Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on this important motion, and I thank the member for Bruce for raising this topic. Before the election, we made a promise to Australian voters: that an Albanese Labor government would introduce legislation to parliament to abolish the cashless debit card. And that is exactly what we are doing.

The previous government saw the cashless debit card as an easy solution to all social problems. It even planned, as we know and as we've heard, to roll it out to further communities and to further groups, and this put a big panic in pensioners across the country. In other words, where would it stop? It could have seen your ordinary pensioner, who is law abiding and looks after their own affairs, be made to take out a cashless card.

Approximately 17,300 participants are currently in the scheme; of course, a disproportionate number of participants are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. All these participants will now be able to move off the cashless debit card, with the option of voluntary income management. And there are other ways, for people who, for whatever reason, don't have their finances in order and are continuously neglecting their family et cetera. There are schemes in place—and we see them all over the place, in other circumstances—that can be brought to fruition.

We've made this decision on the basis of extensive community consultation, including with First Nations community leaders, service providers and cashless debit card participants in these communities. We've heard them loud and clear. They told us that the cashless debit card disenfranchises people and does not allow them to take an active role in their lives. For example, it makes participants' lives, in some cases, much more difficult because they cannot access their money to buy the basic goods that they require to feed their children, their family et cetera. If they wanted to complain or to discuss it, or if there was a dispute over these issues, it was extremely difficult to be heard. They needed to engage with a private company instead of with the government agency.

This is another problem within itself. Under the previous government, the cashless debit card was not run by the government; it was not run by the department; it was run by a privatised company. What's more, there was no evidence that the scheme was helping people on a large scale. In fact, the Auditor-General, in two independent reports to parliament in 2018 and 2022, found that there were no key performance indicators or evidence to support the scheme.

We are listening and we're putting choice back into the system—choice. Anyone currently on the cashless debit card who wants to exit the scheme will be able to do so, and anyone on the scheme that wishes to remain on a voluntary basis on income management will be able to use this basic card. We want to make income management truly voluntary. This will give people back control over their own lives and their finances.

This government is committed to listening to the First Nations communities, community groups and, indeed, all Australians about this issue. We want to make sure that all Australians—and not a private company—have a say over the things that govern them. The previous government wasted nearly over $170 million on this scheme. This is money that could have been invested directly in the services that local communities need to assist them, to get them back on their feet or to assist their families. We want to ensure that we're helping communities and not harming them. We want to return self-determination to Indigenous communities.

Income management is an important tool for social welfare. However, any income management should be voluntary, non-privatised, supported by evidence and subject to ongoing evaluation. Sadly, the previous government's cashless debit card scheme was an insidious form of privatised welfare. We don't want to see anyone held back. We want everyone to have the opportunities to live their life in accordance with their dreams and their aspirations.

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