Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Canberra for her eloquent speech on the Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill 2007 and her advocacy for Labor’s concerns on the issue of this card. It is not my intention to canvass all of the arguments that have been broached by others. However, it should be very clear that, while Labor support the use of smartcard technology and we support innovations that improve the use and storage of personal, medical and social security information, we cannot, as others have said, support the legislation in its current form. That is why we would encourage this House to support the amendment which has been moved by the shadow minister, the honourable member for Sydney. It is clear, as the shadow minister’s amendment points out, that this bill lacks adequate safeguards to protect the accuracy and privacy of information on the card and in the register. There is a very clear and obvious concern that, because of the nature of this legislation, it has the real potential to undermine the civil liberties of many Australians.

In addition, the government continues to keep secret key information about the cost of the card. It refuses to release the cost-benefit analysis. What we do know is that it is costing us almost $1.2 billion over a period of four years. There is no guarantee that the document verification service will be fully operational, and with appropriate safeguards in place, by the commencement date proposed. That is of huge concern to us. There is clearly real concern that the money for the card will come from other areas of the Centrelink and Medicare budgets, meaning potential cuts to existing programs and services.

But most particularly from my perspective the legislation and the approach to this card perpetuate the government’s history of disengagement from, or inability to understand or address, the needs of those in our community most disadvantaged and most marginalised—particularly those Australians who live in regional and remote parts of this great country. It is that aspect that I want to concentrate on. The government has proven itself to be singularly inept in addressing the ability of those who live in regional and remote areas of this great country to access to even the most fundamental and basic services.

One key problem for the bill, in terms of its acceptance by me at least, is the requirement for identity documents. The explanatory memorandum of the bill recognises:

Of course, there will be cases where some individuals (e.g. individuals living in remote Australia, homeless persons, or people at risk) may not be able to provide the types of documents required to process their application.

It goes on to propose:

Because the registration process is intended to be a robust and comprehensive process with substantially improved proof of identity arrangements, applicants wishing to be registered will need to provide documents or information relating to their identity.

We need to observe that the government argues that the card is voluntary. So it is a matter of choice, or at least that is what we are led to believe. But of course that is not the case. The government argues that no-one will be forced to get one or to carry one. But we know that you will need to have one of these cards to get access to Medicare, medicines covered by the PBS, social security payments, veterans’ entitlements and indeed all government benefits and services. Australians who refuse to apply for one of these cards will not get access to any of these services. That makes it very clear that it may be a matter of choice for the wealthy, for those who have very deep pockets, but for those who are marginalised, sick, perhaps unemployed or otherwise reliant on benefits from government, it will absolutely be compulsory. From my perspective, that highlights a very significant issue, because large numbers of people who live in my electorate of Lingiari so qualify.

I will go back to the proof of identity requirements. We now know it will be compulsory—even though the government leads us to believe it is not, it clearly is—if you need to access government services. Instead of resolving the dilemma about the proof of identity arrangements that could ultimately result in many people in remote parts of this country not getting a card at all, the government’s solution is apparently to provide:

... the Secretary to specify an alternative process to deal with such special or exceptional circumstances.

That seems to me to be hardly good enough. We need to understand very clearly what the intention is here in terms of providing a capacity for those people who require proof of identity and live in remote and rural Australia in circumstances where they cannot get access to the sort of documentation which the government may require.

Let us take the example of birth certificates. I would dare to say that everyone in this parliament and every family member of a member of parliament could access a birth certificate in one way or another. But I do not know that this parliament or the people within it properly understand that for many Australians, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander Australians, there never was a birth certificate and, if there was one, it cannot be found. If you ask many, especially older, Aboriginal people who live in regional and remote Australia if they know their date of birth, they say they simply have no idea. I wonder how they are supposed to prove their identity if they cannot produce the most fundamental of the certificates that we would see as an identity document in this country—a birth certificate.

We know that to register for the card you may be required to meet the 100-point proof of identification. Families may be required to produce evidence of occupancy and residence for up to a 10-year period. It should not surprise—although I suspect it does—the government and the people advocating this card that many people who live in my electorate would certainly not get the 100 points and, most particularly, if you asked them to provide documentary proof of their occupancy or residence of a particular house or community, would find it very difficult indeed.

I am certainly not satisfied that allowing the secretary to specify an alternative process to deal with such circumstances will in any way resolve the situation. What we are facing here is not a system which intends to streamline and modernise Australia’s delivery of health and social service benefits. What we confront here is a distinct possibility that, because of the reasons I mention, there will be many people who will find they cannot access those services because they cannot get access to the card, simply because of who they are and where they live.

I am certainly not satisfied with the explanations the government has given thus far about how they might address that very difficult set of circumstances. I am also wondering how it is proposed that people who live in the many scattered rural communities of my electorate and in other parts of Northern Australia—in particular, the north-west of Western Australia, western Queensland, the top end of South Australia and all of the Northern Territory—who live in small communities of 50 or 100 people will register for the card. You would think the government would understand that the Centrelink network is very deficient. How is it that these people will register?

It is worth making the observation that remote Australia makes up around 78 per cent of Australia’s landmass. I can understand how the government might argue that this registration process will be easily done in a city like Sydney or Melbourne, or even Darwin—not for all, though, but largely. But I am certainly not satisfied with the explanations we have received thus far that the solutions the government is offering in this bill will go anywhere towards meeting the concerns and needs of the people I have been referring to.

The government’s documents say that they will be required to register people around the country in remote and regional areas and will need varying equipment such as mobile registration units to manage the registration process. So, then, even if residents of the bush in the areas I have been talking about have access to the documents that the government require, many will still be required to travel some distance, one assumes, to gain access, make an application and register for a card. I am not sure whether the difficulties involved in providing these services in the bush have crossed the minds of the people who are behind this.

For six months of the year many communities are totally isolated and roads are impassable. I was at a community recently in Central Australia, where not only were all the roads impassable but the airstrip—because it is a dirt airstrip—was out as well, for some period of time. Again, I can understand how, if you live on the North Shore of Sydney, you would say this is pretty good—pretty bloody easy. But if you live, let us say, on the Nicholson River, on the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria—most people in this chamber will not have heard of that, Mr Deputy Speaker Kerr, though I am sure you will have—how is it proposed that the people in your community will be registered for the card? How is it proposed that communities like that, which are spread right across the north of Australia, will get access to the documents they require for the identity test and to be registered?

I am sure that there are very well-meaning people beavering away in the bowels of the Public Service trying to find solutions to these problems. But I have to say that without seeing the solutions in this parliament I am not prepared to support this proposal. I am not here to buy a pig in a poke; the people I represent in this place would abuse me if I did, and well they might. We have, as the member for Canberra rightly pointed out, a responsibility in this place to represent the interests of all Australians, and we need to be able to have a dialogue across the chamber to ensure that we get the best possible outcome for all Australians. But I do not believe, as the member for Canberra said, that the proposal before us is going to provide the best possible outcome for all Australians. It is clear to me that many people will miss out, and when they get crook or require access to benefits they will find that they hit a brick wall.

I was going to talk at some length about the appalling failure of the government as evidence of not only the difficulties they confront but, most importantly, the way they have absolved themselves of any real responsibility to address the needs of people who live in rural and remote Australia. This is also about the way they have dealt with rural health. It is this sort of issue that really gets at you.

This is a government that says it is trying to help improve delivery of services and that, somehow, having access to this card will do that. We know that there has been a rural health funding drought in the bush. A report entitled Rural, regional and remote health, on a 2005 study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, found that death rates increased with remoteness and were 10 per cent higher in regional and remote areas when compared with major cities. The report found that death rates were 50 per cent higher in very remote areas and annually there were 2,414 more deaths of non-Indigenous people outside major cities than expected if death rates for non-Indigenous people from major cities had applied for those areas. That should give you some cause to think, I would have thought, about the needs of people who live in the bush. Apparently this government is either oblivious to or has chosen to ignore those needs, despite the crowing we hear from cockies corner here about the importance of regional Australia to the National Party. We have failed these people miserably. We know that the Senate estimates hearings of 30 October 2006 revealed that the government has failed to spend 90 per cent of a $15 million election promise to improve rural health.

What I am trying to highlight here are the concerns of the people in the bush about getting a proper deal from this government. What I am saying here is that the process designed around this card does not think of them; it does not take their particular needs into account. Never mind, as we all know, the arguments about young people who are under 18; here is another story. Imagine young kids in the bush under 18. How do they get access to a card—even when the government changes and admits it has made a mistake and seeks to fix the problem, at least insofar as the generality of children under 18 is concerned? I implore the House to support the amendment moved by the opposition.

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