Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

What a fine mess you get yourself into when you let ideology rule over common sense, over practical outcomes, over keeping the community safe. That's exactly what we are seeing here, an ideologically driven decision to abolish the cashless debit card after years of planning, of community engagement, of consultation, of bringing people together—whether it be at the local government level, whether it be in some instances Indigenous leaders when it came to Hervey Bay, whether it be bringing other community leaders together to get outcomes which are making communities stronger, which are making them better places to work and to bring up families, which are making them better places for tourists to visit, which are making them better places for families to visit. And yet what we saw was ideology and ideology at its worst. We saw the cashless debit card abolished, and that has already had a huge impact on those local communities where it was working and working so well, whether it was the East Kimberley, the Goldfields, Ceduna, Bundaberg or Hervey Bay. We've seen a decision based on ideology lead to perverse outcomes and the wrong types of outcomes to what we are all looking for.

And now we see the flow-on effects even further, because now what we see—or what the government is looking to see—is people moving off the BasicsCard and onto the so-called SmartCard. We know that the SmartCard is, for all intents and purposes, the cashless debit card. It's just another name. It's exactly the same, but for ideological reasons, again, we have got this pretence where they want to call it the SmartCard, even though it is the Cashless Debit Card under another name. And we've seen all this done at huge cost. We have seen enormous uncertainty, because we know that those who have now volunteered to stay on the cashless debit card are waiting to see what happens to them with the SmartCard. We know that when it comes to the BasicsCard people are now wondering when they are going to go onto the SmartCard. We know that the government has got themselves in a right royal mess, because they said it would all happen by this date and now no-one will mention that date, because they don't know when it's all going to happen. It is a bit like the $275 you were going to get cut from your electricity bill. No-one wants to mention it now. We get this bizarre game where, since the election, the Prime Minister has not mentioned it. Now we are getting the same with this date by which we are meant to have the SmartCard implemented.

But the tragedy of all this is that this was a policy that was put together through consultation and through the hard work in particular of local members of parliament who wanted to do the right thing by their communities and they are now left with this mess. I want to recognise the member for O'Connor, who is here with us in the chamber, because he wanted to see action taken. He knew that this could be changed through consultation, through the community coming together. He wanted to see real change take place on the problems that he was seeing in his community to do with alcohol abuse and gambling abuse for those who were on welfare and he fought for it. He is still fighting for it. He had a delegation of his local mayors here today. Even though they have had to accept that all the hard work that was done by the community to put the cashless debit card in place has now been taken away, they are still here fighting for it. I asked them this question today: would you like the cashless debit card reinstated? Overwhelmingly they said yes. And it wasn't just the mayors. Indigenous community leaders, those who provide all the social services and those who provide that care when the time comes all want it back as well.

I remember when I was social services minister visiting Ceduna. Some of the not-for-profit agencies there I met with said behind closed doors to me, 'Please make sure that the cashless debit card continues, because it is transforming lives; it is transforming our community.' I said, 'Can you come out publicly and say that?' They said, 'The trouble is when we come out publicly and say it we get smashed and it is not worth our while to do it.' Sadly, those who do the smashing on social media, such as Twitter, have won because the government, the Labor Party, capitulated to them and, as a result, these communities are suffering.

We have seen the news about Ceduna. The crime rate in Ceduna, based on police statistics, has doubled since the abolition of the cashless debit card. What does that say about how erroneous that decision was? We have seen it in other communities as well. It is having the same impact. I appeal to the government that it is not too late for them to change their minds. It is not too late to say: 'We admit that we got it wrong. We took a decision based purely on ideology. We didn't go out and consult. We didn't go out and look and see what was happening. We just based the decision on ideology, and we got it wrong.' Stand up. I think the Australian people would applaud the Prime Minister for coming to the dispatch box and saying: 'Do you know what? I made an error. I got this completely wrong, and we are going to reinstate the cashless debit card.'

In the meantime we've got this move from the Basics Card to the SmartCard. That is what this bill is about. Now we're worried about how the government is going to be able to do this transition. As I've said, the date for the transition to occur has changed, and there is a real concern about whether there is the IT capability to do it. There is talk of cuts. The Services Australia minister, Bill Shorten, is meant to have cut jobs in his own department. We didn't hear any of this before the last election. Those cuts have meant that they're really worried about how they are going to be able to implement the IT for this SmartCard—or should I say 'cashless debit card', because it is the cashless debit card by another name?

We hope that the government will be able to get it right because what we do know is that there is a real cost to all this unnecessary change. It's $12 million when it comes to those who are on the cashless debit card voluntarily moving to this so-called SmartCard and then an even greater sum for those who are on the Basics Card going to the SmartCard. Those millions could have gone into wraparound services in East Kimberly, in Goldfields, in Ceduna, in Bundaberg and in Harvey Bay. That could have made a real difference. Instead, what we're seeing is the government spending money on IT solutions, which, ultimately, weren't necessary. Ultimately, they were only driven by ideology. Go figure. We could have been seeing—and there are many, many regional and rural communities who need this—the provision of alcohol related services to help people in regional and rural areas. But, no, the money will go on IT solutions—unnecessary IT solutions. It could have gone on rehabilitation programs. No, it will go on IT solutions to solve a problem where there was no problem. That is what ideology delivers. When you make decisions based on ideology, this is the outcome that you get. And it is very, very sad that we're here doing this.

I understand that there were meetings with the minister today where the case was presented to see whether there could be a transition back to the cashless debit card or whether the government could come forward and start providing the necessary services to the communities that have been impacted by the removal of the cashless debit card. We wait to see what the outcomes will be of those meetings. My hope is that we will now see recognition from the government of what their ideological based decision has led to, and then we will see them at least providing additional services into those communities to make up for the fact that we've seen crime rise, we've seen drug use rise, we've seen alcohol use rise and we've seen gambling rise. That, at a minimum, is what the government should be doing, because, when you make an ideological based decision that has such a detrimental impact on these communities, the least you can do is step in and put additional services in there. Hopefully this would happen on their pathway to acknowledging how important the cashless debit card is for those communities and how, if the government had built on the legacy that had been put in place through consultation over many years, they could have enhanced the cashless debit card. The thing is, the improvements in technology means that you can continue to develop this policy and make sure that it continues to deliver for communities.

It was the position of the former government to build on the cashless debit card. My hope is, as we go through our policy development processes, that you will see us take the cashless debit card to the next election, because we know that it gets the outcomes that communities are looking for. We know that people, and especially the most vulnerable, are protected if you can make sure that welfare doesn't lead to alcohol fuelled violence, doesn't lead to people spending all their money on gambling and doesn't mean that people spend all their money on drugs.

The cashless debit card, and this is where it was such a simple solution, meant that income was quarantined to make sure that it would be spent on food—food for kids, food for families. That's pretty simple. What it meant was that income would be protected, so that it could be spent on food. It could also be spent to ensure that there was enough to pay the rent or enough to pay the mortgage, so that people had a roof over their heads. That's what the cashless debit card was all about. It's funny, because people say about us on this side, 'They're cold and they're heartless,' yet, at its very essence, the cashless debit card was about making sure that communities and families were protected and that children were safe. It was all about ensuring that we got the best outcomes for our community. It was about having a heart. It was about making decisions that brought the community together and that got outcomes which strengthened communities. It was all about ensuring that young children had the best opportunity they could to get to school—and to get to school fed—so that they could get an education and flourish. It was about making sure that communities could flourish.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you heard Rowan Ramsey, the member for Grey, talk about Ceduna and how that community was transformed—how tourists started going back there again, how kids were going to school again and how people felt safe in that community—and how all that, sadly, has changed. This policy, at its heart, was about getting the community together, facing the problem, which all communities face in one way or another, of people being addicted to alcohol, drugs or gambling, and coming up with a solution. It is so sad that ideology has destroyed that. It is so sad that that's where we're at.

I do hope that the government will be big enough to say: 'We got this wrong. Our ideologically driven, cold-hearted approach has had a devastating impact on these communities.' Instead of a program which could have continued to be rolled out, we now have a situation where we're scrambling to invent a new card, the SmartCard, which is just like the cashless debit card. We're paying money on IT, which is money that should be going to these communities to help provide additional services. Basically, what has happened is that the government have created a mess of their own making, and all because they took an ideological decision.

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