Let’s put all our gold bars on the table.
“A random sample of 450 bars (8.55 per cent of the RBA’s holdings) were selected by Audit and notified to the BoE prior to Audit’s arrival on-site, hence the location and retrieval from the vaults was not witnessed!”
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In Estimates I asked the RBA if they would cooperate with the new U.S. administration when they audit the gold holdings at Fort Knox.
Needless to say they took the answer on notice.
It is however worth nothing that the claim by the RBA that an audit of Australia’s gold bars has been carried out is misleading.
The RBA has carried out a “partial” audit of selected gold bars, only 460 of the 5,285 bars on hand and the RBA had to give prior notice of the bars they wanted to audit before they arrived.
Had the RBA done their job properly they should have audited all 5,285 bars at the same time with no notice and observed the bars being removed from the vaults.
Furthermore Audit reports should be done yearly, not every three years.
You can read the audit report below.
It’s worth nothing that the RBA has lent or swapped 1,202 bars of gold out or 22% of our entire gold holdings.
These transactions are designed to force down the price of gold which is against Australia’s national interest as we are an exporter of gold.
More worryingly is how do we know that the gold bars inspected by the RBA weren’t lent by another country on a short term basis to cover the audit.
What is also concerning is the large amount of refining going on as evidenced by the large number of different refiners. Gold bars held by central banks should not move or be refined as it undermines confidence in their intentions.
The only way to rectify this uncertainty is to audit all gold holdings at the same time and to stop lending/leasing gold bars.
https://www.rba.gov.au/qa/pdf/gold-verification-audit-report-06-2022.pdf
Economics Legislation Committee
27/02/2025
Estimates
TREASURY PORTFOLIO
Reserve Bank of Australia
Senator RENNICK: I have one more question. I note the Bank of England has been struggling to meet its gold deliveries of late. There is a lot of talk about it. The authorities in the American administration are talking about auditing the gold bars at Fort Knox. I am not sure if you are familiar with it, Mr Hauser, but I have been given a document by the RBA whereby the Bank of England admitted to having fake gold bars and duplicate serial numbers. Is the RBA willing to cooperate with the American administration when the audit of the gold bars at Fort Knox is carried out? An audit of the gold bars at the Bank of England will be carried out at the same time so we know that serial numbers aren’t being double counted.
Mr Hauser : I might turn to Michelle on this point. As you might understand, I’m a relatively new arrival.
Ms McPhee : Well, as you know, we do have considerable gold holdings at the Bank of England. They have been audited, as you know. The audit has been put on our website. I know that this is an issue that you have been talking to my colleagues about for some time. I don’t think we have any direct requests from any government or central bank to participate in any activity like that. I might just take that on notice.
Senator RENNICK: Thank you.
