The two-week comment period was set to shut last Friday but was pushed out by a week until November 7.

It comes amid concerns people were struggling to lodge a response online.

“The requirement to create a Word, RTF and/or PDF document and upload to the (Treasury) site has excluded many ordinary Australians from having their say,” Cash Welcome founder and cash supporter Jason Bryce said.

7NEWS.com.au has reached out to Treasury about whether difficulties with submissions, which can also be emailed or posted, played any role in the seven-day extension.

Cash mandate a ‘dud’ or ‘balanced response’?

Independent Federal Member Andrew Gee is among those to have taken aim at the draft, labelling it “a dud”.

“It’s the green light for phasing out of cash in Australia,” he said last week.

“Why won’t you (Treasurer Jim Chalmers) support my private member’s bill which would apply to all businesses and all face-to-face transactions of $10,000 or less and which would truly keep cash king in Australia?”

Chalmers said there is “good reasons” why the government settled on the model it has.

“There is currently nothing preventing any business in Australia from refusing to accept cash,” Chalmers said.

“We consider that situation to be unacceptable.

“From the first of January, we’re ensuring that Australians can buy their fuel and groceries by mandating cash acceptance for essential purchases through a mandatory industry code.”

Australians used cash for about 13 per cent of purchases in 2022, well down on 2007 when physical currency changed hands during 70 per cent of buys, according to the Reserve Bank.

Seven per cent of consumers — more than 1.5 million people — were using cash for most of their in-person transactions in 2022.

Chalmers said an earlier round of consultation on the cash mandate attracted more than 4000 submissions from individuals and 61 from organisations.

“We know that there’s a balance to be struck here between ensuring that Australians can use cash to pay for essentials but we also don’t want to place unnecessary burdens on small businesses, particularly small business in the regions,” Chalmers said.

“And after that extensive consultation, we think that we’ve got the balance right.”

But the mandate, with its series of exceptions and limits, could bring Australia one tap closer to purely electronic payments, Bryce argues.

“The regulations they’re calling a cash mandate are literally going to green-light the cashless society in Australia,” he said.

“The current proposal leaves out medicine, leaves out housing, utility bills. It should apply to all the big retailers.”

Bryce insists “there’s a million legitimate reasons why everybody at some stage will need cash”.

Cashless Australia ‘inevitable’

The decline in the use of cash has put the cash distribution system under pressure, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recently revealed a proposal to allow the Australian Banking Association and other industry figures to develop plans to ensure the ongoing distribution of cash across the country, even if Armaguard, the country’s main distributor of physical currency, is disrupted or collapses.

Bryce wants government, banks, corporations and councils to share the burden of carrying, transporting and storing hard currency.

But a cashless Australia is ultimately inevitable, according to Richard Holden, Scientia Professor of Economics at University of NSW.

“I think the mandate legislation is kind of savvy politics but it’s not going to deal with the economic reality that we will be a cashless society at some point,” he said

“The question is how quickly we want that to happen, and what does the transition look like?”

Once enacted, the mandate will be reviewed after three years.