Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 is an important bill. I think both sides of this parliament will be pleased when we see it pass. It is important that it does pass. It implements some of the most significant changes to welfare delivery in a number of important communities. Principally, this initiative is designed to address alcohol abuse, which causes immense harm across our nation but, in particular, in certain communities. This bill is directed at a remedy designed to affect Indigenous communities in particular. And while urgent action is needed to tackle the alcohol problem we also know that breaking the cycle of alcohol abuse and dysfunction is a complex task.

Labor believes that quarantining income can be a useful tool to support vulnerable people where it is targeted at people who need it most. This bill will amend the social security law to enable a trial phase of a new, cashless welfare arrangement in response to the 'healthy welfare card' recommendations from Mr Andrew Forrest's review of Indigenous jobs and training. The trial will be conducted in up to three locations, involving up to 10,000 people. One of those locations is Kununurra, in the east Kimberley, and another is Ceduna, on the South Australian west coast. Locations have been selected on the basis of high levels of welfare dependence, where gambling, alcohol and/or drug abuse are causing unacceptable levels of harm within the community and where there is a strong level of community support.

Just last week I was in Kununurra and able to listen to the arguments of the Wunan Organisation, led by Mr Ian Trust, arguing very strongly for the cashless credit card in order—

Mr Tudge interjecting—

Sorry, the cashless debit card—thank you, Member for Aston, and congratulations, too, on the great work that you have done to bring to realisation this very difficult measure. In the early days of its design many of us did not think it would actually see the light of day. But through your efforts, your focus and your dedication you have been able to give life to this idea that we hope will bring a better life to Indigenous communities across Australia, especially those in which this trial will be conducted. The Australian government has deployed a prodigious level of additional support to provide those communities with certainty and guidance and to also provide the Commonwealth with the understanding that it needs to better deploy this measure if, indeed, it can be made to work, as we sincerely hope it will.

Income management is one tool to help vulnerable people stabilise their lives. But it must be done in conjunction with a range of support services. It requires a range of responses and supports, provided in close consultation with communities, including the provision of adequate services.

Labor supports community-driven initiatives to tackle alcohol and drug abuse and the harm that they cause. While Labor will not seek to oppose this bill—and, personally, I hope it passes unencumbered—where there is clear community support Labor is concerned that the proposed trial lacks some details and is yet to be thoroughly worked through. It is not possible to see from this legislation exactly how it would operate in practice. We cannot see exactly what additional supports and services would be provided to truly address the problems of alcohol and drug abuse. For example, a comprehensive approach to alcohol and drugs is needed and the debit card is potentially one productive element, but there has been no response yet from the government to the recommendations of the report on harmful use of alcohol in communities.

There has been no rollout yet of the alcohol management plans and there have been cuts to alcohol and other drugs programs. One element without the others will not work and the costs of this trial will be money misspent if we do not focus this trial as best as we possibly can.

I want to spend some time talking today about the communities of the east Kimberley. Aboriginal leaders and organisations in the east Kimberley have been frustrated by the pervasive social challenges faced by its large Aboriginal population. Alcohol, gambling and drugs divert income into destructive behaviours. East Kimberley has very high levels of long-term welfare dependency and resulting social dysfunction, including chronic substance abuse. This is largely funded by income support payments, paid by the Australian government. Chronic alcohol and drug abuse have caused a range of very poor social outcomes in the region.

In 2012-13 there were 100 reported incidents of family violence per 1,000 people in the Kimberley, compared with the next highest incidence of 43 per 1,000 in the south-eastern region. That is according to Western Australia's Family and Domestic Violence Prevention Strategy to 2022 and its Achievement Report 2013, of the Department for Child Protection and Family Support.

East Kimberley Aboriginal children are being taken from their families and put into care at a very high rate. According to the WA Department for Child Protection, 100 per cent of children in foster care in the east Kimberley are Aboriginals and six per cent of all Aboriginal children in the east Kimberley are in care. Many young people and children in Kununurra spend all night on the streets rather than go home where parents and other adults are drinking and where children do not feel safe. These children then sleep rough. They sleep all day and they do not attend school. Operation SHARP—safely home, with a responsible person—was a joint agency initiative, led by the WA Department for Child Protection in Kununurra, in June 2012. Over a one-week period contact was made with 125 children who were spending their nights on the street, according to the Department for Child Protection in its response, in February 2013.

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is becoming increasingly common in Aboriginal families and communities throughout the region. The rate of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Aboriginal children in the Kimberley is significantly higher than in non-Aboriginal children. The Kimberley has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The third highest cause of preventable death to Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, between 1997 and 2007, was suicide, followed closely by alcohol related disease.

Western Australia has an Aboriginal suicide rate of nearly 36 per 100,000 Aboriginal people in the Kimberley. This rate is 70 per 100,000 people. In July this year ABC Lateline reported that the hospitalisation rate for assaults in Kununurra is nearly 70 times higher than the national average rate.

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