Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I invite all honourable members to hang around and have a listen. We're going to talk about leadership—just quickly. It won't be too painful. We've had a massive example today, I suppose, of a lack of leadership, and, as the member for Lalor just said, empathy is seriously lacking in those opposite. You'd do well to hang around and hear a couple of examples from the ground in the Northern Territory before you go ahead and vote on this legislation.

I thank the member for Lalor for sharing. Empathy is a big part of leadership. It is a lot easier to bring in sweeping legislation that takes away the rights of tens of thousands of people. It's a bit harder, as she quite rightly mentioned, to do the harder work—the developmental work and the preventive work—that's required to work with people and in doing the consultation. It takes effort and it takes resources, and it's what's required.

Obviously in its current form, Labor is not able to support this bill, particularly because of the establishment of the entirety of the Northern Territory as a trial site with all income management participants being transitioned onto this card on a compulsory basis. We cannot support that. This bill is discriminatory and obviously applies—taking in the whole of the Northern Territory—predominantly to First Australians. Eighty per cent of the people on income management in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Twelve years after the intervention, started by former coalition Prime Minister, John Howard, there is still no clear empirical evidence that broad based mandatory income management has worked. It is an absolutely farcical to believe, as the government genuinely believes, that First Australians have been properly consulted. I can't believe that that would be the case, but it's a mistake that the coalition government, over the last six plus years, has made time and time again. It displays a particular type of arrogance to proceed with this policymaking framework that has a proven track record of failure. Let me be clear: there is no independent, verified evidence to support the efficacy of broad based income management in reducing social harm. A recent inquiry into another one of the government's cashless debit card bills has said this, and numerous experts have said it.

Late last year, in a document presented to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Australian government wrote—it is, in fact, as the member for Lalor has just said:

… there are more positive results associated with people who volunteer, as they have made a choice to change their behaviour and receive assistance, positive findings have been found for people who have been referred for Income Management by a social worker or a child protection officer—

That's as opposed to bringing something in on a compulsory basis and blanket across the board.

The Anti Poverty Network South Australia also told that Senate committee about a woman they met in Ceduna who was on the cashless debit card. She volunteered in her local craft shop and donated what she could. She used to be able to purchase things online, but, because of the cashless debit card, she's no longer able to. The network told the committee that this woman is never drunk and never had drugs or anything like that. It's just such an innovative way of life for her now.

A question for those opposite is: why should someone who has never engaged in binge drinking or taken illicit drugs be forced on to a cashless debit card that we hear from those opposite is being introduced to address those behaviours? The answer is quite simply that they shouldn't. Experts say it and even the government's own analysis says it. Groups on the ground providing support in the Northern Territory are also opposed to this bill. John Paterson—'Patto'—Chief Executive Officer of Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory, has been on the record and made it clear to the government that he is sceptical of the government's income management strategy:

If anything it has put an enormous unnecessary stress on [and] trauma on families and individuals.

John is another expert who has told the government:

There is no evidence, no evidence, whatsoever, that this top-down, punitive, model of income management, is doing any good to Aboriginal communities, or families and individuals.

John Paterson is a leader. He's a proper leader, because he is on the ground in the Northern Territory, doing the hard work. He has empathy with those that he seeks to help, to lift up, that he represents—empathy that we don't see from those opposite, leadership that we don't see from the Prime Minister. We saw that here today. He was unable to make a hard call, unable to point out that integrity is a higher value than simply trying to brush things off so that somehow we get through the media cycle of the next 24 hours until the next issue of integrity is brought up. But Patto is someone of integrity. When you are pretending to consult and people of calibre—leaders—say things like that, you should listen to them.

Evidence in my electorate has also been presented to a government led committee by the Danila Dilba Health Service, which stated:

… there is an astonishing lack of credible evidence that IM has made any improvement in any of the key indicators – child health, birthweight, failure to thrive, child protection notifications and substantiations. There are no improvements in school attendance and there is certainly nothing we can see that would suggest that there has been a reduction in family or community violence.

These are health professionals in the Danila Dilba Health Service in Darwin in my electorate in the Northern Territory, who are saying that there is no evidence whatsoever that this card is going to lead to any improvement at all in what those opposite purport to say is the reason for this card. There is a significant body of evidence which shows that this bill won't work and will act as a punishment for the recipients.

We know that it is the wish of several in the government that this bill be rolled out nationally. It's clear to see—and I would say to those opposite that they should do a bit of consultation in their own electorates—that this bill is a stalking horse for that purpose. A national rollout should absolutely not be contemplated. As I've said a number of times, there simply is no evidence that broad based income management and the cashless debit card will work. No evidence!

Debate interrupted.

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