This might be funny if it wasn't so serious.

Australia's biggest banks regularly suffer 'outages' when their payment systems or apps don't work.

In the last week, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ Bank and others have left their customers, and their merchants (shops), stranded without access to money.

15.9 million Australians bank with Commonwealth Bank, which has reported two serious system outages in the last week.

This is could be potentially dangerous if consumers can't get essential food, medicine or other supplies. Plus, shops lose business when their payment systems fail and people don't have cash.

And what happens when there is a flood, fire or other natural disaster that takes out electricity or local internet networks?

Japan, Sweden and other advanced economies have recently recognised the serious problems associated with going cashless.

Here in Australia, some shops are not accepting cash and some financial institutions are encouraging us to believe that cash is dying.

If shops are required to accept our legal tender, cash, our economy is stronger and people are safe from the danger of being left without access to their money by system failures.

Please share our petition so Canberra gets the message. Cash is legal tender and must be accepted everywhere to protect the vulnerable and our economy.