 Good morning everyone. Jason Hinders, my name. I'm the Chairman of Milonglo Financial Services which is the Bendigo Community Bank organisation here in in Canberra and Jerobombra. I just want to give you a short history of the Bendigo Bank for those that don't know much about it and then to talk about the Bendigo Community Banks which is a more recent development and then about our local company here and then some sort of points about how we might be able to contribute to affordable housing and innovative ideas and then a few examples of things we've been involved in that are relevant or in the ballpark. So the Bendigo Bank is the fifth largest bank in the country. It was established in 1858 so now it's 156 years old. There's 450 branches of Bendigo Bank across the country. 300 of those are community owned bank franchises. So Bendigo is a real bank. It's not a building society. It's got all of the services that big banks have. We have to explain this all the time because it's called Bendigo Bank and people think of a little country town but it's actually a proper bank and it does all of those things. In the last seven years up to the year 2029% of Australia's bank branches closed for good. And those are mostly in communities in country towns when the last of the big four left the town without any banking services. So people had to travel to the nearest big town to do their banking and so then these small towns started to decline. Bendigo Bank saw this an opportunity to make banking viable again in these towns. Bendigo Bank was already rural based at that stage but only 150 odd branches across the eastern states and the south eastern states at that. They came up with a new model which I think is still unique worldwide. It's a partnership that gives the community the opportunity to raise the money to open their own community bank. They're run locally, they're owned locally and they're staffed by local people. So the first one of these opened in 1988 on not much more than a handshake. Since then 302 more communities have taken back control of their banking needs and then use the banking profits to fund all number of valuable community assets, groups, charities, associations. This is the aspect that becomes interesting to discussion about the NDIS. Over the 16 years since community bank network has evolved, we've become a bit more commercial in our expectations about communities. We no longer give money away, we invest it. It belongs, this money in our view belongs to our communities and it's a precious resource and we expect the groups that we invest it with to use it to return what we call a social dividend to the community. There's been over 120 million, I think it's $122 million, $3 million has gone back into communities across Australia. The reality is that whilst sausage is available every six months or so, raises a couple of hundred dollars for charitable organisations. To have an income stream and an expectation of ongoing return means that those communities are able to budget for long-term commitments. The community banks across the country have 26 billion dollars under management at this stage and the substantial income produced from that community bank network is beginning to think big. This again becomes relevant when trying to find new ways of funding expensive items like housing. Canberra is no different except that in long-term financial services, our organisation, we now operate four community bank branches and we're the largest community bank group in the ACT in New South Wales. Community banks such as ours are run by volunteer boards. They're community-minded people from all walks of life. I'm a lawyer, we've got directors who are serving Air Force officers and university students and all descriptions in between. The one common thing we have is an objective to get these community banks up to profit and then to return 80 percent of those profits to charities and community groups. Our first branch opened in 2002 in Corwell followed later that year in Waniasa and more recently Jerobomba in 11 and Curtin in 2012. In the process we put back $1.2 million into our local community here through what we think is about 260 local groups and charities right here in Canberra and Queenbyn. I've got a few examples of things that we have supported. Some of you might be aware of home in Queenbyn and the story there. It's an independent living and they always emphasise it's dignified living because it's not just living for people with mental health challenges. That model also is unique, I understand, in that it endeavours to do what they do, providing high quality service and facilities without ongoing government dependence. Instead they rely on community organisations and corporates to retain their independence. To this end our local community bank has committed $50,000 over five years to that very worthwhile organisation. National Health Co-op is one we supported last year, the tune of $100,000. We used profits from the banking business we do. We then leveraged with the National Health Co-op. I think it's our fault they had to change their name from West Bercon and Health Co-op because we agreed with them it was going to be in the Togrenong Valley. So we provide, so this organisation banded with us and then we went to government and we spoke to them and we leveraged $400,000 clinic in Chisholm which provides bulk build GP services, ACT government and gives them a facility where they can provide primary health care services to people that are Togrenong Valley. Oz Harvest you all might know has changed its name to the Yellow Van these days. We provided their second van to that organisation which is part of communities at work at a cost of nearly $50,000 and Lash is a small organisation which runs a couple of houses in Curtin for mostly adult disabled children of elderly parents. It comes home to us about the concern that those older parents who are finding it difficult to deal with when they've been the primary care for a long time the angst and worry that they have to deal with trying to work out what's going to happen when they're gone. So that was a history lesson I hope it wasn't too tedious for you. From now on I'll try and get a little more interesting. The fact is that Community Bank makes its decisions right here in Canberra. It's not some glass tower in Sydney or Melbourne where shareholding decisions are made we make them right here and we decide where that money's going to go. We have 600 approximately local shareholders who are not day traders they're in this because they understand what the Community Bank means to the community. They're more interested in that social dividend I spoke of earlier and that it's delivered to benefit the whole of the community not just them. They were in the whole pretty happy I understand with the five or seven cents fully frank we've been distributing in the past as a dividend. I know that stark contrast with the obscenity of the eight billion dollars profit the CBA is reported to be about to be announcing. The local community banks has the ability to partner with organizations to leverage territory and federal governments to deliver significant long-term benefits to this community. Moreover we have the ability to commit to long-term funding at our discretion and as I said those decisions are made right here. Now this is where the Bendigo Bank and affordable housing are somewhat of a perfect match. We're already in the business of lending money for housing if we increase the amount of money we lend we increase the amount of money we make to put back into things like housing. We're unapologetically parochial we're inward looking we're all about our community. We're also prepared to commit a large proportion of our earnings as subsidy or capital contribution to the right sorts of projects. Under the NDIS it's like a disability care participants will continue to access housing either on their own jointly or in group settings in either the private rental market or via home ownership or through social housing. As a locally operated bank Bendigo is sort of uniquely positioned we think to engage directly with investors with the disability sector providers and with government to deliver increased stock of each type through either subsidies or reduced interest rates for investors who are prepared to commit to long-term specialist housing stock or perhaps capital contributions to construction costs or if appropriate modification of existing rental stocks. Another innovation and I think unique asset that we have available to us through the Bendigo Community Bank Network is something called community sector banking. Community sector banking is a niche financial organisation with products and services tailored specifically for the not-for-profit market. They're also the biggest funder I understand of not-for-profit and affordable housing in New South Wales if not Australia. They're 50% owned by the big bank Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and 50% owned by a group of 20 community sector partners. So that's 50% Bendigo and 50% 20 separate partners some of whom you've heard about already today. I notice the Brotherhood of St Lawrence is there they also include involved with the SVA, Anglicare, Scape, Oxfam, Wife Foundations, ACOSP, New South Wales Council, the Social Services so organisations that are all in the same sector. The same sector as we all work in. Whilst the local organisations banking relationships remain with the community bank and that's the retail aspect of this community sector banking they're able to provide services to not-for-profits that the community bank simply can't do things like payroll services, telecom, rental, leasing, IT hosting, equipment leasing, fleet leasing all those things. So it's very specialised around that not-for-profit. They've invested over 150 million in social and affordable housing equating to about 230 much needed dwellings. There are also the recipients some of you may be aware of Power Housing Australia. They're the recipient of the first ever strategic partnership award from Power Housing Australia. It was in recognition of their contribution to affordable housing within Australia. The first time a strategic partner award has been presented to any organisation and the first one bestowed outside of Power Housing Australia's membership group. Community sector banking commitment to societal change and connection with the community housing sector and understanding the issues confronting community housing organisations is the reasons given by PHA for awarding this. Some recent innovative affordable housing projects by community sector banking include building a shared equity model for transition to home ownership and also collaborating with PHA to create a rateable housing bond. Probably something not dissimilar to what Mark was talking about earlier. CSB is currently developing an affordable housing investment bond product which I think is going to be aimed at self-managed super funds international and institutional investors who have committed to ethical investment policies. So that's the sort of thing that we can do we think or the the area that we can get involved in. I've also got some ideas about what what government might do and I don't know whether up for suggestions or not but this year's ACT budget I think has 12 million dollars allocated for the implementation or the catalysation of the NDIS. There's probably more that government could be doing. I know government loves to see corporate dollars going towards community asset creation and PPPs are a flavour of the month. If we were to be involved we would use our proposed funding much the same way we did with the health co-op to leverage government to allocate more of its own funding to the sector and also to commit to things like reduced fees and charges for investors, stamp duties, concessions is a big one there, reduced land tax perhaps rates as incentives for investors, reductions in planning charges, the red tape, application fees for the builders who commit to building purpose-built disability housing, perhaps reserving land release, also possibly with reduced pricing for developers and or investors who are prepared to opt in to long-term disability housing market. Another thought would be giving all of the ratepayers in the territory and the option of choosing to subsidise disability housing and why not have ACTU AGUL do the same in relation to utilities, electricity, gas and water through a few-cent rate power opt-in option much like the airlines do with carbon neutral options for flyers and the power companies with the green power options that you get. Perhaps, I was thinking there during Mark's speech there that perhaps real estate agents might have a place to play here by possibly capping their fees on transactions around this sort of housing. Incentives can be reduced or increased to encourage the pipeline stock and I think this is the job of government to be realistic and educated about what's needed and how long it's going to take to bring to the market. The incentives can be up to or downed to increase particular types of housing so that the pipeline is delivering when they think it's going to be needed. While there's real concerns about the extent to which the federal government's committed or guarantee the long-term viability of the scheme and indeed any program supporting disability or social welfare and I note the Abbott government's recent decision to withdraw funding of round five of the National Rental Affordability Scheme. To me innovation is just thinking differently about solutions to the challenges that face us. In the new landscape disability service providers will need to partner with financial institutions and with the construction industry to provide the types of housing products that the newly empowered NDIS consumer wants. I'll just leave you with one final thought. I hope I haven't gone too far over. Mark talked about the 1% of available funds and and how his organisation earns for just that little bit. I've got a similar sort of example but mine's a little closer to home. In the territory's 14-15 budget here in the ACT the government's allocated 465 million for housing and 735 million for infrastructure. Now by my calculations and what we make that's a fairly small fraction of the whole budget. If we if the government were to invest half of that say into the Bendigo Community Bank the only locally owned and operated bank in addition to the interest the territory would naturally get received for its investment we would be happy to commit to at least a million dollars to deliver quality affordable housing. That'd be a million dollars every year. So delivery of affordable, appropriate and timely housing under the scheme means ensuring the experts in all the relevant fields must be in the room when the decisions are made and I think most of those people I'm talking about are in this room now. We certainly would like to be part of that and we're excited by the hard fought and won prospect of empowering people with disabilities. Thank you.