Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. This bill will amend the social security law to enable a trial phase of new welfare arrangements. This is in response to the 'healthy welfare card' recommendation from Mr Andrew Forrest's review of Indigenous jobs and training.

The intent of the trial is to test whether significantly reducing access to discriminatory cash can reduce the habitual abuse and associated harm from alcohol, gambling and illegal drugs by placing a large proportion of a person's welfare payment into a restricted bank account.

The bill will also enable a community body to be involved in determining welfare arrangements within a trial location. The bill enables the trial to be conducted in up to three locations, for up to 10,000 people. The locations for the trial are to be selected on the basis of high levels of welfare dependence and where gambling, alcohol and/or drug abuse are causing unacceptable levels of harm within the community. Within the trial locations 80 per cent of payments received by people on a working-age welfare payment will be placed in a restricted bank account. The remaining 20 per cent of payments will be available for use at the person's discretion. A trial participant will not be able to use the debit card linked to the restricted account to access cash or purchase gambling products and services, alcohol or illegal drugs.

Trial participants will include people in receipt of Newstart allowance, parenting payment, disability support pension and carer payment. The new debit card arrangements are very different from income management. Unlike income management, participants on the new debit card will not receive assistance from Centrelink workers to assist in budgeting or to ensure that income support payments are directed at life's essentials, such as rent, food and clothing.

The new debit card will only ensure that the majority of income support payments cannot be spent on alcohol and gambling products. As such, this card should not be seen as a panacea for all the problems in these communities. It must come accompanied by appropriated wrap-around support services if it is to be successful in tackling complex, multidimensional and intergenerational social problems. I will return to these issues in a moment.

But before I do I want to make it very clear that Labor does support the quarantining of income support payments to ensure that money is spent in the best interests of children and families, and the most vulnerable people in the community. It means that more money will go to providing food, clothes, rent and that less money will go to alcohol and gambling. Labor also believes that quarantining of income support payments can be a useful tool to help stabilise people's circumstances and ease immediate financial stress.

In government Labor did make a number of reforms to income management to ensure it was more targeted and to bring its benefits to more vulnerable people across Australia. In 2008, in Perth and in the east and west Kimberley, Labor trialled child protection income management, making income management available to child protection workers, to help assist families at risk of child abuse and neglect. In 2010, following widespread consultation, the Labor government introduced a new, non-discriminatory model of income management in the Northern Territory. In 2012 Labor introduced income management in five disadvantaged locations across Australia as part of its Building Australia's Future Workforce reforms: Playford, in South Australia; Greater Shepparton in Victoria; Bankstown in New South Wales; and Rockhampton and Logan in Queensland.

Following calls for income management and, after consultation with families, the Labor government agreed to implement income management in the APY Lands in South Australia, to help families on the lands ensure that less money was spent on alcohol and gambling and that more money was available for food, clothing and other life essentials.

In 2013 Labor introduced income management in the Laverton and NPY Lands in Western Australia. Labor also worked closely with the Northern Territory government to provide income management to help deal with people who came before the Northern Territory Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal, making less money available to spend on alcohol. And now, right across Australia, it is possible for child protection workers to use income management as a tool to support families where their children are at risk of neglect.

Labor does believe that income management can be effective but should be targeted at those who will benefit. We do not believe that everyone on income support should be subject to or would benefit from income quarantining. We do note that the majority of people in receipt of income support payments can manage their money carefully and do not spend it excessively on alcohol or gambling. They use it, like all Australians, to help them live a decent life and provide a decent life for their children.

We work very hard in the Northern Territory to take income management from a blanket discriminatory program, put in place by the Howard government, to a tailored program applying it to at-risk and vulnerable income-support recipients. We want to support people with a high risk of social isolation, poor money management skills and those likely to participate in risky behaviours.

Labor continue to believe that income quarantining should be targeted towards vulnerable people.

However, we will also support community driven initiatives to tackle local issues and deliver long-term positive change—because we do understand just how serious alcohol abuse can be, and is, in some locations across our country. We know that tackling alcohol and drug abuse is critical to building safer, stronger communities. We have a proud history of supporting those communities to develop and drive their own solutions to community specific problems.

In government, Labor created the Breaking the Cycle initiative aimed at assisting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to work with government and non-government organisations to develop and implement alcohol and other drug management plans. Through community led solutions, the Breaking the Cycle initiative helped address the harm caused by substance abuse. Over $20 million was provided to work with the communities of Bourke and Brewarrina in the Murdi Paaki region, Condobolin in New South Wales, Doomadgee and Mornington Island in Queensland, Ceduna and surrounds in South Australia, and Laverton and the surrounding Goldfields region in Western Australia.

Funding was provided to support prevention activities in health education for young people, linking these people with support services; to provide assistance to pregnant women and new mothers; and to work with local businesses about alcohol supply issues. We worked with local service providers to improve the delivery of support services such as education and skills training, prevention programs, referral services and harm minimisation measures. We also supported the Cape York Welfare Reform trials in Far North Queensland, increasing funding for a program aimed at rebuilding social norms in Cape York communities by linking the receipt of welfare payments to the fulfilment of socially responsible behaviours and providing a range of support services. In 29 remote locations across Australia, Labor worked in partnership with communities and state governments to deliver a place based approach to service design and delivery as part of our remote service delivery national partnership agreement. This included harm prevention strategies to tackle community alcohol and gambling abuse.

Labor also provided unprecedented funding to the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory package, which included support for early education, parenting and community safety programs. Stronger Futures also facilitated the development of local alcohol management plans—comprehensive road maps to help communities tackle alcohol abuse and the problems it causes. These were community driven solutions to the issues of alcohol and drug abuse. They were examples of governments getting behind local communities to help them tackle the issues that matter to them in a way that was tailored to those individual communities. We did this because we believe that communities are in the best position to determine local solutions to bring about real and lasting change. We remain committed to working alongside individuals, groups and communities to make sure that they have the skills and supports to bring about positive local change. Consistent with Labor's history, we will take this approach to the proposed debit card trials.

I do know how alcohol abuse is wreaking harm on the community of Ceduna. Labor acknowledges the memorandum of understanding with the Australian government to trial the debit card arrangements that was signed by representatives of the Ceduna community and the surrounding communities. This MOU is a clear sign that community leaders in Ceduna and surrounds want and need to do more to tackle the harmful effects of alcohol abuse. I have spoken recently with signatories to the MOU and they told me very clearly that it is 'destroying their community'. They understand and have made it very plain to me that something more needs to be done.

Labor have of course supported Ceduna—it was one of the Breaking the Cycle communities—in its efforts to curb alcohol abuse and we provided additional supports and services. We committed significant funding to support Ceduna's alcohol management planning and community driven efforts. This included funding to refurbish and increase the capacity of local sobering-up centres; to employ additional youth workers in a bid to divert them from drugs and alcohol; to local Aboriginal community corporations for their healthy living hubs; for the employment of community engagement officers; for service coordination; to improve night patrols, especially for rough sleepers; and for local community awareness and education. We also introduced voluntary and targeted income management following extensive consultation in those communities. So we did a lot to help the community of Ceduna and the surrounding Aboriginal communities.

Despite these efforts, we know—and the community leaders have made it very clear to me—that alcohol abuse is continuing to devastate the lives of too many people and their families. I know the community is desperate. We cannot now turn our back on what they are telling us. We cannot tell them that they are on their own. Rather, all of us need to listen to their calls for help and do what we can to support them, to make sure that the change they so desperately need and want is delivered.

Addressing alcohol abuse and community dysfunction in places like Ceduna does require a comprehensive approach to reducing harm, to dealing with the supply of alcohol and drugs, and to working with the community to find local solutions. That is why Labor's efforts so far have been all about supporting communities to tackle alcohol abuse and about making sure we have a comprehensive range of responses and support services. We also know how very vulnerable people and families need much more assistance than the quarantining of income support payments.

It is why, in the past, we have provided financial-literacy support to people on income management. It is why we have strengthened the relationship between money-management services and Centrelink; to make sure that people receive help to build their financial literacy, including budgeting, banking, savings and an awareness of the risks of payday loans. It is why we provided additional family-support services in regions where income management applied and in other disadvantaged locations. We made sure that people on income management met regularly with Centrelink social workers to help them budget, to make sure that their priority needs were met and to address other issues in their lives impacting on their wellbeing. I am very strongly of the view that these services must form part of a comprehensive package to support individuals and the communities where the debit card is being introduced. New income-quarantining arrangements will not achieve change on their own.

Labor is firm in its commitment to help communities tackle alcohol and drug abuse and the harm it causes. We are unwavering in our commitment to protect and provide for children and for vulnerable people, and our commitment continues today. Of course, in principle we will not oppose this trial where there is very clear community support. However, Labor is concerned that the proposed trial is still lacking in details and requires further work to be done. Today we cannot see from this legislation exactly how it is going to operate in practice. We cannot see exactly what additional supports and services will be provided to truly address the problems of alcohol and drug abuse. Labor pushed for a Senate inquiry into the bill so the people who will be effected would have an opportunity to have a proper say and to understand, fully, how the trial will operate.

We are still concerned that representatives from the Department of Social Services have been, so far, unable to provide the detail needed to understand what the trial will look like in practice. The parliamentary secretary has not been able to provide any further clarity about the details of who will actually provide the card and where participants will get assistance—these matters are still unknown. The possible operation of a community panel in determining the amount of quarantined payments for certain participants is not settled. There is no commitment to the necessary additional support services. There has been no mention of increased rehabilitation services, no mention of financial-literacy support services, no mention of support for young people, no formal agreement with the state government on their involvement and no details on a robust evaluation that will help affected communities, participants, service providers and governments determine the trial's effectiveness and what the future steps should be. I do know that communities want this too.

I have heard, very clearly from people in Ceduna, that strong action is needed and that part of this action must include additional supports, not just a debit card. We will stand with the people of Ceduna and the surrounding communities, and stand with those other parts of Australia who are talking to the government about a possible trial of a new debit card. We will stand with those communities to make sure that they get the supports they need and to make sure that the government delivers in a comprehensive way.

Labor will not oppose this bill in the House. This is to make sure that negotiation with communities can continue and to allow for the details of the operation of the new card to be determined. However, before Labor supports the bill in the Senate, we expect the government to make clear the package of supports that will accompany the introduction of the card. Labor expects to see a comprehensive and funded package, tailored to local circumstances, for each location that is participating in the trial. We expect to see the detail on how the trial will operate, in practice, including how local communities may be involved, and we expect to see a commitment to a proper evaluation. Labor expects this information to be made public so that participating communities have the information and financial commitment to these services that they need. Labor will always work with communities to support those locally driven initiatives to tackle alcohol and drug abuse and work with those communities to make sure the government is held accountable.

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