The Curtin-Chifley Origins of the Australian Bank Deposit Guarantee

In 2008, the Australian government introduced a guarantee of bank deposits. However, in 1945 the Curtin-Chifley government had already introduced what it believed was an explicit bank deposit guarantee. Using archival material, this paper shows how it was understood to be a guarantee by the cabinet, Labor parliamentarians, and the Commonwealth Bank. The guarantee was an important yet almost entirely forgotten part of the Curtin-Chifley government's social reform program. This paper uncovers the origins of the perception of a deposit guarantee in this forgotten 1945 debate, the attempts by policymakers and the Commonwealth Bank to roll back those perceptions in subsequent decades, and the Rudd government's reversion to an explicit guarantee scheme in 2008.