Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I support the original motion for the second reading of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 but not the amendment. That will come as no surprise. I also recognise the member for Lingiari and his passionate commitment to Indigenous people and his electorate. He says he speaks for them. Equally, I am a passionate supporter of the people in my electorate, and I believe I absolutely speak for them. I certainly speak for the community around Ceduna when it comes to the issue of the cashless welfare card.

It helps to have a little bit of history, I think, when we speak about the introduction of the card in Ceduna, the first place in Australia that had the cashless welfare card—not to be confused with the BasicsCard. I think the original impetus came out of a coroner's inquest over there, where we'd had six untimely deaths of Indigenous people sleeping rough, under the influence of alcohol, sleeping in the middle of the road, in poor health and with poor conditions—a whole lot of things. They were largely not residents of Ceduna but were among those who had come in from remote settlements. I remember speaking to the mayor, Allan Suter, at the time. He asked whether there was a possibility of bringing the BasicsCard to Ceduna, and I said, 'Well, we are going to have to find some community support to make ground in this area.'

So began a long period of consultation with the various Indigenous communities in and around Ceduna but also with the non-Indigenous communities in Ceduna. Ceduna isn't an Indigenous town as such. It's got a higher population of Indigenous people than the average, of course, but largely it's a very normal town in many ways. By 'normal', I mean more reflective of the population mix in the rest of Australia. I can remember the previous mayor saying to me, 'We've built up a relationship now with our Indigenous communities that we never had before,' because, of course, they are not within the District Council of Ceduna area. They meet on a regular basis and discuss a whole lot of issues that are of common interest. That continues today, and I meet with these groups regularly. It is they who have asked for the permanent installation of the cashless welfare card in Ceduna. At the moment, we've had a 12-month-by-12-month-by-12-month renewal, and I've said all along that it's simply not sustainable for that to continue—to just keep pushing it out on a 12-month basis.

Of course, when we get to the point of expiry, the community want it to continue. That's because they see the obvious benefits in it. As a young fellow said to me up there one day: 'Well, you can look at the stats and talk to this group and that group, but I tell you what: it just feels like a whole lot better place, a safer place, a place where there's more money spent on food'. In fact, they had to double the food supply at Oak Valley when the cashless welfare card was introduced. So there have been far better outcomes right across the board, and I receive very, very little criticism of the card. Most people say, 'You can't take it away.' In fact, that is what the Indigenous groups say to me.

Let me point out that it is non-discriminatory; it does apply to the white population in Ceduna as it applies to the Indigenous population. I've had more complaints, I would have to say, over the time from the white population, but not many. It is normally serial complaints from a few individuals, and that's not really unusual with anything that government does, I'd have to say. So I and those communities are totally convinced of its value. They want to see it stay.

I don't think that it displaces responsibility. I think the member for Snowdon—not the member for Snowdon; the member for Lingiari. Perhaps one day—or would that be Lord Snowdon? I don't know. He said: 'If they told us they wanted it, I'd back it'. Well, I'm telling you they do want it; they absolutely do want it. That is the story. This bringing in that it is a racially discriminatory card, one of the great values of Bundaberg using the card was that it is not seen as an Indigenous population. That's not in this current legislation because that's controlled under a slightly different piece of legislation. But the fact is it has gone into an area where we see high levels of disadvantage and people mismanaging their welfare income. It's a working-age welfare. I hear the shadow minister say, 'It's coming for your pension!' It's not coming for your pension; it's never been for age pensions.

I reflect that when intellect and good reason fail, it is all too often we see people go for the scare tactic, and that's exactly what that is. Telling Australian age pensioners that they will go on the cashless debit card is nothing but scaremongering and it should be slapped down. It is certainly not on the government's agenda. Perhaps it's on the agenda of those on the other side of the chamber—I think not. Why would they even bring that up? This card has never been aimed at that part of Australia. It's aimed at those on working-age welfare. It's made a significant difference in behaviour, a significant difference to health outcomes and a significant difference to those very things that the coroner looked into in Ceduna going back—I am going to have a guess—to 2006, quite some time ago in this long journey.

Like so many things we seem to see in Australia at the moment, we have all these experts giving their valuable advice from afar. There was a song once called Walk a Mile in My Shoes. For those who don't live in places like Ceduna, the Goldfields or the East Kimberley, I suggest they should spend more time on the ground there actually communicating with the locals and finding out what it is they want, because that's where I go. I go on the ground in Ceduna. I find out exactly what it is we want.

I must say there are those who suggest somehow this card is some big imposition. At the moment the JobSeeker payments are slightly in excess of $800 a fortnight. I would suggest that if you are spending more than $160 in that fortnight on drugs, alcohol, and gambling, you're not managing your money well. It's not much good if you are spending more than 20 per cent of your income on drugs, alcohol and gambling to complain about the fact that you don't have enough money to spend on vegetables, that you don't have enough to spend on accommodation. That's what this card is about—ensuring that the money allocated to people goes for the reason it was allocated. If you are living a well-planned lifestyle where you're not spending more than 20 per cent of your income on drugs, alcohol and gambling, well, it won't even impact on you; it won't have one slight impact at all.

I point out that the 80-20 split that we arrived at when we first brought in the cashless debit card was in agreement with the partners within the Ceduna community. They were the ones who set the ratio. It was suggested at one stage by government that it be 75-25. They insisted it be 80-20. That's how far back the consultations go. They were instrumental in setting up the parameters for the way the card works across Australia. I said to them at the time, 'Australia may well look back on this time when things changed, when the delivery of welfare in Australia actually reached a turning point.' It's hard to say if that is the case for the bulk of the population. The government at this stage has no plans to roll it out across the rest of the nation. I must say, as someone who had it operating in their electorate, I think it would be a good idea. I also say that I get approached by a number of communities who say, 'Can we get on the card?' These are not just communities within my electorate, either. They say, 'What have we got to do to get on the card? In fact, I know there are a number that have been trying to speak to the minister and see whether that's possible in the future, and I hope it is the case. I think if we have got communities who want to get on the card, we should allow this to happen. I do say to them, though, 'Don't even think about trying to get across the minister's threshold unless you've got broad community support back on your patch already.' If you come to the government and say, 'We've got the council on board, we've got the school board on board and we've got the Indigenous groups on board,' perhaps you've got a chance of convincing the minister. But, if you do not—we've never introduced a card at a place where it wasn't wanted.

I think the amendments that are being proposed by this piece of legislation—and not just the amendment to make the three sites permanent; there are a number of adjustments around people being able to stay on it voluntarily and pensioners and all those kinds of things—are all very moderate changes and in response to the communities on the ground, so I find no fault at all with any of those particular amendments.

The one thing I will get to: it has shown that things can go wrong. We've had a couple of incidents through the years where unrestricted money has come into the community. At one time, a payment out of the tax department came back to people, and in recent times we've of course seen the doubling of the JobSeeker payment. That happened in Ceduna just as it happened everywhere else. In Ceduna, unlike other places, it was still on the 80-20 split, but it did actually double the amount of money that was available for drugs, alcohol and gambling. Coming on top of that was access to superannuation, so people who had accumulated even a small amount of superannuation were able to access that as well. Coupled to that was the occurrence of remote community lockdown. People spent two, sometimes three, months back in community and didn't come into town. In that time, they didn't spend all of the extra money that was coming to them. They came into town, and things have got fairly untidy, I'd have to say. It's a little better now than it was, but I'm still receiving complaints from Ceduna saying that a lot of antisocial and self-harming behaviour has returned. Remember that this has come on the back of the more than doubling of the availability of the loose cash that is coming to people that are on working-age welfare. You don't need a university degree or an examination to work out what's going on there. It's as plain as the noses on our faces. More money, more antisocial behaviour, more drinking, more public drunkenness, more violence—that's what comes with the extra unrestrained cash.

That is why the community of Ceduna is asking for the permanent instalment of this card, and I have nothing but admiration for those leaders of the communities—the individual communities right across the board—that have backed this program the whole way through. Let it be remembered that every one of them, including those on the Ceduna district council, has come up for re-election during the time that the card has been in place and they have supported the card. Largely, the people on those individual community councils and the Ceduna community council remain the same. They are re-endorsed and put back into their positions, just as I have been in the two elections that have run since we introduced the cashless welfare card. It is widely supported, it's doing a great amount of good and it should be continued.

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