Until recently I would have agreed with your sentiment in regards to Australia never facing a confiscation of deposits but a worrying piece of legislation being passed in New Zealand now has me now doubting this.
From my perspective if the NZ govt is willing to add legislation in that would allow a haircut to depositors what's stopping any other western nation from doing so?
Oh, they do go on to say that their banking system has been given the big thumbs up by the IMF with the following statement:
"Bankers Association chief executive Kirk Hope said the latest International Monetary Fund report on New Zealand pointed out the strength and stability of our banking system"
Ahem, , the infamous, oops I mean famous IMF have pointed out the strength and stability of the New Zealand banks...um, isnt this the same IMF that performed the stress test on all the Euro banks, including the Cyprus banks in 2011 and advised they passed their "stringent" stress tests with flying colours?
And at that time the Cyprus banks held close to a massive six times the size of the entire countries GDP ( and they managed to pass their stringent tests? ) and at the time of this recent debacle held close to 8 times GDP.
I suppose my point here in conclusion is, why would the NZ parliament go to the trouble of passing this type of legislation and face the wrath and backlash of the general public if it did not believe at any point that they may have to enact it at a later stage?
And also, if NZ are willing to strip the rights of depositors then you certainly cant entirely rule out the possibility that Australia could also enact similiar legislation?
Anyway, my sentiment is that it is highly unlikely that this will occur here in Australia but with NZ passing these types of laws it does make one just every so slightly uneasy...
