Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

No. Labor will seek to amend this bill in the Senate. First, we want to make the cashless debit card voluntary unless a community wants the card or a person is placed on income management for a specific reason, including for child protection or by the Family Responsibilities Commission in Cape York.

Labor wants to require the minister to demonstrate the support of each individual community before rolling out the cashless debit card, including consultation with women's groups and community members. Has the government learnt nothing about the importance of engaging with First Nations communities? The lack of consultation here is astounding. Labor, led in this area by our First Nations caucus committee, is committed to ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved in decision-making that impacts their lives. If only the government had this approach too.

Labor will seek to require further independent evaluation of the cashless debit card. We need to know the real impact of this policy, and it has not been shown yet. We need to know if it achieves the government's objectives; otherwise it is simply an ideological move yet again from the Liberal Party at the expense of First Nations peoples and anyone receiving social security.

Labor will seek to remove the minister's powers to quarantine up to 100 per cent of a person's payment. Technology has taken us a long way from the cash-reliant economy we had a decade or so ago. Card payments are prevalent, but we aren't a 100 per cent cash-free society. This is especially so in regional areas, where the cashless debit card trials have been held and where the government is proposing to roll out the card. For people living on payments below the poverty line, using cash is sometimes vital. Second-hand goods are often bought in cash. Things are sometimes cheaper when you use cash. Food shopping is often cheapest when conducted in cash. Instead the government focuses on its obsession with social security recipients being drug users, as we saw with their ridiculous attempts to drug tests all social security recipients.

Labor will seek to amend this bill to require ongoing wraparound services in cashless debit cards, as we have done previously. Our shadow minister, Linda Burney, has spoken about issues such as birth weights falling. She's talked about visiting communities where people don't have access to clean water and don't have food security. And there is a housing crisis in remote communities. Why not focus on these problems and actually address these issues? If the government wants to improve lives, why don't they focus on that rather than this policy with no evidence to prevent people from exercising their own choice and independence?

Why doesn't the government spend this money on a program that truly helps people to get work? The fact is that the cashless debit card will not create one job. How does it help people re-enter the workforce? How does it help the increasing number of people over the age of 55 on Newstart who want to work and can't find a job? How will it help people work until they are 70, like the Morrison government wants them to, and how will it help young people trying to get a foot in the door?

Why should someone who has never engaged in binge drinking or taken illicit drugs be forced onto the cashless debit card, which was introduced to address these behaviours? The answer is that they shouldn't. Today 23,000 people are on the BasicsCard and will transition to the cashless debit card and 83 per cent of these people are Indigenous. The cost has been substantial—approximately $2,500 per person per year. Imagine if the government had invested this money, over $50 million, into these communities and into services that are proven to assist people—into homelessness services or clean water? Instead the money has gone to a credit card company and imposed significant administrative burdens on businesses in these communities.

This bill is a precursor to government trying to introduce a national scheme. Senior members of the government have suggested all social security recipients under 35 should be placed on the cashless debit card. Some Nationals have argued that a national rollout should be a condition of any increase in the rate of Newstart. Labor has been calling for existing cashless debit card locations to be wound up by January 2020 unless the minister can demonstrate informed local community support. But there is no indication the minister has obtained this support. We also want a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the cashless debit card. We are rolling this program out blind, with only incompetent, incomplete or dubious analysis of the impact of the program available. And experts are saying it just isn't working. The Auditor-General has been scathing.

Once again, Labor is calling for wraparound services for people who are having their income managed. In Cape York, for example, where the cashless debit card has community support, individuals who are on income management are being supported more comprehensively than merely restricting their income. In Ceduna, $2.1 million has been invested in community safety, drug and alcohol services, mental health services, financial management support, extra funding for family violence support and free wi-fi connectivity. In the East Kimberley region, $2.9 million has been invested for a similar range of services, including youth activities. But, as the rollout has continued, the commitment to these services has waned. This is unsurprising given the comments of the government on this issue.

We should be building a social security system that helps people to build good lives. We should be using the system to reduce inequality. Instead, all the government is able to come up with is more punitive measures that make people's lives more difficult. I call on the government to work with Labor to make this bill better. I call on the government to rethink their approach to social security to support all Australians to achieve their full potential, not lock them into poverty.

(Quorum formed)

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