Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018. Isn't it interesting when we hear all the reasons that this bill shouldn't be passed? Those members from the Labor Party opposite are happy to have the trial—or to support the trial—in majority Indigenous communities but not in white communities. This bill seeks to implement the trial of the cashless debit card in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay areas in Queensland, the fourth trial location for this very important program, where people who are under 36 years of age and accessing Newstart or youth allowance, for jobseekers, or parenting payments will receive the card. This is about 6,700 people. The cashless debit card, or healthy welfare card, is about making lives better. I'm in this place to empower people to take control of their lives and the government, where it needs to, to co-invest in people's future, to help hardworking Australians reach their full potential—to help aspirational Australians reach their potential. Helping these Australians is my focus when we look at our social policy and welfare system.

I remind the members opposite that the cashless debit card doesn't impact on a person's eligibility to access welfare. It doesn't change the amount of Centrelink a person receives. It simply means that they can't use all of their cash to buy alcohol or drugs or to gamble, and they can't withdraw cash. Otherwise, the card operates and looks like a normal bank card.

In our communities, the lazy application of cash as welfare isn't working. In some cases, it's making lives worse. But the cashless debit card is actually making lives better, and the strong, independent evaluation results from the current trial communities are telling us how important this card is. The final independent evaluation of the debit card trial includes results from the first two trial communities, Ceduna in South Australia and East Kimberly in Western Australia, in my state.

The cashless debit card has had a considerable positive impact for the people participating in the trial. Forty-one per cent reported drinking alcohol less frequently, and people are now seeking medical treatment for their conditions that were previously masked by the effects of alcohol. Forty-eight per cent reported using illegal drugs less often; 48 per cent reported gambling less; 40 per cent of participants who have caring responsibilities reported they had been better able to care for their children—better able to care for their children; 39 per cent of participants with caring responsibilities reported they had become more involved in their children's homework and schooling when compared to before the trial; and 45 per cent have been better able to save more money. This card is not a silver bullet, that is certainly true. We know and acknowledge that. But it's an important tool in the fight against alcohol and drug abuse, and the violence and crime that come with those.

This careful and independent evaluation tells us that the cashless debit card is absolutely making lives better. I saw this firsthand when I visited Kununurra and Wyndham in WA's north. I met personally with many people who supported the card, and I met with those who don't. The number of pick-ups made by the Kununurra community patrol service for alcohol was lower. Admissions to the Wyndham Sobering-Up Unit were lower in September. Alcohol-related ambulance callouts were down, and sales at the Wyndham bottle shop—the only bottle shop in Wyndham—dropped.

I visited the Wyndham supermarket, and I was told that because of economic conditions sales across the store had dropped, but that since the implementation of this card sales for baby products had remained at the same levels despite the drop in economic conditions. I met with community leaders who helped me get to the nuts and bolts of this policy. I sat with the mums at the Wyndham Early Learning Activity Centre. I heard those Indigenous mothers talk about their aspirations for their children and the benefits that this card was having in their community. I met with the chamber of commerce and a number of health and cultural organisations, and I met with the police at Kununurra and heard about the issues that they have to deal with day and night. I was pleased to hear that alcohol fuelled callouts were down.

I also spent a 12-hour shift with St John Ambulance—the shift that went from 6.00 pm to 6.00 am—and we were responding to calls. While I can't share with you the precise nature of those calls, for confidentiality reasons, every one of them on that overnight shift was related to alcohol. The living conditions of the individuals who we visited to provide support to, and to meet their medical needs, were shameful They were terrible conditions. The issue of alcoholism in those communities has not been addressed by the mere fact of giving easy money to individuals. It is starting to be fixed under this card, but this card alone won't do it.

When you've got those ambulance volunteers at St Johns Ambulance telling you just how important this card is in dealing with alcohol illness and the consequences of alcohol fuelled violence every night, you have to take their word for it. I'm the government's chair of our social policy committee. You can read reports and you can talk to peak bodies, but to go and spend three days in these communities and see how lives are actually changing for the better makes you a very strong advocate for what we're trying to achieve here. Expanding the cashless debit card trial to the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area will build on the positive, evidence based findings that we've had already.

The Bundaberg and Hervey Bay trial is an opportunity to test the card's effectiveness under new parameters in an area with a significantly lower proportion of Indigenous participants and on a larger scale when compared to the current communities covered under the trial. There is concern that this card targets the majority Indigenous communities. I was told when I was in the East Kimberly that some people called this the 'white card'—the white fella's card restricting how an Indigenous individual can spend their money; they couldn't just go to the bottle shop—and that this was paternalistic. I am happy to accept that.

But one of the things that was said to me by the Indigenous leaders in the East Kimberley was how they wanted this card to be seen not as a tool to deal with Indigenous issues but as a tool to deal with the issues at hand—alcohol in their communities, drugs and gambling in their communities. And the issues of alcohol, drugs and gambling are not racist. They don't care if someone is Indigenous or not. They don't care if they're white or black. That's why it's very interesting that this trial is opposed by the Labor Party. Why are they opposing the extension of this card to Bundaberg and Hervey Bay where there is a majority urban and a majority non-Indigenous population? It is something that I just can't understand. I hope these trials in these new communities will dispel this perception. It is actually very important, and very respectful to those Indigenous leaders in existing trial sites, that we actually do this new trial in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.

This area has been chosen carefully to address social problems that were identified during the extensive consultations in the community there. Between May and December 2017, there were 188 meetings about the cashless debit card trial with a broad range of stakeholders, including the community sector, service providers, community members and all levels of government. Some of the big issues this area is facing are high youth unemployment and inter-generational welfare dependence, gambling and a high use of drugs, alcohol and gambling.

The Wide Bay region has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Queensland. Data from March 2018 shows youth unemployment in the region is 27.8 per cent, which is an increase of four per cent since March 2017. You can't get a job if you're bombed out of your brain on drugs and you can't get a job if you're drunk—you certainly can't keep one as well. For all of those who are aged under 30 on welfare today, 90 per cent had a parent who was on welfare during the past 15 years. Consultations also revealed significant problems with alcohol and drugs and gambling among young families.

Drug use data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows Bundaberg and the Fraser Coast have an estimated usage rate 15.7 per cent higher than the national average. If there is a place where this card needs to be trialled, it is this location. Queensland Health data indicated 1,547 incidents of care for alcohol and other drugs treatment in 2015-16. According to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, people who are unemployed are 2.4 times more likely to use drugs such as ice and other amphetamines than those who are employed. Trialling the cashless debit card in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area will be an important investment by individuals and governments to stabilise the lives of these young people in the communities by limiting their spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling and by helping to improve their chances of finding a job, keeping that job or successfully completing education or training.

A stable home environment during those early formative years is an imperative for positive lifelong outcomes. Setting the age at 36 means the government in this trial location can work with young people, their families and their children who are receiving welfare payments. Complementing the card in this trial location will be a further investment in community services of $1 million. That's very important. We learnt that in Kununurra and East Kimberly. The card alone doesn't work by itself; you need those wraparound services that the member for Macarthur was talking about. But you can have both. You can have those additional wraparound services and you can have the card. Are we trialling just the card? No, we're not trialling just the card. We are trialling the card and those services to see if they're sufficient.

Already there are a significant number of services in place in this region, including 70 federally funded services in the Bundaberg-Hervey Bay area, which include drug and alcohol services, financial capability services, employment, and family and children programs. At a technical level, this bill also amends the list of restricted goods to include cash-like products. It has been the intention that participants should not be able to purchase cash-like products—such as gift cards, vouchers, money orders, digital currencies—that could be used to purchase alcohol and gambling products. This was one of the issues identified in earlier trials, and one of the issues that I identified when I visited Kununurra and Wyndham.

The Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area is an opportunity for the government to test the card's flexibility as a tool to support people in urban locations and to help address the problems identified during the community consultations. I've updated the House on my own experience from where I've seen the intersection of welfare and drugs within my own family. I don't believe for a second that the life, if you can call it that, being lived by so many jobseekers with drug and alcohol dependence is one they choose to live. The cashless debit card is making lives better in the trial communities. We have an obligation to extend these trials to a non-Indigenous population and to a more urban environment to continue to trial the success of this card.

I commend the work of the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Human Services. I commend the work of the Attorney-General and the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, who both previously held ministerial roles in this area and championed this trial significantly. The extension of the cashless debit card has my full support. The extension of this trial to this location has my full support. I have said many times in the past, and I will say it again: working-age welfare should not be compensation for where someone has found themselves in life; working-age welfare must and always should be an investment in where they can go. That's what it must be, an investment, and, if you are investing in something, you need to make sure that investment is getting the outcome that you desire. And the outcome that we desire is to have fewer people on drugs, fewer people on alcohol, fewer people wasting their money on gambling, and more people in work being exactly what they are, what I am—that is, an aspirational Australian, wanting to apply my effort to get ahead.

The Labor Party see the lazy application of cash in our welfare system as the only solution. I say to them: the lazy application of cash is not working, but the cashless debit card is. The Labor Party should get on board and make sure we can work together to improve the lives of people in our community and to make sure that our welfare system does exactly what it should do—that is, to make lives better.

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