Gold is king: Why these Aussies are hoarding bullion

Matthew hates the banks, media, and government. He’s anti-immigration, in his early 70s and travelled to Sydney on Thursday from his Hawkesbury home to join a queue of Australians to buy gold from a bullion store on Sydney’s Martin Place.

The lines outside ABC Bullion have lengthened throughout 2025. At lunchtime on Thursday they reached 60 metres, a real-life demonstration of the gold mania that has pushed the price up 54 per cent over the past 12 months to $US4049 an ounce on Thursday afternoon.

“If you don’t buy, you’ll miss out,” said Matthew, who declined to share his last name. “In theory if the US dollar crashes like they (globalists) want, gold can go to $US100,000 an ounce in five years, absolutely it’s realistic, gold’s money, all the other stuff is just paper.”

A former tradesman and electrical engineer, he says he used to be a Labor voter who thought socialism wasn’t too bad.

“But the left has gone so far crazy now,” he complains. “And now I’m classed as a crazy far-right nazi - that’s what they call us when we’re walking on the freedom marches.”

The ABC Bullion gold queue is multicultural, young and old, with most casually dressed as throngs of smartly dressed office workers race past at lunchtime.

“I wouldn’t trust these banks as far as I could piss on them,” says Matthew who refuses to have his photo taken and regularly labels the media “all bullshit”.

“Three billion dollars a year they make on tap-and-go fees. And all these idiots walk around with their stupid mobile phones tapping and going everywhere, cos they’re too bloody lazy to carry cash. Now I just use cash and gold.”

New gold rush

The mania to buy gold has now spread from fed-up citizens like Matthew, to mums and dads, and Wall Street giants.

This week Goldman Sachs raised its price forecast for the precious metal and traditional safe-haven hedge by $US600 an ounce to $US4,900 an ounce by December 2026.

If the Wall Street titan is correct then the Australians who bought gold on Thursday will receive 14 per cent gains over the next 12 months given physical gold is currently trading at the ABC Bullion store for around $US4,040 an ounce.

Goldman Sachs cites strong central bank buying of the commodity as one factor pushing the price higher. Another factor is President Donald Trump’s tariff war and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both are raising tensions between the US and the loose alliance of nations associated with the BRICs of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Gold as money

Gold has been attractive to investors and used as money for thousands of years. Until 1971 under the Bretton Woods monetary system the value of the US dollar was pegged to gold that meant one ounce could be exchanged for $US35.

Since President Richard Nixon scrapped this system in favour of money backed by a US government guarantee, its price in paper money or US dollars has multiplied around 115 times over 54 years.

The supply is scare and requires sophisticated mining techniques. Paper money can be printed by the billion in an instant.

Gold’s rise is often used as a proxy for the declining value of paper money as governments print more of it to fund spending and offset debts.

Some remain sceptical, including Shane Oliver, the chief economist at AMP Limited. “A huge queue outside the bullion shop suggests this could be a euphoric top as people get FOMO (fear of missing out). It’s like when a taxi driver tells you to buy shares, it’s a sign things have gone too far,” warned Dr Oliver.

“It’s not a one-way bet, it had a great run in the 1970s and then collapsed, between 2011 and 2015 it slumped about 45 per cent. It’s also purely speculative as it produces no income, unlike shares or property, so you’re just relying on someone to come along and pay more for it than you.”

Cultural attraction

Another member of Thursday’s gold queue was 40-year-old Indian immigrant Ari Jadja. A married father of one, he lives in Western Sydney and works at Port Botany as a cargo handler. At his wedding 20 years ago in Amristar, Punjab, he says his father gifted gold to his wife, as is customary in Hindu ceremonies.

“So for 20 years I’ve known gold,” he says. “I’ve got $20,000 to $30,000 worth. I just think it’s a good investment, steady, safe you know, not too risky. Shares are risky, crypto is too risky, not for me. In India it’s normal for families to own, it depends how wealthy they’re, but in weddings yes Hindu and Sikh, it’s a good gift.”

Others queuing included Abdul Mohammed, an Australian-Indian security screener at Sydney Airport and Dwayne, a 30-something secondary school teacher in regional New South Wales who used the school holidays to buy gold. Both expect the price to keep rising.

Dwayne says he taught himself about it on websites like YouTube and listening to podcasts. Like almost everyone else in Sydney’s elongating daily queue he says he expects the price to keep climbing and sees no reason to change a strategy that’s boosted his wealth.