One Nation’s Sarah Game MLC has again defended freedom and common sense by hitting the Adelaide airwaves to speak about an important Bill to preserve people’s right to use cash. 

Speaking on Adelaide’s high-rating 5AA radio station on Sunday, Sarah explained the motivations behind her Public Finance and Audit Tax Payment Amendment Bill, which she will introduce to the SA upper house in August, amid realistic hopes it will become law. 

“This Bill is essentially to protect people’s rights and their choice to pay in cash up to $10,000 for any state or local government service, or any state or local government revenue service,” Sarah explained to host Andrew Reimers. 

Despite conceding it would be a much more difficult proposition to legislate, Sarah also champions the idea that cash amounts over $10,000 should be accepted. 

“I certainly support people’s right to pay cash as legal tender for any amount,” she said. 

“We’ll be encouraging private business to accept cash, but that’s less straightforward to legislate. 

“I think it’s an operational advantage for many private businesses to accept cash; in fact some businesses are going cash only because they’ve had so many problems with digital payments. 

“But at the end of the day, the consumer still has some sort of choice.” 

Sarah said she believed her Bill had “a reasonable chance of getting through”.  

“Speaking with the Leader of the Opposition today, he’s very supportive…” she said. 

The commitment to pursue the Bill comes after Sarah noted, via constituent feedback, that certain SA councils, libraries and even Services SA outlets had gone cashless, unfairly disadvantaging some people. 

“Many people will be surprised to know that many local government services are attempting to go cashless,” she said. 

“When you think that those Service SA branches are conducting millions of transactions each year, that affect almost every South Australian, and they’ve got the ability to potentially go cashless overnight, I think that needs protection. 

“People have the right to pay cash for those services if they choose to.” 

Sarah said the concept of banning cash payments went to a “wider issue”. 

“People who have written to me feel a push towards digital payments…” she told the Adelaide radio audience. 

“It’s a restriction on their freedom (and) it’s an invasion of privacy. 

“Banks actually track and then profit off selling our spending habits. 

“My constituents say it’s their choice if they want to keep their money in the bank or if they want to keep it as cash in the safe… 

“It is still legal tender.” 

Sarah has previously used parliament to flag the “war against cash”, warning of a government goal to eliminate cash and replace it with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). 

Sarah also pointed to the CrowdStrike IT blackout chaos that ensued on July 19 as further evidence of the importance of cash. 

“We need to protect ourselves against the vulnerability of those systems going down,” Sarah said on 5AA. 

Sarah has also previously spoken against the closure of ATMs and bank branches, noting that regional and rural residents suffer the most.