David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 is a very significant and substantial piece of legislation, and I am very pleased to be able to add my support to it in the parliament this evening. As the Prime Minister said in question time today, we are a nation with a generous social safety net that has been afforded by our wealth over the decades, and that is entirely appropriate. But it is very important that that social safety net operates in a manner which helps people address the difficulties they are facing and does not entrench, or in some cases make worse, those problems. Any mature government needs to be able to confront the very difficult issues in this area honestly, and that is what this legislation does.

It is a credit to its author, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who I think has done a tremendous job in putting this important legislation together. If something is not working, you have to be able and willing to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. You cannot just repeat the problems of the past because they are the way things are. You have to be prepared to confront difficult problems honestly, and I believe the measures contained in this legislation have the potential to be a reform in the welfare space not only in Ceduna, where the initial trial will occur, but more broadly in Australia. I believe there is also the potential for this to be a model adopted in other nations around the world.

The problem is that in many communities in Australia we have embedded social problems, most typically represented by endemic levels of alcoholism. We have cycles where families are horribly affected by that alcoholism. We have children who grow up in that environment and we have communities that are devastated by that issue. It is a problem that has gone on for decades, and it is intergenerational. There is no denying it. There is no pretending it is not the case, and it is something which now needs to be acted upon. That is what this legislation does. This legislation lies within the broader social services portfolio and the social welfare system more generally, and I do believe that it is appropriate for us to have a general social safety net. But it is so important that that system works as effectively as it can for the people of Australia and indeed for the people who receive those benefits. There is a lot of unfinished business in this area.

In the 2014-15 budget, the budget forecast final federal spending of about $420 billion, but about $55 billion of that is GST payments, which automatically go through to the states. If you take that amount out, you are left with about $365 billion of spending. Of that $365 billion of spending, $149 billion is in social security and welfare. That is 41 per cent of all federal government spending. Let me just repeat that: 41 per cent of all federal government spending. It is absolutely incumbent on us to make sure that that spending is as effective and as helpful as possible.

Social security spending increased by 80 per cent in a decade, from $83 billion to $149 billion. It is about six times what we spend on defence; it is about 35 times what we spend on immigration; it is about 150 times what we spend on the ABC; and it is about 800 times what we spend on tourism. It is an extremely large amount, and that just underscores the need to take a thoughtful, strategic, intelligent approach to this area to make sure that we are investing money wisely, that we are spending that money to help people and that we are not doing things that embed cycles of dependence and intergenerational welfare.

As you know, Deputy Speaker, this card seeks to address substantial community problems, specifically as they pertain to alcoholism and gambling. The card will, of course, be launched in Ceduna, and it will be launched with the very wide embrace of the Ceduna community. It is important just to understand the gravity of the problem of alcoholism that we see in that town. There are about 4,400 people who live in Ceduna—4,425. In 2013-14, there were 4,667 admissions to the sobering-up facility in that town, so that is more than one admission per person on average across the year. That is quite a startling statistic. Imagine if that same ratio were the case in major towns and cities. It would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands or millions of admissions to a sobering-up facility. Hospitalisations due to assault in Ceduna are 68 times the national average—68 times the national average—so something in Ceduna is going terribly wrong; let us be frank. And Ceduna is not the only place in the nation where this is the case.

To its credit, the District Council of Ceduna has been quite forward-leaning on this issue and has really reached out to the federal government and sought its involvement to address this problem. In the thoughtful submission that the District Council of Ceduna put to the Senate inquiry on this matter, it lists many, many measures that that community has put in place over the years to try to address the problem of endemic alcoholism. It talks about the implementation of dry zones in the town, an alcohol management plan, more CCTV monitoring, opening a youth centre and increasing education programs, a youth audit study, more sport and recreation programs, the development of a transitional accommodation facility to provide safe short-term accommodation for transient visitors and people affected by alcoholism, lots of education programs and lots of restrictions on the availability of alcohol. It actually says 'a series of restrictions on the availability of alcohol—too numerous to mention'. So it is very clear that the people of Ceduna, led by their district council, have really, frankly, addressed this problem and sought to do something about it.

But the statistics, the awful human statistics which I mentioned to you before, the incidence of assault and the extraordinary rate of people being admitted to the sobering-up facility, say that it is not working. It is not working. What do you do when you have an intractable problem and attempts to fix the problem are not working? You try something else. You tackle the problem honestly, and you are willing to make decisions that, on their face, might be quite difficult but are required if you really want serious reform. Again, it is to the credit of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister that he has led this process so well.

The District Council of Ceduna, in their submission, say:

Most other potential steps to improve this intractable problem have been tried or implemented.

…   …   …

The best option not yet tried for restricting the availability of drugs, gambling funds and alcohol is clearly the restriction of cash for those who are on benefits. It is clear that many sufferers of alcoholism are on welfare benefits partly because of their illness. Coupled with the steps already implemented we believe that the trial together with the appropriate support measures will help immensely.

So there is a very, very high level of community support for this program.

Let us talk about the details and make sure that we are clear on what this is and, importantly, what it is not. As my colleague mentioned earlier, this is a system that applies to people on a broad range of social security benefits in the town of Ceduna. It is of course not based on whether someone is Indigenous or their ethnicity or anything of that nature; it is simply based on whether they are receiving one of a wide range of different social benefits. How it works is relatively simple. It is a 12-month trial—an important point. Again, let us be honest about that. When you have a 12-month trial, you are doing that because you believe that this is an important step and a potential solution, but you are also honest about the fact that we always learn things by actually trying them out in the real world. As this trial takes place, I am sure that there will be many learnings that will come from it, and I know that the government will look at those learnings. As we consider where to go potentially beyond that trial, I am sure that those learnings will be incorporated into any subsequent legislation. That is why you trial things, and that is what a mature government does. So it is a 12-month trial.

Basically what occurs is that people receive a cashless debit card, much like a Visa card or a MasterCard et cetera that many of us would have.

Basically what that card allows the recipient to do is to buy at Woolworths. There are two points: firstly, 80 per cent of the benefit is provided through credit from the card, and then there is 20 per cent which is effectively cash for other services that perhaps cannot be purchased via a card—small items and so on. Within the 80 per cent that is required to be purchased via the card, there are two important prohibitions within that usage. One is alcohol and the other is gambling. We know from the appalling statistics that I quoted earlier that there is a very significant problem with alcoholism in this community. It is a very sensible measure to say that you cannot, as a social welfare recipient, use a large proportion of that payment on alcohol or gambling. That is really the nub of this legislation. Twenty per cent is unrestricted, so of course there will be people who will use that 20 per cent to have a social drink or to place a bet on a Saturday afternoon or whatever, as the case may be. But that is a very different matter to an endemic expenditure of large proportions of income on alcohol and/or gambling. This trial will stop that from occurring, and that is a very important thing.

It is also important to note that the government has had the foresight to allow some flexibility in this system. The local authority will have the power to increase the 20 per cent—which is effectively the unrestricted amount of payment—in certain circumstances. For instance, if it can be shown that an individual or family needs to access more than 20 per cent cash for a legitimate purpose that is not alcohol or gambling related, they will be able to make a submission to the local authority, who will consider those factors and potentially increase the 20 per cent should it be appropriate. So again it is a sensible measure to allow some flexibility in particular circumstances.

So it is a 12-month trial. Twenty per cent of the spending is unrestricted. Eighty per cent is unrestricted but for two things: alcohol and gambling. So, whatever the products are that people would seek to purchase, they can do so unless they are alcohol or gambling related.

Some people might say that this is restricting the freedoms of the recipient. This is saying to the recipient, 'Well, you know, there are certain things you can and can't do.' When you think about it, the structure is actually quite broad, because it says you can effectively do a very wide range of things with that 80 per cent. It is just two things that you cannot do. So it is by no means a sort of income management structure. It is not purporting to budget for people. It will undoubtedly assist some people to conduct their own budgeting process, but the government is not saying that you should spend $10 on this or $20 on this. It is just saying, 'For the 80 per cent of your income, don't spend it on alcohol and don't spend it on gambling.' It is entirely appropriate that we do that

This is a community with endemic levels of alcoholism and with a related endemic level of assault. We have to do everything we can to address these structural endemic problems in our society. That is what this legislation does. The trial will be very beneficial, and I am sure much will be learnt from it, and I very strongly commend the bill to the House.

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