Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you I think, Mr Speaker. I would like to thank the member for Bruce for this question. I know how passionate he has been. He has been listening to the concerns of people on the cashless debit card and of course the concerns right around this country about this unfair policy. Labor wants welfare and social security to be a strong safety net that supports vulnerable Australians when they need it, and to not stigmatise them, like the former government did. That is why Labor has decisively acted to deliver on its election commitment to abolish the cashless debit card.

Earlier today I introduced legislation to start the task of dismantling the coalition's cashless debit card experiment. I want to reassure the member for Bruce that seniors will no longer have to worry that their pension might get linked with the card. No-one in this country will have to worry about it, because we are getting rid of it. We are ending the experiment of privatised welfare in this country. Of course, the cashless debit card was an ideological obsession by the former coalition government. It was imposed on communities and kept rolling out, rolling out and rolling out. Of course, it was completely—

I have, Member for Aston.

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