Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I also would like to put on the record that I do not support compulsory income management. I appreciate the amendments put forward by the Greens. I will not be voting for them, but I think they make several good points about the issues with what the government is putting forward here today. We've heard some powerful speeches for and against compulsory income management in this chamber this afternoon, and I would particularly point to the speeches from the member for Mayo and the member for Bass, who in effect have opposing positions on this but both gave very powerful arguments for and against compulsory income management. The member for Mayo investigated in a practical way its impact on communities, but the member for Bass also made the point that the very examples just used at the desk point to the fact that when you remove compulsory income management and you see a spike in those behaviours, it proves the point that you cannot have permanent compulsory income management, because as soon as you remove it, the problems will simply re-emerge. So it's the core of these issues that we need to be getting at rather than forcing it in a mandatory way.

I would like to make the point that I think there are some risks in this bill. I have spoken with the minister, and I thank her for the engagement on this issue. I have some concerns that improving the technology will allow easier rollout of mandatory income management, and that that could become a temptation at a future time. I accept the government's undertakings that they plan to review and potentially dismantle the system overall, and I hope that is the case; I think many of us on the crossbench will take that on trust to some degree. But I would say that there is a risk in this legislation that income management could be expanded to large swathes of the country because of the ministerial powers that are given in this bill. I think that we have to pay regard to that risk as the government goes through a process of future review.

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