for appropriate treatments or punishments what is a court to do? Change is unlikely to be statistically apparent over a short term - it will require consistency over multiple years and possibly intergenerational to properly assess any +/-. Patience is not something most voters have when their hip pockets are in play. It is a seriously nasty catch-22.

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For me it’s a societal problem with two parts -

  • why some act in difference to the law ,
  • the consequential cost to society and individually (some direct and some indirect).

As to suggestions of penal solutions, guidance may come from 1788 and the years which followed. Penal servitude imposed by the parliament of Great Britain served little benfit in reducing criminal acts. Crimes continued despite the many punished by transportation for relatively trivial crimes relative to today’s values. The poverty that most found themselves in was according to historians hardly of the making of those society had relegated to a life of poor prospects. It was a feature of the society of the day. One in which entitlement, ownership of property and wealth rested with a minority.

Our current day Australia owes much of it’s progress to the endeavours of the so labelled outcasts of British society, and the many wealth-less immigrants forced from Britain and Ireland, subsequently Europe, and more recently Asia and Africa. The further forced acceptance or otherwise of Australia’s First Nations stands out.

If we seek a political resolution, of note our politicians seem poorly equiped at understanding societal needs verses the priority needs of the party or how to gain votes. It’s as much a symptom of the problem as guidance on where else to look for the solution.

I’m one to suggest Australia needs to reassess how it sees itself remembering the lessons and legacy of all our forebears (of good and bad).

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It’s not of great service to harken back to the bygone days of ‘the convicts’.
We have come a long way on how convicted criminals are treated nowadays. And afaik criminals are still being sent to prison…

What I was having a little look at was how the Juvenile offenders are let out on bail no matter how many times they reoffend while being out on bail.

It was only after the public outcry in Melbourne that the 17yo alleged driver of a stolen car, while out on bail, crashed and caused the death of an innocent young man and was then apprehended for violating his bail and detained.

The following extracts might say it better than I can:

The Consequences of No Consequences

Frank Sonnenberg Online

If there’s no fallout for unacceptable behavior, the offense will likely not only get repeated, but the wrongdoer may try to get away with more the next time. Improper behavior becomes the norm. People mimic the behavior of others. Before you know it, unacceptable behavior becomes acceptable to everyone.

What happens when someone shows disrespect, tells a lie, bullies a peer, uses foul language, gets into a fight, cheats to win, steals merchandise — and there are no consequences?

The line between right and wrong becomes blurred. If good behavior isn’t rewarded and poor behavior isn’t frowned upon, it’s easy to forget the proper way to behave.

Learning fails to take place. If unacceptable behavior isn’t questioned or challenged, learning doesn’t take place. Before you know it, bad behavior turns into a bad habit.

Wrongdoings get repeated. If there are no repercussions for misconduct, you increase the likelihood that the offense will be repeated.

The next offense often gets bigger. If there’s no fallout for unacceptable behavior, the offense will likely not only get repeated, but the wrongdoer may try to get away with more the next time.

Improper behavior becomes the norm. People mimic the behavior of others. Before you know it, unacceptable behavior becomes acceptable to everyone. Wrongs committed by enough people become the norm.

Some folks believe we should address big offenses but let small infractions slide. The problem with that line of reasoning is that we become desensitized to wrongdoings over time. This nightmare scenario can happen if we close our eyes to misconduct, cover for the misdeeds of others, or defend people’s actions simply because we have a vested interest in the outcome.

From escapingthe.com ( a counselling practice in the U.S.)

No Consequences Means No Boundaries

When kids don’t have consequences for their actions, they feel they can do whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if they do something wrong because nothing happens. There is no punishment or action that tells the child, what you just did is unacceptable. Giving children all love and support with no consequences and boundaries leads to behavior issues.

Maybe parents had a negative experience with punishment growing up and want to make sure they stay far away from that with their own kids. Parents don’t have to use the same punishments they had growing up. But implementing some consequences for misbehavior is a must.

Implementing consequences helps children gain a real understanding of how the world works. Natural events create consequences to keep things in order and running well. It hurts when we put our hand on a hot stove. We get a ticket when we run a red light. At work, we could lose our job if we yell at our boss. Consequences help us behave appropriately and give us boundaries. This should be the same standard with our kids.

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Acknowledging the past goes a long way to understanding why we think as we do today, and why we continue to fail to change the outcomes. The harsh penalties and conditions imposed in Great Britain more than 200 years previously failed to significantly change the crime rate. Why expect a different outcome today?

No disagreement, although there are multiple pathways by which one can see the wrong way as accepted. Some are a consequence of conditions individuals have little control over. We all have differing life experiences, and subsequently our understanding of how others see the world. Some insight if one has the time.
‘404 | BOCSAR

Expecting the behaviour to change if refusal of bail or incarceration is the preferred solution, unlikely. One might as well lock away those with the most minor of crimes for ever, lest they reoffend. It’s in reality the cycle for many after the first time, and a poor solution. To consider also refusing bail, especially if the case against the individual is subsequently not proven will likely be seen as punishment undeserved. Guilty until proven not guilty can be many months into the future. I don’t envy anyone having to make such decisions.

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Whilst all this talk of convicts and what to do with out of control miscreants is all very interesting, the subject is simply bank branch closure.

For a reason I consider bogus, that of safety and wellbeing of staff.

Seems the bank has no problem in directing customers over to other bank’s ATMs to get cash. Or to the supermarket for cashout. Or over to the post office to do their banking. Presumably these places are not concerned about the safety of their staff.

Hey, it’s not that we want to close down a branch for business reasons, blame the out of control kids. A masterly application of corporate spin and deflection.

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Not advocating ‘Harsh’ sentences nor conditions, all in favour of ‘treatment and rehabilitation’.
Wish: that if bail conditions are violated once (not infinite times) then detention would be applied.

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