Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. We recognise that alcohol abuse is a significant problem in many Australian communities, including some Indigenous communities. We have seen the harm that this abuse inflicts on those communities, particularly on the most vulnerable—women and children. The problems are complex and the solutions are not simple. If they were, we would have resolved them by now.

Breaking the cycle of alcohol abuse in any community, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, requires a range of targeted responses and support. Additional support services are always needed and, crucially, these responses and support services have to be implemented in close consultation with local communities. One size does not fit all. Communities must be listened to and their concerns must be heard. One of the responses that we undertook when we were in government was on income management.

The bill before the chamber is the government's response to the recommendations of the Forrest review for a healthy welfare card. When Mr Forrest published his report he suggested placing 2.4 million Australians on an income management card without any trigger point. In response, I said in numerous interviews that there was some quiet dignity in someone having some cash to take their family out for a meal, to pay for school excursions or to buy Christmas and birthday presents. None of this was contemplated in that review.

The government have extended what they call a trial of 'cashless welfare arrangements' to up to 10,000 people in three locations, instead of to 2.4 million Australians. The government said the locations would 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', and where there is a level of community support.

The government has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ceduna community. That was done on 4 August this year. I note from my observation of the memorandum that has been signed that it has the support of the local council, the Ceduna Aboriginal Corporation, the Ceduna Aboriginal health service, other traditional elders in the area and traditional owners in the area as well. From my visit to Ceduna, which took place on 5 May this year, and from follow-up conversations I have had by telephone with people I have met in the Ceduna community, I—along with the shadow minister, the member for Jagajaga—have come to the conclusion that the Ceduna community and others are in support of this change, or this reform, as the Abbott government proposes.

It is proposed to commence a trial of these cashless welfare arrangements next year as provided in this legislation. What it proposes is that people who will participate in this trial are those living in, for example, the Ceduna area who receive payments from Centrelink like Newstart, the disability support pension, parenting payments or carers payments. Those people in aged care can take part voluntarily if they wish. The trial will not change the amount of money a person receives from Centrelink; it will only change the way in which that person can spend it. Eighty per cent of fortnightly payments will be paid onto the card; 20 per cent will be paid into a person's regular bank account. I have no doubt from my investigations that in the local Ceduna community there is support because of the terrible scourge of alcoholism and the problems that gambling and drug abuse are also causing in that local community.

The trial is due to start in 2016, but it is actually a lot longer than 12 months, as the government's propaganda points out. I think it is due to expire in about July 2018, so it is a lot longer than the one year that was proposed. But it is going to cover not just Ceduna but the Yalata and Oak Valley communities and those communities in and around the Ceduna area.

Participants will receive this so-called cashless debit card, and it will be delivered by an organisation that provides, we think, the current income management BasicsCard. The debit card can be used to purchase household necessities but not gambling or alcohol products. The government has said that the goal of the trial is to ensure that the card works seamlessly at existing retailers in much the same way as any other bank card, the only difference being that, as I said before, the customer is prevented from purchasing alcohol or gambling products. One of the things that are absolutely critical in this process is that under the trial a community panel will be established to work with participants who request that less of their payments be quarantined.

We on this side would be happier if there were a trigger mechanism for people to get onto this card rather than it covering absolutely everyone. We relied on a range of triggers to identify income management participants, and we did not take a blanket approach when we were in government. We relied on information from child protection authorities. We considered young people at risk or the length of time that a person had been unemployed. We permitted people who met certain criteria to apply to Centrelink for an exemption. None of this seems to have been contemplated by the government, and none of this seems to have been provided for in the legislation, which I have read. The debit card trial contemplates no such triggers or exemptions. Every person on working-age payments living in the trial location will receive a debit card for the length of the trial. That is what causes us some concern in relation to it.

It is different from income management, as I have said. This debit card will quarantine 80 per cent of the working-age payments and includes no requirement for the funds to be directed to life essentials, which is what income management does provide. So that money can be dealt with in any way, shape or form but not for gambling and not for alcohol. Income management participants are prevented from spending quarantined funds on alcohol, gambling, tobacco or pornographic products, as I say, whereas this debit card trial restricts the spending only on alcohol and gambling products. In this way it is different. As I say, we targeted income management to vulnerable people identified by particular triggers, and that is why we were so concerned about this particular aspect of what the government is doing.

We need additional supports in this area. We recognise that the government has identified that there are real problems in the area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. That is why the government requested the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs to undertake an inquiry, which the Indigenous affairs committee reported on. It handed down that report in June 2015. The report is titled Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities. It is a bipartisan report. The committee was chaired by the member for Murray, and the deputy chair was the member for Lingiari. It dealt with the changes and the challenges that Indigenous communities around the country were facing. We travelled widely and, hopefully, wisely around the country as we talked to Indigenous communities from Groote Eylandt to Coober Pedy to Ceduna and elsewhere, including taking evidence in capital cities—because, of course, many Indigenous people live in the urban areas as well. It is a challenge not just for remote and regional communities but also for urban areas. The government requested that we do this. We handed down a bipartisan report, and I commend it to those people who might be listening to this speech. Those recommendations, I think, form the basis of a very good response to the challenges that Indigenous communities face with respect to alcohol, poverty, drug abuse and the like.

The concerns we have about the 'healthy welfare' card, or the debit card, as it is called, are that there does not seem to have been any additional support provided by the Abbott government—now the Turnbull government, as they might like to be called—to these local communities. I know the South Australian government, for Ceduna, and the Western Australian government, for the East Kimberley, are calling for that kind of support. We call on the government to provide that support, because it is necessary. We are going to need financial literacy support, wraparound support and counselling. If people are going to come off alcohol—

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