I asked the RBA whether or not the Bank of England sought their permission before they melted down Australia’s gold holdings and refined them from 2015 onwards.
Needless to say the RBA were clueless or deliberately hiding the truth.
At the end of my questioning the RBA continue to lie about their manipulation of gold. Yet again they claim that by leasing it, they are helping producers hedge their gold.
This is wrong. When producers hedge their gold they are forward selling. If the RBA was helping they would be forward buying not leasing.
It beggars belief how they get away with it.
—
Economics Legislation Committee
10/11/2022
Estimates
TREASURY PORTFOLIO
Reserve Bank of Australia
Senator RENNICK: I will return to my favourite topic, which is the gold bars stored in the Bank of England. Did the Bank of England ask permission from the RBA to actually melt down the 80 tonnes of Australia’s gold before refining it from 2015 onwards?
Dr Kent : So you are suggesting that the gold bars that we owned have been melted down by the Bank of England?
Senator RENNICK: I’ve been given the serial numbers and the dates of refining. They’ve been refined from 2015 onwards, as late as 2020. So I would have thought that the Bank of England didn’t have our gold bars there in the first place. The memo I got from the RBA previously has said there have been fake gold bars and duplicate serial numbers. I have the document from the RBA that says they’ve been refined from 2015 onwards. Clearly, our old gold bars have either been given to someone else or they’ve been melted down. The long story short is that it is a trespass to chattel to the Bank of England to be moving around our gold bars without permission from the RBA. Wouldn’t you agree with that?
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, I was just going to ask whether you have a question. It is about whether they agree with that? That is the end of your 10-minute block.
Dr Kent : So sometimes we will lend out the gold bars that we own. Those bars will be lent by us to somebody else.
Senator RENNICK: They don’t move.
Dr Kent : They don’t move.
Senator RENNICK: It’s a paper transaction.
Dr Kent : We might get back a different gold bar but still one that satisfies all the various stringent conditions for that gold bar to be in the Bank of England’s vaults.
Senator RENNICK: The RBA has admitted that there have been fake gold bars, and the Bank of England has admitted to the RBA that there have been fake gold bars. How do you know a real gold bar has been lent and you haven’t got a fake gold bar back?
Dr Kent : I think we’ve clarified that. Some of the problems with these gold bars that you are referring to is that they were a very different type of gold bar—a much smaller gold bar—to the ones we have in our ownership. We only deal with the much larger gold bars. There have never been questions about the quality of those bars sitting in the Bank of England, some of which we own.
Senator RENNICK: Can I just finish my questions?
CHAIR: One tiny, short question with a tiny, short answer.
Senator RENNICK: Alan Greenspan admitted in 1997 that if the price of gold took off, the central banks would lease gold out to basically suppress the price of gold. Australia’s third biggest mineral export is gold at $28 billion. To put that in context, our beef exports are $11 billion. Why is the RBA working with other central banks leasing out gold? You might pick up $1 million on your side of the ledger, but given that—
CHAIR: Senator Rennick, can you ask your question, please?
Senator RENNICK: Why you are doing that? Why are you leasing out gold that is impacting the profitability of our goldminers in this country that employ over 100,000 people directly or indirectly?
Dr Kent : Well, my understanding is that some of the lending actually is to facilitate producers who occasionally need gold in their possession that they have not yet produced. They are going to produce it.
Senator RENNICK: But we don’t move physical bars.
Dr Kent : No. But they’ve promised the gold to somebody else. So we can lend it to them for a time until they obtain suitable gold to use for their purposes. So it’s facilitating the market in helping producers.
CHAIR: Thank you.
