Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to sum up on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. I thank all of the speakers who have spoken on this particular bill, both the Labor members and the coalition members for their very thoughtful contributions. I thank also the Labor Party for constructively engaging with the government over the development of this bill over the course of the last few months and I am pleased to have their support in this House for it.

I think this piece of legislation could be a watershed bill in how we distribute welfare in this country. The bill enables a trial to occur in several locations in Australia whereby instead of delivering cash into a welfare recipient's account, 80 per cent of their welfare dollars will be placed into an account which is only accessible by an ordinary bank debit card—a Visa debit card or a MasterCard debit card. This card will be able to be used anywhere to purchase anything but it simply will not work at the bottle shop and it will not work at the gambling houses. And because your cash is limited, it means you will not be able to purchase illicit drugs in that process.

The legislation enables this to be trialled for 12 months. It enables it to be trialled in three locations covering up to 10,000 people. The people in the trial site covered will be any person whose income support is predominantly a Centrelink payment so it includes people on Newstart, on the disability support pension and on carers' payments among others. An additional feature of this trial bill will be that it will enable the government to establish a local panel in each of the trial sites and that panel will have real statutory power to make adjustments to people's cards should they choose to make an application.

I said that this would be trialled in up to three locations covering at most 10,000 people. We have already announced that the first trial site will be in the Ceduna region on the west coast of South Australia. It covers five or six smaller communities including the township of Ceduna. Over the last few months, I, along with government officials, have been negotiating with the community leaders on the ground there about what a trial might look like. How would be constituted? What will be the time frame? What would be the attributes of this trial? It was absolutely a codesigned process with those community leaders in Ceduna to come up with what is now a very precise trial for that community starting in February of next year.

I would like to commend the community leaders on the ground there in Ceduna for, I suppose, having the courage to step up to work so cooperatively with the government over the course of this process and design what will be a very effective trial starting next year. We hope collectively, the community leaders and the government, that this will have a demonstrable impact on the welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse, which, unfortunately, is rife in that community. If I can perhaps quote some of the aspirations from some of the community leaders in Ceduna in what they see that might come about from this. I will start with Mima Smart, who is a local elder in the Yalata Aboriginal community. She says that:

There are a lot of people who have died and a lot of people ending up in hospital because their life was destroyed by alcohol. Instead of being in Ceduna drinking, people will now go home to be with their families and teach them culture.

I look at the statement which the community heads group put out when we announced that Ceduna would be a trial location. In this they say:

As local leaders we want to champion the cause for the betterment of our people, and we believe this will benefit the region as a whole.

They say that:

At the heart of this reform, is a change that is being shaped specifically to meet our local needs. It has been a true collaboration to ensure that we can give our mob and our Communities every chance to create real and genuine change in their lives.

Finally, they say:

…it is our belief, today's decision is a landmark decision considering that we are the first trial site amongst a possible 3 Australia wide. We have grasped this initiative; we have helped shape this initiative; and we are confident that this initiative is for the betterment of all people within our region.

That was the statement put out by the community heads group in the Ceduna region, which consists of the leaders of each of the six communities which will be affected.

I also commend Allan Suter, the Mayor of Ceduna, who I think has also shown very strong leadership in his community, working cooperatively with the Indigenous leaders in the area. The work that they have done is also to be commended. We are also in advanced discussions in the East Kimberley region. My hope is that we will be able to announce all or some of the East Kimberley as the second trial site in the not too distant future.

Ian Trust and his leadership group have perhaps been the most vocal leaders in the country calling for the introduction of this card. Ian Trust, for those who do not know, is a very substantial Indigenous leader in the East Kimberley, and I consider him one of the most substantial Indigenous leaders in the nation today. He has been leading a reform effort, and in his view that reform effort should include the introduction of this card. We are listening to him, we are working very closely with him and his leadership group, as well as consulting more broadly. I will perhaps read a couple of quotes from him, Desmond Hill and Ted Hall—three very key leaders in the East Kimberley region, particularly based in Kununurra. They write:

We acknowledge that agreeing to the East Kimberley being a trial site for the restricted debit card may seem to some a rather drastic step. However, it is our view that continuing to deliver the same programs we have delivered for the past forty years will do nothing for our people and, besides wasting more time and money, will condemn our children and future generations to a life of poverty and despair. As leaders in the East Kimberley, we cannot accept this.

They have come out very positively towards working with us as well. As I said, we have some more work to do but we are hopeful that we can announce all or some of the East Kimberley as our second trial site.

Let me address a few of the critiques which the Labor Party raised in some of their contributions. I said at the get-go that I appreciated their support for this bill. I appreciate the constructive way that they have engaged with me over the last few months as we were developing up this trial. There were really four things which were raised, particularly by the shadow ministers Shayne Neumann and Jenny Macklin. The first was that they stated the legislation allows the trial to go for two years, whereas we have always said the trial will just go for one. I can reassure the members opposite that the trial will last just 12 months unless of course there is a demonstrable improvement and there is a desire for the trial to continue beyond that. The firm intent is that this is a 12-month trial in each particular location.

The second critique, and this is perhaps their most substantial one, was that there are no additional supports to accompany the introduction of the debit card in the trial locations. I would like to point out to those members who raised that point that there will be additional supports. We are working on those additional supports as we speak. Those additional supports will particularly include financial management and financial counselling. They will include additional drug and alcohol counselling or assistance to help people get off that addiction and they will include some mental health assistance as well. Again, we are negotiating with the local community leaders as to what makes sense in those communities to complement the introduction of the card. I am hopeful that when the opposition see those supports being put in place that they will also agree that those supports will make a difference and are indeed a good complement to the card.

The third critique was that there was no detail in terms of the evaluation. We are working on that at the moment. I can assure the opposition that there will be a detailed evaluation process which will be undertaken. It will be an independent evaluation, and by and large we will be tracking the main harm indicators in the community as well as taking some qualitative assessments.

Finally, their critique was that there is no detail on the operation of the card. With respect, we are still working through that with the financial services provider that we are contracting with to deliver the card. I can assure the opposition that we are taking this very seriously and it will not be that dissimilar to how the BasicsCard was rolled out under Jenny Macklin's leadership several years ago.

I conclude my summation of this bill by mentioning a few thank yous. Firstly, I thank Andrew Forrest as he was the one who initially proposed this idea to us in his Creating parity report. It is a very good report, and the introduction of a cashless debit card was indeed the centrepiece recommendation. We have not adopted exactly what he recommended. He recommended that 100 per cent of payments be placed onto the card. We have settled on 80 per cent, in part because that is what was agreed with community leaders on the ground. I thank him for putting this idea to us, for the work that he did and for the overall work which he does for Aboriginal people across the country.

Secondly, I thank the community leaders on the ground, particularly in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. In the East Kimberley I mentioned three names—Ian Trust, Desmond Hill and Ted Hall—particularly, but they lead a broader group of leaders. They have been very strong and have engaged with us very cooperatively. In the Ceduna region there are a number of leaders who have come together and helped co-design this trial. I thank them for their leadership, particularly Corey McLennan and Michael Haynes. I also thank the government officials who have worked on this and have worked quite tirelessly over the last few months. I know they will continue to work tirelessly over the next few months and during the implementation. In particular, I thank Ros Baxter, Kai Cantwell and Carolyn Edwards as well as Marnie Wettenhall on the ground in Ceduna.

Finally, I thank my colleagues. I particularly thank Wyatt Roy and Andrew Southcott for leading their two respective coalition committees that have been deeply engaged in this process, in terms of designing this quite radical trial in some respects. I thank them for their work. Our hope is that this trial will be successful, that it will have a demonstrable impact on the very significant harm that is caused by welfare fuelled alcohol and drug and gambling abuse. It is sometimes tragic what we see on the ground. It is tragic that the damage caused is often funded and paid for by the welfare dollar.

We hope that this card and overall package will enable those communities to become healthier, to reduce that welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse and, in the process, that women and children can be safer, the community can be safer and more people, overall, can lead better and healthier lives. Thank you, again, for the contributions from all members of this parliament, and I commend the bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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