Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. This bill is legislation to enable a cashless debit card to be trialled in various locations around Australia. One of the reasons I am speaking tonight is that I have been quite heavily involved in this process. We have heard some contributions in this place over the last number of hours about this. I would just like to correct a few of the misconceptions that we have heard. I heard the member for Blair, I think, earlier on saying that he felt it was inappropriate if someone could not take their kids to the movies or pay for a school excursion or the like. That is exactly right. But this card would look just like anyone else's credit card. There would have to be some changes made. I am sure that in Ceduna they are looking at putting a card reader or an EFTPOS reader in the local schools and the like. There is nothing that you cannot do with this cashless card that anyone who carries a Visa card or MasterCard or something like that can do now, except you cannot use this card to get cash out of an ATM or to purchase alcohol or in a gambling facility. That is all that you cannot do with this card.

In the trial—certainly on the occasions that I have been involved in negotiations, and I will talk about that in a minute—possibly 20 per cent of the total welfare cheque would be in cash, which would enable people to go to the pub and have a beer or have a bet on the horses on a Saturday afternoon. It is my understanding, that, if you have a couple of people with three or four children of school age, their fortnightly cheque from Centrelink is about $1,700 or $1,800. If we allow 20 per cent cash, that is over $300 a fortnight that can be spent on alcohol and gambling. That still allows $1,400 or $1,500 attached to the card for purchasing essential services. That can be used at the supermarket, a clothing store or the service station to buy petrol. Without much change you could put that at the gate of the local footy club so you could tap your card and take your kids to the footy or whatever.

I think that is important to remember. The only way that this card will change the way you are living your life is if you are spending more than you should on alcohol and gambling. The sad reality is that, for many people who have these addictions—and probably more than alcohol; in many of my towns it is now methamphetamine, cannabis and the other mixture that is known as hillbilly heroin—if they are using all their cash on that, it is not unreasonable to have these restrictions in place.

We are a great country. If you are down on your luck and you find yourself unemployed, the rest of the country will pitch in and help you out with an allowance so that you can live your life with some dignity. If you have children and you find yourself in that situation, the rest of the community through the government chips in and gives you cash so that your children can go to school with food, be clothed and have some dignity and a chance at an education. You do not have the right to take all of that money and use it to feed an addiction to poker machines, online gambling, alcohol or illicit drugs. If we are talking about the rights of people, the rights of the people that should be of primary interest to us are those of the children—the children who are not old enough to make that decision, who find themselves in a home where the money that is intended to go for their welfare is used for other things.

I want to speak about Moree because Moree is a town in my electorate. I will say here tonight that, in discussions with Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge, the member for Aston, I thought Moree would be a good town for this trial. It was not because I thought Moree was a downtrodden community. It was not because I thought Moree was not a community with spirit and heart. That was the reason I thought Moree would be a good choice. The other reason was that the recipients of welfare in Moree are about fifty-fifty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. The population is about 25 per cent Aboriginal and 75 per cent non-Aboriginal, but the welfare recipients are about fifty-fifty. I do not believe that we should have a welfare measure that just identifies and targets Aboriginal people on their own. The previous speaker spoke about this as if this were a card just for Aboriginal people, and maybe that was an oversight. This is a welfare card for those people who are on welfare.

I went to Moree with Parliamentary Secretary Tudge, and we had some discussions with community leaders, with some elders in the community and with some service providers and asked permission to do some investigations as to whether the community of Moree would be interested in hosting this trial. Initially we got a very positive response and, as a result of that, Parliamentary Secretary Tudge tasked the local officers from Prime Minister and cabinet to do further community consultation. As can sometimes happen in a country town, the rumour mill ran riot. A lot of misinformation was spread around: a lot of thought that this was targeting the Aboriginal community and a lot of thought that this was a racist action. What was also interesting and probably telling was that there was quite strong lobbying from the owners of the hotels in the town. To me, that was clearly an indication of why it would have been good to do a trial there. But right from the start we said that we would not impose this card on a community that did not want to be part of the trial. As a result of the groundswell of concern about this card, we decided to withdraw Moree from that trial. I think that is a lost opportunity and I feel that, in the eight years that I have represented these communities—I believe that, after Lingiari in the Northern Territory, I represent more Aboriginal people in this place than anyone else. It is a job that I take very seriously, and I have a lot of pride in that job.

I have a lot of western towns that have issues with welfare with non-Indigenous and Indigenous people. So I think it is a lost opportunity, but I can say that, when I was in Ceduna some months ago and was part of the Indigenous affairs committee of this parliament, meeting with community elders, the local council and service providers in Ceduna, I was very impressed with the resolve of that community. I cannot remember the names of these people that I met, but community members, members of the working party and identified leaders in that area were very resolute in doing something to help their community. I was absolutely horrified on driving around the edge of Ceduna. The issue there is that there are dry communities away from Ceduna, out in the more remote areas, and many of the people from those areas come to Ceduna to drink.

I witnessed people lying out, sleeping rough in the grass. It was winter time; it was showery and miserable weather, and citizens of Australia in 2015 were sleeping on the ground—not a tarpaulin and not a bit of cover. They were lying on the grass, exposed. The sobering-up facilities in that town are full to capacity every night, and others have to take their chances elsewhere. So there is a great need. Substance abuse and gambling are a huge scourge in these more remote towns.

In my part of the world, methamphetamine is causing a great amount of havoc. But on a positive note, in a couple of weeks I have been asked to represent the minister and officially open the rehabilitation centre in Moree, that the federal government has funded through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It has been staffed, and has a capacity of 18 people—14 men and four women. At the moment I think we have four clients, but as that facility gets up to speed it will provide a great service.

One of the things with people who are battling addiction is that when they make that decision to seek help, to step off the treadmill they have found themselves on, it is vitally important that we have facilities and professional people that can be there on the spot to help them. We have to do more. There is a glaring gap in detoxification facilities. At the moment in my area, many people, if they have to go to detoxification, have to go to Lismore from the north of the state or to Orange if they are west of the Central West. We need to do more, and I know my state colleague, the member for Dubbo, Deputy Premier of New South Wales, Troy Grant, has made some announcements in this space, and we will see where that goes.

I do support this trial. I do recognise that it is a trial and I do welcome scrutiny that may follow this trial. But I will say this: if this trial has positive results I believe we need to have the courage and conviction to roll this out across other communities, to allow people to live their lives with dignity and to allow children to be protected from living in a house where the entire income is spent on alcohol, gambling and illicit substances. We can do something positive. People say to me, 'You've got to help our communities. You've got to help these children that are victims of drugs and alcohol and gambling.' When the time comes and someone offers a suggestion we need to make sure that we as step up a community. It cannot just be the government and it cannot just be the police; it has to be everyone at all levels of government and community. When the time comes we need people to step up and to do what is the right thing. I strongly support this legislation.

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