Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015, and I acknowledge the contributions which have been made by the speakers before me. I note that there is bipartisan support for the development of a debit card, and I will talk in some detail about issues which I think arise as a result of this debit card and which need to be properly understood.

My electorate, as you would know, was the subject of the intervention from the Commonwealth, and that meant imposing mandatory income management for whole slabs of the population. Indeed, for some it was very important, but for others it was an absolute insult. I think what we have to do here is understand that this particular card captures everyone. There is no way of getting out of it once you are in that category of people determined by the legislation.

What does it do? The purpose of the trial is to enable a trial of a cashless welfare card of the type recommended by the Forrest review and to determine whether reducing the amount of income support that is available for spending on alcohol, gambling and illegal drugs will reduce violence and harm in trial areas, where these measures are more effective when community bodies are involved. Of course, the government wants to encourage socially responsible behaviour. There are a number of trial areas which the House has heard about, the first one being Ceduna, with the prospect of the East Kimberley. The bill limits the number of trial areas to three, and the minister may specify an area by legislative instrument. The legislative instrument will determine which income support recipients are subject to cashless welfare arrangements in each trial area. The legislative instrument can determine a particular class of person who may not be a voluntary participant in the cashless welfare arrangements. A legislative instrument can vary the percentage of participants' payments that are restricted. The instrument can apply different percentages to trial areas and to particular classes of people within a trial area. Through a legislative instrument, the minister can authorise a community body with the major role to make case-by-case decisions about the percentage of the person's payments that is restricted. On welfare-restricted bank accounts, another legislative instrument will determine the kind of bank account the trial participant or voluntary participant must have in order to receive the restricted part of their income support payments. On the kinds of businesses blocked by those restricted debit card, there will be a further legislative instrument which will declare which types of businesses will be blocked. The instrument can do this by referring to merchant category codes or codes that identify particular businesses or point of sale terminals.

I do not think that there are many people who would argue it is not a good idea to have a debit card that people can use, but there are a number of issues that arise out of it, although I have to say that it certainly beats the BasicsCard, which was the instrument by which incomes were being managed in the Northern Territory. The BasicsCard would prevent people shopping in particular locations where particular products were sold: alcohol, tobacco and pornography. That of itself is not a bad thing, except that it meant that it was discriminatory in terms of the shopping locations. For example, at the beginning of this process you could shop at the general Woolworths store and buy, for example, running shoes or a suitcase, but you could not go around to the handbag store adjacent—which did not sell alcohol or tobacco—and buy the same suitcase or to the local sports store and buy the same shoes unless they got accepted under the BasicsCard. It took an extremely long time for the then government, the Labor government, to recognise the need to broaden the nature of the outlets that could be used for this card.

So the BasicsCard gets over that problem, and that is a good thing. But under this card, unlike income management, the trial does not allow participants to seek an exemption. So, if a person falls within a category identified as a compulsory participant, they will have their payments restricted. This happened under income management when it was broadly applied. This would inevitably mean that, regardless of your status and regardless of your history of being an employer or an employee, paying taxes, raising children and being a responsible member of the community, you will be impacted by this. You will automatically have your income debited through the debit system and have 80 per cent of your income quarantined. That is effectively what is going to happen.

I remember when the proposals were put in place for income management in the Northern Territory. I visited Ti Tree, which is a couple of hundred kilometres north of Alice Springs, and had a chat with an old chap who had worked all of his life. He had raised a family and paid taxes. He was unemployed at that particular point and was subject to income management. He was mortified. He regarded this as an insult. He had been a responsible member of the community and was well able to responsibly manage his own affairs and those of his family. He did not overindulge in alcohol and was not a gambler. Under this system this person and every person like him will be captured by this proposal, and I think that is a failing.

Additionally, there is no process for opting out. Once you are in you are caught. You can have a local committee or it can go to Centrelink and they can potentially vary the proportion of your income that is quarantined through the debit process but you cannot opt out. A very responsible person might say: 'Right, I get it. You are going to apply this to everyone, but it should not apply to me because look at what I have got. I live in a house that is well kept. I have a family who are well fed. I look after the interests of my children and my grandchildren. I do things responsibly. Why should I be subject to compulsory control of my income in the way in which you have proposed? By the way, I do have a drink from time to time just like the person who lives next door who is employed and does not have their income quarantined and is able to go to the local shop and buy a couple of takeaways, come home and act responsibly. He is not overindulging in alcohol consumption. He is being fair and reasonable to his family and his family is well looked after.' This is an issue. I believe over time we will find that the process we have put in place here will need to change.

I need to make the point here that there needs to be an independent external evaluation of this trial—not some internal mechanism. This trial needs to be externally evaluated to understand its impact upon the communities and understand its impact on alcohol consumption and gambling in those communities. Frankly, at the moment there is no proposal for that independent type of evaluation, and that is a major cause of concern.

We need a comprehensive approach alcohol and drugs. This is one element. Controlling income is important in a way to make sure that people do not misspend if they are in that category of people. If we think about this we are led to believe that all Aboriginal people encompassed by this and all people in the communities encompassed by this, Aboriginal or not, will be identified potentially as a result of this process as people who overindulge in alcohol or abuse alcohol. That is also a problem because it will stigmatise people who should not be stigmatised.

Bearing in mind the importance of addressing alcohol consumption, there has been no response from the government to the Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities: inquiry into the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communitiesreport of the committee of which I was the deputy chair. The report calls for a comprehensive response to issues to do with alcohol consumption across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across this country. It calls for tough decisions by government around a whole range of issues, including understanding the nature of poverty that exists in these communities and including understanding the need for support services in these communities.

This legislation does not provide support services. It does not provide additional resources for rehabilitation. It does not provide programs for limiting the supply of alcohol or changing the way in which alcohol is supplied and sold. The committee recommended, for example:

which was supported widely by public health advocacy organisations across this country, and—

These are key issues that are shown to work, but, for whatever reason, the government and opposition are a bit afraid to attack the whole tax dilemma because they are concerned about the impact on industry. This is not an issue to do with industry; this is an issue to do with the public health of this country and the use of alcohol and its abuse. It is important we look at this. It is important that we look at the number of alcohol outlets involved in these communities. It is important to look at banning advertising on television during sporting events. These are the sorts of recommendations in this report for which we had no response from the government. This trial of itself will not work without complementary measures and those complementary measures include consideration of the recommendations that are in this report.

It may seem trivial but for many getting access to support services through Centrelink and other agencies requires professional social workers. The government has cut those services. People are now required to ring 1800 numbers. Imagine you live in north-east Arnhem Land, East Kimberley or communities surrounding Ceduna and English is your second or third language and you are illiterate. How do you engage in getting help if at the same time you need that help the government is cutting back services in its own agencies?

These are important issues. We need to understand the social needs of communication and the cultural issues involved with communication. And there is another simple thing.

For many people in more remote communities, the problem is the basic internet. And I am now not talking about Ceduna but those communities around Ceduna or, indeed, around Kununurra who might be affected by this proposal if it gets up in Kununurra. We who live in the bush understand that often these services get interrupted. If services get interrupted, say, for a week, which happens in some cases, then it is entirely possible you will not be able to use a debit card. So you would be left without the resources that you require. And the trial does not really allow for one-off expenditures, despite what the member previously spoke about, that cannot be paid for via retail outlets: school fees, excursions and the cost of doing normal, day-to-day things.

In my view, one of the things that this trial misses out on entirely is the issue of tobacco. And given the public health issues that surround Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the importance of Closing the Gap, and I have talked about alcohol previously, one would have thought that tobacco would be a focus. The single greatest impact we could have on Aboriginal health in this country would be to bring down tobacco consumption. We make all sorts of rules in metropolitan Australia about where you can smoke and we have increased the taxation on tobacco, yet we are allowing people to purchase tobacco using these cards. That is a problem.

We need to ensure the importance of community consultation in support of the trial is genuine and comprehensive. It is always difficult and sometimes it is short-circuited, but it is important. I am pleased to be able to support the trial, and I do think this debit card is a good idea. But there is a range of ideas which have not been properly contemplated that will come back to bite us.

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