Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to place on record a few brief remarks about the Greens' position on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. When the bill goes to the Senate, Senator Rachel Siewert will put our position in more detail and at greater length. Very briefly, the Greens oppose this bill, and I stand here representing the party as the only party to consistently oppose the cashless debit card.

Our opposition to it starts from a very basic proposition, which is that you don't lift people out of disadvantage or poverty by taking away their rights. It's astounding that this government, which depicts itself as the government of the freedom of the individual and of freedom of choice, is quite happy to say to millionaires that it wants to give them tax cuts because the money is theirs and never has been the government's and they should have total freedom as to how to spend it, and yet, when it comes to those on the lowest incomes, those in this government are prepared to chuck overboard their so-called principles about individual liberty and individual choice and instead impose, on whole ranges of people, a massive restriction on how individuals live their lives that they would never accept for themselves.

After numerous attempts to extend the trials, year-on-year, the government's true intentions in this bill have finally been revealed. They are to make the cashless debit card trial sites—in the East Kimberley, the Goldfields, Ceduna and Bundaberg—permanent, and also to extend it to over 25,000 people in the Northern Territory, despite First Nations communities coming out against it. There's widespread opposition to this bill. In fact, only 10 per cent of the submissions to the Senate inquiry supported the bill. Making the cashless debit card permanent paves the way for the Commonwealth and the companies that profit from the card to advocate for broader implementation of the card across Australia.

As I mentioned at the start, that's why, from the outset, we were the only party to say, 'No, this is a bad idea,' because it was never going to be about a trial for one particular community; it was always going to be something that the government wanted to do to extend control over how individuals behave and to remove freedoms and liberties from broad swathes of the population in ways that they would not be prepared to do to themselves.

Briefly, I repeat that Senator Siewert and our other senators will go into more detail when the bill comes before the Senate. We consider that this government is, again, imposing policy on First Nations people who are going to be disproportionately impacted by the cashless debit card and that this bill is in direct opposition to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. As Professor Altman has powerfully noted, even before the ink is properly dry on this unprecedented agreement—that is, between all governments and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations—the Australian government, as the key signatory, is looking to unilaterally introduce laws that disempower rather than empower about 28,000 Indigenous Australians.

This bill has not been developed in full and genuine partnership with First Nations peoples and does not have regard for self-determination. There's no evidence to support the card, and it is expensive and lacking in transparency. There are significant human rights concerns, and we consider—together with many others across this country—that this is a paternalistic, racist and punitive measure. It's driven by ideology, it ignores all the evidence and it flies in the face of the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap. The evidence demonstrates that compulsory income management does not work. It's not meeting its stated objectives and it's been extended here on the basis of flawed data and ideology. Compulsory income management in all its various forms should be abandoned and the resources invested in approaches that are therapeutic, individualised and genuinely supported by the community.

Debate adjourned.

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