Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the East Kimberley, Aboriginal leaders are stepping up to drive a change in direction. They are led by Ian Trust of the Wunan Foundation, Lawford Benning and Ted Hall of the Gelganyem corporation and Des Hill of the Miriuwung Gajjerong Corporation. They are saying that, for the future, a business-as-usual approach is not an option for their people. The leaders' objectives are supported by the local Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley and John Moulden, the mayor of that shire. This has led to the establishment of a complementary trial that will control some of the local flow of alcohol in the Kununurra community. The WA state government has established a complementary effort, led by key ministers of the WA government, to discuss how Aboriginal families, children and individuals can have the best opportunity for success. In this, Minister Helen Morton has been extremely supportive in providing both departmental support but also her own personal oversight.

I have been in the Kimberley recently and spoken to most of the key players in leadership roles. I attended the East Kimberley Aboriginal Achievement Awards, where almost 400 people came together in what is now a regular celebration, every second year, of local Aboriginal achievement. The message from that leadership group was clear. The objectives of Aboriginal leaders are clear. The challenges they face are pervasive and require us to try new mechanisms. Successive state and Commonwealth governments have invested heavily for over a decade in a comprehensive framework of fundamental infrastructure supporting the community of the East Kimberley. That investment has been made across the political divide. It has been made by the former state Labor government, the current coalition government in Western Australia, the current federal government and the former federal government. In a bold future vision for the East Kimberley, significant social investment and hard infrastructure investment has taken place. That investment will only yield dividends when we can collectively stop the damaging behaviour that is linked to alcohol, gambling and drugs.

Achieving the vision that is so strongly embraced in the local area means we must recognise the needs and respond to the leadership by supporting local capability that will allow growth and development to be embedded in a fully functioning community of the East Kimberley. The Prime Minister and Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge have recently been in the East Kimberley, and they have seen and heard what I have seen and heard. They have seen and they have heard what the former Prime Minister saw and heard, and they have taken action. This parliament should congratulate them for taking their action. There is a strengthening and growing appreciation of the radical changes that are needed to accommodate the East Kimberley vision and provide a leg-up to families and individuals who face the pressures of alcohol, drugs and gambling. Labor knows that communities want this.

I spoke recently to the Wunan organisation and heard about Ian Trust's 'swimming the river'—a metaphor that he uses for explaining survival in the Kimberley. Ian has strongly supported this action. But part of this action must include additional supports, not just the debit card. This parliament will stand with communities to make sure that they get the support that they need and that the government systematically delivers what is needed to make this initiative work. To make sure that negotiation with the communities can continue, Labor will not oppose the bill in this House. We will work with those communities and we will work with the government to ensure that we can get this initiative through and give it the best possible chance that it can have to succeed.

Last weekend, while in the Kimberley, I was pleased to meet with Grahame Searle, who has been appointed to lead the regional reform initiative from the government of Western Australia. He is a former Department of Housing Director General, and he left his position in Perth to head to Kununurra in order to head up the reform initiative, supporting the state government's significant investments in the area.

Jenny Goolagong has also provided her presence in the area, supporting the Commonwealth's response, which has led to these very significant reforms through the debit card. In addition to that, the state government has put in place a framework for strategic regional advisory councils in the Kimberly and also in the Pilbara. Minister Helen Morton has asked Patrick Davies, Brenda Garstone, Mary O'Reeri and Martin Sibosado to join the Kimberly council to support the state government's reform initiatives.

So we see very significant initiatives supported by the local shire to control alcohol flow in the community. We see very significant measures being engaged by the state government to support a different way of life in the East Kimberley. We see hundreds of millions of dollars of hard and soft infrastructure investment going into the community, supported by the Rudd government, the Gillard government and the Abbott government, and I am sure it will be supported into the future by the current Turnbull government. And we see the continued support from the governments of Alan Carpenter and then Colin Barnett to support this community through a very difficult transition—to support it not just with spending on infrastructure but also with outstanding public servants, who commit their lives to making the lives of the people of the East Kimberley even better and to allowing a situation to grow whereby the next generation of the East Kimberly's youth have a better opportunity for education and healthier lives as a consequence of controlling and limiting the influence of alcohol in this community.

While I was at the Indigenous achievement awards two weeks ago, the fourth time I have attended these awards, I was struck by the quality of the Aboriginal people who are stepping up in their community to provide leadership in a range of functions. We are seeing the Aboriginal community of Wyndham, East Kimberly, stepping up in areas like sport, education and local business; in providing training, arts and culture; and in supporting family and community life. We should listen to what they say, and what they are saying to us when they step up is that they want to give this debit card a try. They want to make it work in the interests of their community, and mostly they want to give it a go in the interests of their children and in the interests of the future of their community. I commend this bill the House.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. In doing so I want to begin by acknowledging the Labor Party's support of this bill. I think it is fair to say that that too often in this place good policy is opposed by members opposite for perhaps no good reason other than politics. I want to commend particularly the member for Brand for his contribution, which was very gracious and very constructive. Let us hope that this spirit of cooperation prevails into the future when we present good policy to the House.

This bill introduces a number of measures, including legislation to trial a cashless debit card for Centrelink recipients in communities where there is significant alcohol, drug and/or gambling problems. Locations have been chosen on the basis of their openness to participate in addressing welfare-fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse. As we have heard, Ceduna in South Australia has been selected as the first trial site, and I am very pleased to say that there is tremendous local support for the trial.

The government is also in advanced discussions in the East Kimberley region in WA for a trial in Kununurra. The trial will operate for 12 months and will be assessed to see if it works before any further decisions are made. The government is planning to introduce a cashless debit card trial for up to three discrete communities. These locations will be selected on the basis of high welfare dependence, high social harm indicators and also, very importantly, an openness from community leaders to participate in the trial. The trial is very much focused on reducing social harm, particularly violence directed towards women and children, and issues in relation to child neglect, which predominantly, as we have seen in many communities, is caused by welfare-fuelled alcohol and drug abuse.

The member for Brand has made some very significant and constructive comments about our government's efforts in relation to what we are doing for Indigenous Australians. As I mentioned, his comments were very gracious. I also note the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's very strong commitment to Indigenous affairs, taking the seat of government to Indigenous communities over the last two years. But I want to make the point that this trial is colourblind. It is not directed at anyone in particular; it is based on the geography and determined by the parameters I have just set out.

I particularly want to commend community leaders in Ceduna in South Australia, who have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government, agreeing to be the first trial site for the debit card. The government has been working very closely with local Ceduna leaders over the last few months, listening to their concerns and jointly designing and agreeing to a trial. On that note I want to commend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister—or to the former Prime Minister—the member for Aston, for his work in conjunction with members of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. There has been a huge amount of engagement, much discussion, much negotiation and much consideration, and it is to the parliamentary secretary's credit that this trial has been signed and is underway. I can see the member for Brand nodding in furious agreement.

Participants in the trial will receive a mainstream, everyday debit card, which will be connected to the Visa, MasterCard or EFTPOS platform. The card will be able to be used anywhere for the purchase of anything except alcohol and gambling products. Because cash will not be made available from the card, illicit substances will not be able to be purchased.

The Ceduna community agreed that 80 per cent of a person's social security payments will be placed into the recipient's debit card account. The remaining 20 per cent will be placed into the recipient's existing bank account. All working-age social security support recipients within the Ceduna region will be part of the trial and receive the card. Age pensioners, veterans and other workers may also volunteer to opt in.

I think that one of the really important markers of this trial, which perhaps demonstrates the extent to which this has been so comprehensively negotiated, is that a local authority will have the power to adjust the settings down on the card should someone apply to that authority. So, if an individual feels that they need to have access to more cash than, say, the 20 per cent designated to go into their account on a weekly basis, they can make that application, particularly if they are known to be someone who has not been using this money for the purposes of purchasing alcohol or gambling consumption, and then the settings on the card can be adjusted accordingly. Also, to support the implementation of the trial, the federal government will work with state governments and local community leaders to provide a tailored package of additional assistance.

I just want to reflect a little on the community of Ceduna and also, I guess, at this point, invite other communities to look at what is happening in Ceduna and the very proactive and positive way that they have embraced the trial. Ceduna and its surrounding region have a population of just over 4,000. The regional towns that will be captured by the card are Koonibba, Oak Valley, Yalata, Scotdesco, all further west. The region runs all the way to the Western Australian border.

I need to make this particular point. The trial has received the overwhelming support of the community. The community and the community leaders see this as an opportunity to get on top of the social problems which affect their community, and there are significant social problems. In 2013-14, presentations to the hospital emergency department due to alcohol or drug use exceeded 500, more than one per day. The Ceduna sobering-up facility had 4,667 admissions in that same period. Hospitalisations due to assault are 68 times the national average in this particular region.

The Ceduna community heads leadership group—and this is referring to a press release they put out on 5 August 2015—said this of the trial:

We want to build a future for our younger generation to aspire to and believe we cannot do this if our families are caught up in the destructive cycle of alcohol or drugs that destroys our culture, our lands and our communities.

At the heart of this reform, is a change that is being shaped specifically to meet our local needs. It has been a true collaboration to ensure that we can give our mob and our Communities every chance to create real and genuine change in their lives.

We have grasped this initiative; we have helped shape this initiative; and we are confident that this initiative is for the betterment of all people within our region.

As I mentioned, the government is also considering a trial in the East Kimberley and is in some advanced discussions with respect to rolling out the trial there. On 24 July 2015, leaders of the East Kimberley region wrote to the government in support of the trial, stating:

We acknowledge that agreeing to the East Kimberley being a trial site for the restricted debit card may seem to some a rather drastic step. However, it is our view that continuing to deliver the same programs we have delivered for the past forty years will do nothing for our people and, besides wasting more time and money, will condemn our children and future generations to a life of poverty and despair. As leaders in the East Kimberley, we cannot accept this.

In the East Kimberley region, hospitalisations due to assault are in the same range as Ceduna: 68 times the national average. So again we are seeing a community embracing this trial and embracing this debit card for the betterment of all people within the region.

I think it is very important to reiterate this: the cashless debit card is not income management. Participants in the trial can use the card anywhere and purchase anything except alcohol and gambling products and will not be able to withdraw cash with the card. The card will look and feel like a mainstream debit card and will be connected, as I mentioned, to one of the Visa, MasterCard or EFTPOS platforms. Their existing bank account and card will be used for the cash component of their welfare. What we are seeing is a certain degree of flexibility in the way in which the card is used.

Under the trial, if you are on Newstart, single with three children and live in your own home, you will have over $145 cash per week, with the remainder of your payment on the card. On a parenting payment, single with four children and living in a private rental, you will receive over $220 cash per week, with the remainder of the payment on your card. On the DSP, the    disability support pension, partnered with no children, you will receive over $85 per week, with the remainder of your payment on the card. If someone is single and on Newstart, the payment in cash is $60 per week, with the remainder of the payment on the card. What happens is that the card will work at every store except those store categories which have been switched off. I note that there has been a lot of work behind the scenes, obviously, with the payment providers to make sure that this mechanism can be delivered.

I want to reflect on some very important contributions from the likes of Professor Marcia Langton, the Indigenous academic. In The Monthly in May 2015, Marcia Langton, a renowned Indigenous leader—an Australian leader, I think it is fair to say—said this:

A woman goes to withdraw cash and is met by a line of male "relations" who threaten and intimidate her for money … Her children and other dependants will go hungry before the end of the fortnightly payment cycle … the smart card—

debit card—

approach makes good sense. It gives people the power to help themselves.

Allan Suter, the Mayor of Ceduna Council, said on ABC Radio on 5 August:

We're also very confident that the use of this card will help the few families that suffer because the responsible parents are addicted to alcohol and gaming. We see the card doing a massive amount of good.

Ian Trust, Ted Hall Junior and Des Hill, in a letter to the government from the Wunan Foundation, the Gelganyem Trust and the MG Corporation, on 24 July 2015, said this:

We acknowledge that agreeing to the East Kimberley being a trial site for the restricted debit card may seem to some a rather drastic step.

But, as I said before, it is their view that continuing to deliver the same programs as they have done over the past 40 years will not help progress their community and their region.

The card is designed to be as light a touch as possible. It will have very little impact on people if they are responsible. It will reach out to the communities to provide positive, constructive and, I think it is fair to say, lifelong change in these communities that embrace the trial. This is a very significant piece of legislation, and I commend the bill to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015, and I acknowledge the contributions which have been made by the speakers before me. I note that there is bipartisan support for the development of a debit card, and I will talk in some detail about issues which I think arise as a result of this debit card and which need to be properly understood.

My electorate, as you would know, was the subject of the intervention from the Commonwealth, and that meant imposing mandatory income management for whole slabs of the population. Indeed, for some it was very important, but for others it was an absolute insult. I think what we have to do here is understand that this particular card captures everyone. There is no way of getting out of it once you are in that category of people determined by the legislation.

What does it do? The purpose of the trial is to enable a trial of a cashless welfare card of the type recommended by the Forrest review and to determine whether reducing the amount of income support that is available for spending on alcohol, gambling and illegal drugs will reduce violence and harm in trial areas, where these measures are more effective when community bodies are involved. Of course, the government wants to encourage socially responsible behaviour. There are a number of trial areas which the House has heard about, the first one being Ceduna, with the prospect of the East Kimberley. The bill limits the number of trial areas to three, and the minister may specify an area by legislative instrument. The legislative instrument will determine which income support recipients are subject to cashless welfare arrangements in each trial area. The legislative instrument can determine a particular class of person who may not be a voluntary participant in the cashless welfare arrangements. A legislative instrument can vary the percentage of participants' payments that are restricted. The instrument can apply different percentages to trial areas and to particular classes of people within a trial area. Through a legislative instrument, the minister can authorise a community body with the major role to make case-by-case decisions about the percentage of the person's payments that is restricted. On welfare-restricted bank accounts, another legislative instrument will determine the kind of bank account the trial participant or voluntary participant must have in order to receive the restricted part of their income support payments. On the kinds of businesses blocked by those restricted debit card, there will be a further legislative instrument which will declare which types of businesses will be blocked. The instrument can do this by referring to merchant category codes or codes that identify particular businesses or point of sale terminals.

I do not think that there are many people who would argue it is not a good idea to have a debit card that people can use, but there are a number of issues that arise out of it, although I have to say that it certainly beats the BasicsCard, which was the instrument by which incomes were being managed in the Northern Territory. The BasicsCard would prevent people shopping in particular locations where particular products were sold: alcohol, tobacco and pornography. That of itself is not a bad thing, except that it meant that it was discriminatory in terms of the shopping locations. For example, at the beginning of this process you could shop at the general Woolworths store and buy, for example, running shoes or a suitcase, but you could not go around to the handbag store adjacent—which did not sell alcohol or tobacco—and buy the same suitcase or to the local sports store and buy the same shoes unless they got accepted under the BasicsCard. It took an extremely long time for the then government, the Labor government, to recognise the need to broaden the nature of the outlets that could be used for this card.

So the BasicsCard gets over that problem, and that is a good thing. But under this card, unlike income management, the trial does not allow participants to seek an exemption. So, if a person falls within a category identified as a compulsory participant, they will have their payments restricted. This happened under income management when it was broadly applied. This would inevitably mean that, regardless of your status and regardless of your history of being an employer or an employee, paying taxes, raising children and being a responsible member of the community, you will be impacted by this. You will automatically have your income debited through the debit system and have 80 per cent of your income quarantined. That is effectively what is going to happen.

I remember when the proposals were put in place for income management in the Northern Territory. I visited Ti Tree, which is a couple of hundred kilometres north of Alice Springs, and had a chat with an old chap who had worked all of his life. He had raised a family and paid taxes. He was unemployed at that particular point and was subject to income management. He was mortified. He regarded this as an insult. He had been a responsible member of the community and was well able to responsibly manage his own affairs and those of his family. He did not overindulge in alcohol and was not a gambler. Under this system this person and every person like him will be captured by this proposal, and I think that is a failing.

Additionally, there is no process for opting out. Once you are in you are caught. You can have a local committee or it can go to Centrelink and they can potentially vary the proportion of your income that is quarantined through the debit process but you cannot opt out. A very responsible person might say: 'Right, I get it. You are going to apply this to everyone, but it should not apply to me because look at what I have got. I live in a house that is well kept. I have a family who are well fed. I look after the interests of my children and my grandchildren. I do things responsibly. Why should I be subject to compulsory control of my income in the way in which you have proposed? By the way, I do have a drink from time to time just like the person who lives next door who is employed and does not have their income quarantined and is able to go to the local shop and buy a couple of takeaways, come home and act responsibly. He is not overindulging in alcohol consumption. He is being fair and reasonable to his family and his family is well looked after.' This is an issue. I believe over time we will find that the process we have put in place here will need to change.

I need to make the point here that there needs to be an independent external evaluation of this trial—not some internal mechanism. This trial needs to be externally evaluated to understand its impact upon the communities and understand its impact on alcohol consumption and gambling in those communities. Frankly, at the moment there is no proposal for that independent type of evaluation, and that is a major cause of concern.

We need a comprehensive approach alcohol and drugs. This is one element. Controlling income is important in a way to make sure that people do not misspend if they are in that category of people. If we think about this we are led to believe that all Aboriginal people encompassed by this and all people in the communities encompassed by this, Aboriginal or not, will be identified potentially as a result of this process as people who overindulge in alcohol or abuse alcohol. That is also a problem because it will stigmatise people who should not be stigmatised.

Bearing in mind the importance of addressing alcohol consumption, there has been no response from the government to the Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities: inquiry into the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communitiesreport of the committee of which I was the deputy chair. The report calls for a comprehensive response to issues to do with alcohol consumption across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across this country. It calls for tough decisions by government around a whole range of issues, including understanding the nature of poverty that exists in these communities and including understanding the need for support services in these communities.

This legislation does not provide support services. It does not provide additional resources for rehabilitation. It does not provide programs for limiting the supply of alcohol or changing the way in which alcohol is supplied and sold. The committee recommended, for example:

which was supported widely by public health advocacy organisations across this country, and—

These are key issues that are shown to work, but, for whatever reason, the government and opposition are a bit afraid to attack the whole tax dilemma because they are concerned about the impact on industry. This is not an issue to do with industry; this is an issue to do with the public health of this country and the use of alcohol and its abuse. It is important we look at this. It is important that we look at the number of alcohol outlets involved in these communities. It is important to look at banning advertising on television during sporting events. These are the sorts of recommendations in this report for which we had no response from the government. This trial of itself will not work without complementary measures and those complementary measures include consideration of the recommendations that are in this report.

It may seem trivial but for many getting access to support services through Centrelink and other agencies requires professional social workers. The government has cut those services. People are now required to ring 1800 numbers. Imagine you live in north-east Arnhem Land, East Kimberley or communities surrounding Ceduna and English is your second or third language and you are illiterate. How do you engage in getting help if at the same time you need that help the government is cutting back services in its own agencies?

These are important issues. We need to understand the social needs of communication and the cultural issues involved with communication. And there is another simple thing.

For many people in more remote communities, the problem is the basic internet. And I am now not talking about Ceduna but those communities around Ceduna or, indeed, around Kununurra who might be affected by this proposal if it gets up in Kununurra. We who live in the bush understand that often these services get interrupted. If services get interrupted, say, for a week, which happens in some cases, then it is entirely possible you will not be able to use a debit card. So you would be left without the resources that you require. And the trial does not really allow for one-off expenditures, despite what the member previously spoke about, that cannot be paid for via retail outlets: school fees, excursions and the cost of doing normal, day-to-day things.

In my view, one of the things that this trial misses out on entirely is the issue of tobacco. And given the public health issues that surround Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the importance of Closing the Gap, and I have talked about alcohol previously, one would have thought that tobacco would be a focus. The single greatest impact we could have on Aboriginal health in this country would be to bring down tobacco consumption. We make all sorts of rules in metropolitan Australia about where you can smoke and we have increased the taxation on tobacco, yet we are allowing people to purchase tobacco using these cards. That is a problem.

We need to ensure the importance of community consultation in support of the trial is genuine and comprehensive. It is always difficult and sometimes it is short-circuited, but it is important. I am pleased to be able to support the trial, and I do think this debit card is a good idea. But there is a range of ideas which have not been properly contemplated that will come back to bite us.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. The federal government is building a strong, prosperous and sustainable economy for a safe and secure Australia. Since coming to office in September 2013, more than 335,000 jobs have been created. This bill is part of the government's plan for a sustainable economy for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The bill will introduce a cashless debit card trial for up to three discrete communities across Australia, limited to 10,000 people. Welfare reform is critical if we are to ensure that all Australians have the opportunity to reach their potential. We have to try something, because clearly what we are doing in Australia with respect to welfare is not working, particularly in parts of my electorate in Durack.

Let me be very clear about this: this is only a trial; it is not necessarily the final result but it clearly is a good start. The trial locations will be chosen on the basis of high welfare dependence for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, high social harm indicators and an openness from community leaders to participating in the trial. As I said before, what we have been doing so far is not working and it clearly is time to consider alternatives for a more sustainable economy, for a better Australia, for all Australians. The debit card trial is for up to three discrete communities, with locations chosen on the basis of high-welfare dependence and high social harm indicators, and an openness from community leaders to participating in the trial. If this bill is passed, the trial will operate for 12 months only.

The trial is aimed at reducing the welfare-fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse, which plagues some Australian communities—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Age pensioners and workers may volunteer to participate in the trial. The government has been working closely with communities on the ground on designing the proposed trial. Community leaders in Ceduna and the Kimberley region helped design this proposal, and Ceduna has recently signed an agreement to be the first trial site for the cashless debit card. Kununurra, which is in my electorate, together with the rest of the Kimberley are also considering participating in this trial.

Participants will receive an everyday debit card, which will be compatible with EFTPOS. This card will be able to be used anywhere except for the purchase of alcohol and for gambling. Furthermore, illicit substances will not be able to be purchased as there will be a limited amount of cash available from the card. The hope is that, because there will be a limited amount of cash, the opportunity to buy illicit substances will be limited. This side of the chamber is compassionate and believes in opening arms and lending a hand when necessary. I am confident those on the other side will also see the benefit of the trial of this cashless debit card.

This bill aims to reduce social harm, especially domestic violence against women and children caused by welfare-fuelled alcohol and other drug abuse. If passed, the trial would be independently evaluated. It is not set in stone that this bill will become permanent legislation, but I have high hopes that this will be successful and expanded to further sites around Australia, not just in regional Australia but in more urbanised areas.

Community leaders from around Australia have commended the proposal, illustrating their support in addressing issues in their communities. This is a consultative government. I have had a number of constituents and community leaders contact my office expressing their support for this bill, knowing that this will go towards reducing domestic violence and ensuring welfare recipients do not spend their government-provided income on alcohol, drugs or gambling.

I had the pleasure of meeting with Ian Trust, executive chairman of the Wunan Foundation, representatives from the MG Corporation and the Gelgangem trust together with then Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Kununurra in my electorate last month. These organisations all commended the government on the proposal for the debit card trial and it was an incredibly positive meeting. This is building on the many meetings that have been held in my electorate by the Hon. Alan Tudge, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. I congratulate him on the work that he has done to bring this bill to the House.

I am pleased to say that the government and I support this bill because I believe it will make rural, regional and remote towns in Durack safer and, in time, more prosperous. It will create a better environment for families, locals and tourists alike to live and visit. This government's vision is for kids to go to school, parents to go to work and the family home to be safer, and I truly believe that this bill is one step closer to achieving the vision.

I believe in the party's core values of rights and freedoms of all people and equal opportunities for all Australians. I believe in supporting those who need it most. However, the current welfare system is not sustainable. We as a country cannot continue under the current rules or else our children and their children will be left a massive debt. This bill is not only about making our communities safer but it is about restoring faith in the welfare system and ensuring those who are on welfare spend it on what they need and what their family needs but not on things like alcohol, gambling and drugs.

I am pleased the Ceduna community agreed that 80 per cent of a person's social security payments will be placed into the recipient's debit card account and the remaining 20 per cent will be put into the recipient's existing bank account allowing for cash withdrawals. The cashless debit card would work at every store except those store categories which have been switched off. This includes liquor stores and gambling outlets. In the fraction of multipurpose stores, there would be a compliance element allowing people to purchase food goods only. Participants will benefit from advanced banking technologies, which include a range of online budgeting options. Participants can set daily spending limits, maximum transaction values and a maximum number of transactions per day—of course this is only an option and not mandatory.

As I said at the start of the speech, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 is only a trial and is not set in concrete. I fully acknowledge that there are some who will not agree that it will work and acknowledge that there are many potential pitfalls but I sincerely think that it is time for us to try this type of initiative. The bill will ensure welfare recipients spend their money on essentials and will minimise allowance for alcohol, drugs and gambling. It has been welcomed by leaders in my electorate of Durack and throughout towns such as Ceduna as I mentioned earlier.

The bill aims to reduce domestic violence and improve family life caused by welfare fuelled alcohol and drug abuse. As a federal member of an electorate which has some of the most remote towns in Australia, I simply cannot sit by and do nothing so therefore I am clearly very highly supportive of this bill. This government has inherited a massive financial burden and we need a sustainable and fair welfare system which does not lose faith in the Australian people.

I, like the member for Lingiari, am a member of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs. We recently completed our report on alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities. There are some excellent recommendations contained within that report and many of those recommendations need to be considered very clearly and should be put hand in hand with this bill. I encourage the government and my colleagues to look very carefully at those recommendations. But, in the meantime, I sincerely commend this bill to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. In the 26 years, 25 years or whatever it was since I was the responsible minister in Queensland, all I have ever seen is an effort to suppress the symptoms. It is really like we just want to make sure that nobody sees how bad it is. We do not actually want to do anything to fix up the problem; we just want to make sure that nobody sees the problem; that is really what we are doing here.

Andrew Forrest would be one of the Australians who I most admire. His neighbouring mining entrepreneur—I am not in the business of running people down—said, 'Until Australians are prepared to work for $320 a week then I simply have to get my workers from overseas.' On a sharp contrast, Forrest trained up 2,000 First Australians—some cannot read or write much at all and some cannot even speak English properly—and he still had 600 the last time I was there on his employment rolls. If a person does not turn up for work—people that are not used to working do this—he has a team of five people that go around and see them and coax them and encourage them to come to work. They do not just give up on them and forget about them and sack them. It is a really remarkable achievement.

When we get down to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015, I think a blanket approach of doing this is just absolutely not where we want to be going. Let us take the AMP, the Alcohol Management Program as it was delightfully called. Clarence Waldron was a long-time chairman at Doomadgee. I thought a confrontation between Clarence Waldron and a state government official was so good that I put it in my—should I be modest—bestselling history book. He said to the state government official, 'You do not come here and say what is what and that is that. This is my land.' And that is the way it should be. God bless Clarence Waldron.

There are do-gooders like Mr Fitzgerald, who gave us a real good touch-up in the state parliament and did not capture the person who was at the heart of the police corruption. We had police corruption, and this government very courageously went ahead and tried to weed it out, and all we did was destroy ourselves with the help of that particular person.

Mr Fitzgerald also did an inquiry into what is wrong in the Aboriginal communities and basically said, 'They are drinking too much,' and that the answer was to ban alcohol. So the Queensland ALP government went out and banned alcohol. I was with the honourable member, who is now very prominent in the Northern Territory, and I said, 'You'd be very pleased with the ban on alcohol,' and he released a string of obscenities, because everyone knew what was going to happen: they were simply going to leave the communities where alcohol was banned. These people are alcoholics; you cannot take alcohol away from an alcoholic. So they all ended up in places like Mount Isa, Darwin, Alice Springs, Cairns and Mareeba. We simply moved the problem from over here to over here, where there were highly respectable people of First Australian descent, who now have a terrible name thanks to the people—the no-hoper crowd—that were forced out of their communities by the AMP plan. What a wonderful plan! It was not very long before resourceful people figured out a way to ferment alcohol. I was with certain people on Mornington Island, where alcohol is banned, two years after the ban and I said: 'Those two people are drunk. How can they be drunk when there is an alcohol ban here?' And they said, 'They make the brew.' I could argue that there are 11 cases of deaths from the brew. You have no quality controls over how much alcohol, which can poison you, goes into the brew, and there are certain other health problems related to it. What we are saying here is that we go in with a blanket that is not a solution to the problem but suppresses the symptoms. When I was minister, every day of my life I said: 'Do not see the problem. Just work out the solutions and work towards the solutions.'

I answered a telephone call from a young man who got off his backside in a First Australian community and got two trucks working for one of the local mines and did very well for himself. He asked if he could take up an area of land on the community with a view to getting cattle. He is in the local football team, and I knew him well. He came to see me when I was in town and said: 'I've got one of those blocks. I've got fences. I've got yards. I've got waters. I've even got a homestead. The only thing I haven't got is cattle.' I said, 'Have you been to the banks?' He said, 'Of course I've been to the banks,' because he had already borrowed money for his trucks and that. I said, 'What did they say?' He said, 'They won't loan me any money unless they've got the security of a mortgage.' I said: 'It's got nothing to do with your being First Australian—that applies to everybody. Banks want security; you can't have them loaning out money without security. Have you been to the lands department to see if you can get a lease?' He said, 'They said there is no such thing as a lease on any blackfella land.' I said, 'Sadly, that's true.' He said, 'I thought your legislation allowed that.' I said: 'Yes, that is my legislation, and we issued pretty close to 800 title deeds in Queensland. They say it can't be done, that it's very difficult and very complicated, but it wasn't too complicated for us. We got 800 out in the space of about 3½ years.'

Once you have got a title deed, it says that you own that piece of land. Then you can borrow money to buy cattle, to build a service station, to build a takeaway food place or to build a pharmacy. If your daughter is away studying pharmacy at university, when she comes home you can set her up in a pharmacy and we can have a business in our community called a pharmacy. But all these things cannot happen unless there is a golden item called a title deed.

If the Anglos got ahead of the rest of the world, it was because the Americans, in the 1600s, had private ownership. The English, in 1270, had issued freehold titles under an act called Quia Emptores, which followed not all that long after Magna Carta. We decided that individuals should own that land; that it should not be some sort of community ownership or feudal ownership or family ownership or any of those things, and that those who were prepared to work hard and live on that land and love it and look after it should own it, not some community ownership arrangement, which was tried in a place called Russia and in a place called China. The French threw the feudal system out, I think, in 1788 or around about then—1789. Why did the Americans and the British skip ahead of the rest of the world? I would say it was because they had an item called private ownership of land. The great ethno-anthropologist Robert Ardrey wrote some very good books—in fact, The Territorial Imperative is something that has worked its way into the English language from when he wrote about these things. If my constituent could get a title deed then we would have cattle there.

Once again I have let the parliament down. I meant to bring down a map of Australia that shows Cape York Peninsula in red and Victoria in red, and they are both the same size—almost identical in size—but there is a big difference between the two places. One place, the Cape York Peninsula, has a 70-inch rainfall.

Victoria has around a 30-inch rainfall. Cape York Peninsula, where the south-east trade winds meet the north-west monsoons, has a 70-inch rainfall. Cape York Peninsula has 154,000 head of cattle, and Victoria has 4½ million head of cattle. What is going on here? Why has one place got 4½ million head of cattle and the other place does not? You might say, 'Yes. Well, it only rains for one part of the year.' But hold on a minute. Half of Victoria is under grain and sheep, so it is not available, and you have got the little matter of the Snowy Mountains there too. You do not run many cattle up on the Snowy Mountains. So what is going on here?

What is going on here is no title deeds. I have spoken about this again and again in this place for the 21 years that I have been here. I have pleaded with state government after state government, and in 26 years probably a dozen or two dozen title deeds have been issued in the state of Queensland. Yet in the 3½ years before that Eric Laws, the head of department, and the late Lester Rosendale were able to get out nearly 800 title deeds. Let me also pay great tribute to Mal Brough in this place. As soon as Mal was appointed minister he went straight at it as fast as he could go to try to get title deeds issued to the people of the Northern Territory. He did not have control over the states, but he could at least do it in the Northern Territory. He might have made some mistakes and unfortunately his tenure was cut short by a loss of government, and that was a great tragedy for all of Australia.

If the top third of Australia were a separate continent, a separate country, it would be one of the wettest places on Earth—most certainly north Queensland would be one of the wettest countries on Earth. We are not short of water. You could allow us to use that water. This place and the Queensland parliament have not allowed us to use that water. There has hardly been a single water licence issued in 26 years. There has hardly been a title deed issued to the first Australians in 26 years.

When I was minister I would visit the Torres Strait probably once a fortnight, sometimes even a bit more than that. So a significant portion of my life was spent up there. I cannot remember having a meal in the Torres Strait that did not consist of Indigenous food—yam, taro, sweet potatoes, mangoes, bananas, coconut and, of course, fish, crayfish, crabs, dugong and turtle. All of the food was local Indigenous food. Some 12 years after we had lost government in Queensland I went up to the Torres Strait. We had eight meals up there with a government committee of inquiry, and I did not touch a single skerrick of Indigenous food. When we went to Joey Mosby's island—and Joey Mosby and I did not see eye to eye when I was minister—Joey screamed from the back, 'They're killing our people. They've closed down all our market gardens. They will not allow us to fish.' And proof of that was the fact that I was eating non-Indigenous food the whole time I was up there.

These people are reduced to having to pay out of their welfare payments to try to buy fresh fruit and vegetables in the Torres Strait or at Mornington Island and Doomadgee. I put on public record here once again that I asked every councillor at Doomadgee and every councillor at Mornington Island whether they had close relatives dying of diabetes, and every one of them said, 'Yes. Yes, Bobby. I have two or three relatives dying of diabetes.' The government must acknowledge that there is a failure out there and that something has got to be done about it. The first thing you do about it is use your title deeds and allow them to use that water for irrigation, and get off their backs in the Torres Strait and let them go back to the market gardens and let them have access to the seas, which they have had for 20,000 years until we came along and took it from them.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In common with people I have heard speak tonight, I rise to speak in favour of what to me is a common sense bill, the Social Service Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill. It is a trial, and for a very good reason. I listened to the member for Lingiari, and if the things he talked about need looking at then I hope that this trial will deal with them. But in saying that I support this bill, I am not singling out any particular section of people. I think that this is a good trial to be run by the Australian social services in general. I think it is a sensible way to address social harm that is hitting our communities as people, without doubt, struggle with alcohol and drug addictions, gambling problems and domestic violence.

Some of the problem is that the welfare system has enabled people to, in a sense, take advantage of the system to stay on dangerous substances. I think the new debit card can act as a safeguard, a way to help locals struggling to make the right choices about how to use their money. Obviously it can sound a little high and mighty, it can sound a little as though we are sitting and looking down on people, telling them how to live their lives, but we are responsible for the nation's character, in a sense. I think we are certainly responsible for the spending of the nation's tax dollars, and I think we owe it to the people concerned, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the nation, to do something in a very practical sense to deal with the problem.

I think it will ensure safer communities and it will ensure that people have an opportunity to get out of a cycle, whether they want to or not. It is backed by reviews and it is backed by research that does recommend that a cashless debit card restricting the sale of alcohol, drugs and gambling is a good thing.

The debit card trial is to run for 12 months in the community of Ceduna in the south-west of South Australia. I have been there and I do not see it as a community very different to a lot of communities around Australia. I have no doubt that—in fact, I know—we have the same issues in my electorate of Calare. Domestic violence is not peculiar to any part of Australia and it is caused, in the large part, by drug and alcohol abuse—it is no excuse for it, but it is a reason for it. Not for one second would I say that there is any excuse for those things. I say to the people of Ceduna: we are with you and we hope that by trialling it in your community not only you but the whole nation can be better off.

The recipients will receive a mainstream debit card which will be connected to Visa, MasterCard or the EFTPOS system. It excludes alcohol and gambling products. It is obviously not a cash card. Eighty per cent of a person's social security payment will be placed onto their card and the remainder will go into their bank account.

I think this is a trial for a common sense measure that will help individuals to use their money for the good of their family and for the good of society generally. I have always said that if a society has a problem like this the whole nation suffers for it. We all do. The effects are huge. The decision—or the non-decision—of an individual to continue their addiction impacts their family, their community and, certainly, the nation as a whole. We are all the poorer for it. Yes, kids go hungry if their parent or parents have spent their payment on alcohol or whatever. They will wait until the next fortnightly payment to buy those essentials, as their addictions make it difficult—and, in some cases, impossible—to put their child's needs first. Anything—and I mean anything—which improves the lot of children, whether it is in remote communities, or in Sydney or in my electorate of Calare, I think must be something that we have to take a common sense, practical approach to.

As everybody has said, this is a trial. If there are problems—and I am sure that some will come out—whether they are ones the member for Lingiari referred to or ones which others referred to, then let's look at how we can solve them. I think that not to try this is to deny that the problem exists, to deny the level of domestic violence and to deny the way some children in Australia have to survive—and I used to be part of a portfolio that looked at this, and it is not something that we would be proud of. I think that it is anything which can make a difference to those things—I am not going to go on any longer, Deputy Speaker. I just want to say that I do not believe that as a parliament, as a government and as a people we can ignore it and not do everything we can to deal with those issues. I am totally behind the fact that we are going to trial something which must be for the good of all Australians.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen a lot of rough and tumble in this House in the last 24 hours—a lot of politicking and personalities coming to the fore of the political discussion. But I rise today to make a contribution on a matter before this House which is deadly serious. The bill before us is something that raises incredibly complex questions. Watching the discussion from back in my office, what I actually saw was a lot of people in this parliament who are trying to make a good contribution—a real contribution—that grapples with some tremendously difficult ethical, legal and practical questions, specifically in relation to the situation we see of alcohol and gambling abuse in remote and rural communities around this country, and in particular how that problem affects Indigenous Australians.

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 would institute a system that would essentially limit the amount of income that people who live in specific communities around Australia can spend on alcohol and gambling. The first community would be Ceduna in South Australia. If the legislation passes the parliament that trial would begin next year and it would last for an additional year.

The genesis of this idea really comes from the report that was commissioned by the Abbott government, which requested that Andrew Forrest—whom many would know is a business leader in Australia—conduct a review of employment, specifically in its relation to Indigenous Australians. I am not sure of this person's expertise in Indigenous policy generally, but he has some runs on the board in terms of employment. He did produce a report that had a lot of ideas that were incredibly wide-ranging in scope. One of them has been picked up in the bill before us. Essentially, the scheme that the government is proposing would see people who are living in these specific communities and who are on working age payments—things like Newstart and disability support or carer pensions—be issued with a debit card that could not be used to purchase alcohol and gambling products. What the bill proposes is that 80 per cent of regular payments for people who are on regular payments, and 100 per cent of lump sum payments, would be put into this specific card that limits the use of the money.

I want to make it really plain to those listening how significant what is being proposed in this bill is. What the government is proposing is that people, just by virtue of living in this specific town, will have their right to spend their income as they choose curtailed in some way and that those rules would not be applied to other Australians. I think that it is absolutely incumbent on us to be upfront about what a morass of ethical issues is raised by the legislation before us—basic questions like: on what basis can government decide that one community is different to another?

I believe that social security is the right of Australians, living in a prosperous country as they do. But what type of principles should we be applying to the idea that government can put conditions on the payments that people receive? I think that right at the heart of the complexity of this issue is: what are the long-term impacts of policies which essentially take away people's choice? We know that a lot of the issues of Indigenous disadvantage that we see around Australia at their very heart lie in a place of powerlessness, so we really need to consider very carefully the types of policies that may reinforce these ideas.

Labor is not going to reject this bill on the basis of the issues that I have outlined and there are some very good reasons for that, which I will explain. But we would like to have a Senate inquiry into the bill. I think that is key, because there are some real missing pieces to the argument that have been put forward by the coalition here.

One specific and very obvious issue with the legislation before the House is that it attempts to manage alcohol and gambling, which are addictive diseases, by taking away people's right to use their income for these reasons but it has made no specific guarantees about service provision to help people come off those addictions. Coming off an alcohol addiction cannot be managed by an ordinary family. It would be incredibly unfair for us to put in place a scheme that will have that impact without putting in place additional supports for people who will be most affected. People need services to kick these habits and Labor wants to understand the specifics of what will be provided to these communities.

There are many other issues that I think need firsthand, on-the-record representations from the affected communities put into the public realm and discussed in the interests of this parliament because, as I say, some of the things that this bill proposes, frankly, are pretty radical. One of the specifics of this scheme in how it mainly differs from the income management approach that Labor used when in government is that this scheme is not put in place by triggers. The Labor scheme had a series of indicators that you had to reach before you went into an income management scheme. The entire town of Ceduna will be placed under income management. Everyone who receives a government payment of the type that I have described will be captured. Of course, we need to provide the people who will be affected an appropriate, formal opportunity to put their view.

I note that the minister responsible for this area has visited the communities and I applaud him for that. He has spent time talking to community leaders. But I do not think that is good enough. We need to hear more and it needs to be on the public record.

Another point I would just make is that the bill by its name, in every aspect, is a trial. It will last for a year in Ceduna. Another critical missing piece of the puzzle here is how this trial will be evaluated. Deputy Speaker, you and I both know that there are different techniques you can use to evaluate trials and, depending on what outcome you want to see, you can design a process around that. That is not what we want to see. This is a serious policy proposal and we want to understand exactly how it will be evaluated and how the process will fall out as the trial continues.

There are significant reasons for us to consider the merits in this bill. I want to talk about some of the reasons why I think we need to look at what would otherwise be really untenable policies because of the severity of the situation that we are dealing with in some of these communities. I have not visited Ceduna, so I cannot profess at all to be well acquainted with the issues facing that community. But I have lived in a community that faces similar issues. A few years ago I spent nine months living in north-east Arnhem Land, in a small town that sits about halfway between Cairns and Darwin. It is one of the most unbelievably beautiful parts of the country. In terms of the physical environment the beautiful Top End was really paradise. It is surrounded by incredible Indigenous communities which are living quite in concert with the way that their ancestors have lived for thousands and thousands of years.

These are people who communicate with one another in their Indigenous languages. For many, English is their fifth or sixth language, something I think is not known to nearly enough Australians. The Top End is a beautiful place, but there are communities which are experiencing this incredible blight of violence. In many communities around the country it is absolutely of crisis proportions. It is real, vicious and, frankly, unimaginable to anyone who has not seen it up close.

While I lived in that part of Australia my partner, who was working as a doctor at the time, worked in the hospital that services all of the acute medical needs of the surrounding communities. It was, honestly, a very difficult personal experience seeing someone, day in and day out, coming home and having to manage incredible acts of violence in their everyday work, working in that hospital. They were extraordinary acts of violence. I will not go through the detail for those present in the House because it would not be appropriate. Things were happening in these communities that you would not hear of in many other parts of the country.

I want to make the point that it was not just Aboriginal people who were involved in these violent acts. That was not the source of the problem. It was a community that had been frayed and then ripped because of alcohol, gambling and related activities.

We hear a lot of good talk and positive words in this House about the commitment to tackling domestic violence. But if we are serious about this then the place that we have to begin is in these remote and rural communities. We know that Aboriginal women in this country are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised for domestic violence than non-Aboriginal women. So if we are looking for the epicentre of this crisis, this is where we will find it. While living in this incredible part of the country my partner and I saw that the violence that was so affecting the life of people living in these communities was joined by a common thread and that common thread was alcohol.

I want to make it really clear how pervasive the effects of this problem is in these communities and, without having visited them, I think a lot of well-meaning people would really question the need for legislation such as this. They would argue the ethical points and they would be right to raise issues. Without having visited this community I probably would have shared a lot of those concerns but, having seen it up close, it is really very problematic. I see this bill very much not as taking control away from those communities but as giving it back, because what we are saying is that the people who live in those communities have the right to live a life without violence and without fear of violence.

The theme of control, when we are talking about policies that so affect Aboriginal people, is a very important one, because we know that there is a history here of governments intervening without the willingness and cooperation of Aboriginal people. In the vast majority of instances when that has occurred, the policies have not worked. But what is essential for people at home who are interested in this policy area to understand is that this legislation—this notion, this concept—is coming to this parliament at the request of the leaders of this community. What we have here is a community of people who see a problem and have identified a solution that they want to trial because of the pervasiveness of this hideous issue, and they have brought it to this parliament. So I say to other political parties who may have a different emphasis on this issue: we have before us a united group of largely Indigenous—but not all Indigenous—leaders who are saying that this is a major problem, they want it to stop and this is the solution. What message does it send to these communities if the people in this parliament say, 'Thanks, but no thanks'? As members of parliament, one of the core things that we can do to improve Indigenous policy in this country is to provide people with a voice and then listen to them. That is very much what I see that we are doing in the bill before us. In various parts around Australia, when we provide these communities with the power to drive policy within their own community, we see some pretty promising results—in an area where, let us be frank, there is not a lot of promise to discuss.

One of the really important things about Indigenous policy that I have learnt in my life is that we cannot group Aboriginal people together in one collective. That is completely inaccurate, because Aboriginal people all over the country have wildly different life experiences and very different sets of needs and issues and opportunities and gifts to give the rest of the Australian community. We absolutely see that in the work that I do locally with Indigenous people. It is a completely different policy situation to the one that I experienced where I was up north. We have to listen to the leaders of these communities, because they are the ones that are on the ground and they are the ones that understand the specifics of their situation and the solutions to it. We see, for example, in the Cape York community not exactly the same time of trial, but Indigenous leaders are the ones who are trying to work with their communities to improve behaviour. In those trials, we see significantly more success than we find in many alternative policy approaches.

I trust that the people involved in putting forward this legislation have come to it with really the best intentions, because, for all of the very difficult debates that we have across the chamber about most areas of public policy, when it comes to issues like this one we usually find a lot of common ground across the chamber. We have heard that in the speeches. We have heard some extremely powerful speeches from those on the other side about the concerns that they have, and I respect and acknowledge their willingness to try to tackle these issues. It is an incredibly complex area, a very complex piece of legislation, but one that deserves a proper look by a Senate committee. If the important issues and concerns that have been resolved by people on this side of the House are worked through, through that process, then I believe this is something that we should trial. I say that because we are hearing clear indications from the Indigenous leaders and the other leaders in these communities that this is what the community wants and needs.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. This bill is legislation to enable a cashless debit card to be trialled in various locations around Australia. One of the reasons I am speaking tonight is that I have been quite heavily involved in this process. We have heard some contributions in this place over the last number of hours about this. I would just like to correct a few of the misconceptions that we have heard. I heard the member for Blair, I think, earlier on saying that he felt it was inappropriate if someone could not take their kids to the movies or pay for a school excursion or the like. That is exactly right. But this card would look just like anyone else's credit card. There would have to be some changes made. I am sure that in Ceduna they are looking at putting a card reader or an EFTPOS reader in the local schools and the like. There is nothing that you cannot do with this cashless card that anyone who carries a Visa card or MasterCard or something like that can do now, except you cannot use this card to get cash out of an ATM or to purchase alcohol or in a gambling facility. That is all that you cannot do with this card.

In the trial—certainly on the occasions that I have been involved in negotiations, and I will talk about that in a minute—possibly 20 per cent of the total welfare cheque would be in cash, which would enable people to go to the pub and have a beer or have a bet on the horses on a Saturday afternoon. It is my understanding, that, if you have a couple of people with three or four children of school age, their fortnightly cheque from Centrelink is about $1,700 or $1,800. If we allow 20 per cent cash, that is over $300 a fortnight that can be spent on alcohol and gambling. That still allows $1,400 or $1,500 attached to the card for purchasing essential services. That can be used at the supermarket, a clothing store or the service station to buy petrol. Without much change you could put that at the gate of the local footy club so you could tap your card and take your kids to the footy or whatever.

I think that is important to remember. The only way that this card will change the way you are living your life is if you are spending more than you should on alcohol and gambling. The sad reality is that, for many people who have these addictions—and probably more than alcohol; in many of my towns it is now methamphetamine, cannabis and the other mixture that is known as hillbilly heroin—if they are using all their cash on that, it is not unreasonable to have these restrictions in place.

We are a great country. If you are down on your luck and you find yourself unemployed, the rest of the country will pitch in and help you out with an allowance so that you can live your life with some dignity. If you have children and you find yourself in that situation, the rest of the community through the government chips in and gives you cash so that your children can go to school with food, be clothed and have some dignity and a chance at an education. You do not have the right to take all of that money and use it to feed an addiction to poker machines, online gambling, alcohol or illicit drugs. If we are talking about the rights of people, the rights of the people that should be of primary interest to us are those of the children—the children who are not old enough to make that decision, who find themselves in a home where the money that is intended to go for their welfare is used for other things.

I want to speak about Moree because Moree is a town in my electorate. I will say here tonight that, in discussions with Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge, the member for Aston, I thought Moree would be a good town for this trial. It was not because I thought Moree was a downtrodden community. It was not because I thought Moree was not a community with spirit and heart. That was the reason I thought Moree would be a good choice. The other reason was that the recipients of welfare in Moree are about fifty-fifty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. The population is about 25 per cent Aboriginal and 75 per cent non-Aboriginal, but the welfare recipients are about fifty-fifty. I do not believe that we should have a welfare measure that just identifies and targets Aboriginal people on their own. The previous speaker spoke about this as if this were a card just for Aboriginal people, and maybe that was an oversight. This is a welfare card for those people who are on welfare.

I went to Moree with Parliamentary Secretary Tudge, and we had some discussions with community leaders, with some elders in the community and with some service providers and asked permission to do some investigations as to whether the community of Moree would be interested in hosting this trial. Initially we got a very positive response and, as a result of that, Parliamentary Secretary Tudge tasked the local officers from Prime Minister and cabinet to do further community consultation. As can sometimes happen in a country town, the rumour mill ran riot. A lot of misinformation was spread around: a lot of thought that this was targeting the Aboriginal community and a lot of thought that this was a racist action. What was also interesting and probably telling was that there was quite strong lobbying from the owners of the hotels in the town. To me, that was clearly an indication of why it would have been good to do a trial there. But right from the start we said that we would not impose this card on a community that did not want to be part of the trial. As a result of the groundswell of concern about this card, we decided to withdraw Moree from that trial. I think that is a lost opportunity and I feel that, in the eight years that I have represented these communities—I believe that, after Lingiari in the Northern Territory, I represent more Aboriginal people in this place than anyone else. It is a job that I take very seriously, and I have a lot of pride in that job.

I have a lot of western towns that have issues with welfare with non-Indigenous and Indigenous people. So I think it is a lost opportunity, but I can say that, when I was in Ceduna some months ago and was part of the Indigenous affairs committee of this parliament, meeting with community elders, the local council and service providers in Ceduna, I was very impressed with the resolve of that community. I cannot remember the names of these people that I met, but community members, members of the working party and identified leaders in that area were very resolute in doing something to help their community. I was absolutely horrified on driving around the edge of Ceduna. The issue there is that there are dry communities away from Ceduna, out in the more remote areas, and many of the people from those areas come to Ceduna to drink.

I witnessed people lying out, sleeping rough in the grass. It was winter time; it was showery and miserable weather, and citizens of Australia in 2015 were sleeping on the ground—not a tarpaulin and not a bit of cover. They were lying on the grass, exposed. The sobering-up facilities in that town are full to capacity every night, and others have to take their chances elsewhere. So there is a great need. Substance abuse and gambling are a huge scourge in these more remote towns.

In my part of the world, methamphetamine is causing a great amount of havoc. But on a positive note, in a couple of weeks I have been asked to represent the minister and officially open the rehabilitation centre in Moree, that the federal government has funded through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It has been staffed, and has a capacity of 18 people—14 men and four women. At the moment I think we have four clients, but as that facility gets up to speed it will provide a great service.

One of the things with people who are battling addiction is that when they make that decision to seek help, to step off the treadmill they have found themselves on, it is vitally important that we have facilities and professional people that can be there on the spot to help them. We have to do more. There is a glaring gap in detoxification facilities. At the moment in my area, many people, if they have to go to detoxification, have to go to Lismore from the north of the state or to Orange if they are west of the Central West. We need to do more, and I know my state colleague, the member for Dubbo, Deputy Premier of New South Wales, Troy Grant, has made some announcements in this space, and we will see where that goes.

I do support this trial. I do recognise that it is a trial and I do welcome scrutiny that may follow this trial. But I will say this: if this trial has positive results I believe we need to have the courage and conviction to roll this out across other communities, to allow people to live their lives with dignity and to allow children to be protected from living in a house where the entire income is spent on alcohol, gambling and illicit substances. We can do something positive. People say to me, 'You've got to help our communities. You've got to help these children that are victims of drugs and alcohol and gambling.' When the time comes and someone offers a suggestion we need to make sure that we as step up a community. It cannot just be the government and it cannot just be the police; it has to be everyone at all levels of government and community. When the time comes we need people to step up and to do what is the right thing. I strongly support this legislation.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 is a very significant and substantial piece of legislation, and I am very pleased to be able to add my support to it in the parliament this evening. As the Prime Minister said in question time today, we are a nation with a generous social safety net that has been afforded by our wealth over the decades, and that is entirely appropriate. But it is very important that that social safety net operates in a manner which helps people address the difficulties they are facing and does not entrench, or in some cases make worse, those problems. Any mature government needs to be able to confront the very difficult issues in this area honestly, and that is what this legislation does.

It is a credit to its author, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who I think has done a tremendous job in putting this important legislation together. If something is not working, you have to be able and willing to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. You cannot just repeat the problems of the past because they are the way things are. You have to be prepared to confront difficult problems honestly, and I believe the measures contained in this legislation have the potential to be a reform in the welfare space not only in Ceduna, where the initial trial will occur, but more broadly in Australia. I believe there is also the potential for this to be a model adopted in other nations around the world.

The problem is that in many communities in Australia we have embedded social problems, most typically represented by endemic levels of alcoholism. We have cycles where families are horribly affected by that alcoholism. We have children who grow up in that environment and we have communities that are devastated by that issue. It is a problem that has gone on for decades, and it is intergenerational. There is no denying it. There is no pretending it is not the case, and it is something which now needs to be acted upon. That is what this legislation does. This legislation lies within the broader social services portfolio and the social welfare system more generally, and I do believe that it is appropriate for us to have a general social safety net. But it is so important that that system works as effectively as it can for the people of Australia and indeed for the people who receive those benefits. There is a lot of unfinished business in this area.

In the 2014-15 budget, the budget forecast final federal spending of about $420 billion, but about $55 billion of that is GST payments, which automatically go through to the states. If you take that amount out, you are left with about $365 billion of spending. Of that $365 billion of spending, $149 billion is in social security and welfare. That is 41 per cent of all federal government spending. Let me just repeat that: 41 per cent of all federal government spending. It is absolutely incumbent on us to make sure that that spending is as effective and as helpful as possible.

Social security spending increased by 80 per cent in a decade, from $83 billion to $149 billion. It is about six times what we spend on defence; it is about 35 times what we spend on immigration; it is about 150 times what we spend on the ABC; and it is about 800 times what we spend on tourism. It is an extremely large amount, and that just underscores the need to take a thoughtful, strategic, intelligent approach to this area to make sure that we are investing money wisely, that we are spending that money to help people and that we are not doing things that embed cycles of dependence and intergenerational welfare.

As you know, Deputy Speaker, this card seeks to address substantial community problems, specifically as they pertain to alcoholism and gambling. The card will, of course, be launched in Ceduna, and it will be launched with the very wide embrace of the Ceduna community. It is important just to understand the gravity of the problem of alcoholism that we see in that town. There are about 4,400 people who live in Ceduna—4,425. In 2013-14, there were 4,667 admissions to the sobering-up facility in that town, so that is more than one admission per person on average across the year. That is quite a startling statistic. Imagine if that same ratio were the case in major towns and cities. It would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands or millions of admissions to a sobering-up facility. Hospitalisations due to assault in Ceduna are 68 times the national average—68 times the national average—so something in Ceduna is going terribly wrong; let us be frank. And Ceduna is not the only place in the nation where this is the case.

To its credit, the District Council of Ceduna has been quite forward-leaning on this issue and has really reached out to the federal government and sought its involvement to address this problem. In the thoughtful submission that the District Council of Ceduna put to the Senate inquiry on this matter, it lists many, many measures that that community has put in place over the years to try to address the problem of endemic alcoholism. It talks about the implementation of dry zones in the town, an alcohol management plan, more CCTV monitoring, opening a youth centre and increasing education programs, a youth audit study, more sport and recreation programs, the development of a transitional accommodation facility to provide safe short-term accommodation for transient visitors and people affected by alcoholism, lots of education programs and lots of restrictions on the availability of alcohol. It actually says 'a series of restrictions on the availability of alcohol—too numerous to mention'. So it is very clear that the people of Ceduna, led by their district council, have really, frankly, addressed this problem and sought to do something about it.

But the statistics, the awful human statistics which I mentioned to you before, the incidence of assault and the extraordinary rate of people being admitted to the sobering-up facility, say that it is not working. It is not working. What do you do when you have an intractable problem and attempts to fix the problem are not working? You try something else. You tackle the problem honestly, and you are willing to make decisions that, on their face, might be quite difficult but are required if you really want serious reform. Again, it is to the credit of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister that he has led this process so well.

The District Council of Ceduna, in their submission, say:

Most other potential steps to improve this intractable problem have been tried or implemented.

…   …   …

The best option not yet tried for restricting the availability of drugs, gambling funds and alcohol is clearly the restriction of cash for those who are on benefits. It is clear that many sufferers of alcoholism are on welfare benefits partly because of their illness. Coupled with the steps already implemented we believe that the trial together with the appropriate support measures will help immensely.

So there is a very, very high level of community support for this program.

Let us talk about the details and make sure that we are clear on what this is and, importantly, what it is not. As my colleague mentioned earlier, this is a system that applies to people on a broad range of social security benefits in the town of Ceduna. It is of course not based on whether someone is Indigenous or their ethnicity or anything of that nature; it is simply based on whether they are receiving one of a wide range of different social benefits. How it works is relatively simple. It is a 12-month trial—an important point. Again, let us be honest about that. When you have a 12-month trial, you are doing that because you believe that this is an important step and a potential solution, but you are also honest about the fact that we always learn things by actually trying them out in the real world. As this trial takes place, I am sure that there will be many learnings that will come from it, and I know that the government will look at those learnings. As we consider where to go potentially beyond that trial, I am sure that those learnings will be incorporated into any subsequent legislation. That is why you trial things, and that is what a mature government does. So it is a 12-month trial.

Basically what occurs is that people receive a cashless debit card, much like a Visa card or a MasterCard et cetera that many of us would have.

Basically what that card allows the recipient to do is to buy at Woolworths. There are two points: firstly, 80 per cent of the benefit is provided through credit from the card, and then there is 20 per cent which is effectively cash for other services that perhaps cannot be purchased via a card—small items and so on. Within the 80 per cent that is required to be purchased via the card, there are two important prohibitions within that usage. One is alcohol and the other is gambling. We know from the appalling statistics that I quoted earlier that there is a very significant problem with alcoholism in this community. It is a very sensible measure to say that you cannot, as a social welfare recipient, use a large proportion of that payment on alcohol or gambling. That is really the nub of this legislation. Twenty per cent is unrestricted, so of course there will be people who will use that 20 per cent to have a social drink or to place a bet on a Saturday afternoon or whatever, as the case may be. But that is a very different matter to an endemic expenditure of large proportions of income on alcohol and/or gambling. This trial will stop that from occurring, and that is a very important thing.

It is also important to note that the government has had the foresight to allow some flexibility in this system. The local authority will have the power to increase the 20 per cent—which is effectively the unrestricted amount of payment—in certain circumstances. For instance, if it can be shown that an individual or family needs to access more than 20 per cent cash for a legitimate purpose that is not alcohol or gambling related, they will be able to make a submission to the local authority, who will consider those factors and potentially increase the 20 per cent should it be appropriate. So again it is a sensible measure to allow some flexibility in particular circumstances.

So it is a 12-month trial. Twenty per cent of the spending is unrestricted. Eighty per cent is unrestricted but for two things: alcohol and gambling. So, whatever the products are that people would seek to purchase, they can do so unless they are alcohol or gambling related.

Some people might say that this is restricting the freedoms of the recipient. This is saying to the recipient, 'Well, you know, there are certain things you can and can't do.' When you think about it, the structure is actually quite broad, because it says you can effectively do a very wide range of things with that 80 per cent. It is just two things that you cannot do. So it is by no means a sort of income management structure. It is not purporting to budget for people. It will undoubtedly assist some people to conduct their own budgeting process, but the government is not saying that you should spend $10 on this or $20 on this. It is just saying, 'For the 80 per cent of your income, don't spend it on alcohol and don't spend it on gambling.' It is entirely appropriate that we do that

This is a community with endemic levels of alcoholism and with a related endemic level of assault. We have to do everything we can to address these structural endemic problems in our society. That is what this legislation does. The trial will be very beneficial, and I am sure much will be learnt from it, and I very strongly commend the bill to the House.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015 and the introduction of the cashless credit card trial—nominally in the first instance in one of my towns, Ceduna. Every now and then we find a problem where all the participants know that we need a solution. The problem is so bad and compelling that we must be prepared to go the extra yard and find a solution. So it is with Ceduna, in the far west of my electorate, 880 kilometres from Adelaide by road. It takes a little less in an aeroplane, but most people travel by road. Its regional population, including the outlying Indigenous centres included in this legislation, it is about 4,500, of which in total about 25 per cent is Indigenous. So it is not an Indigenous community as such, even though some of the outliers are. The wider community, from the Indigenous communities to the mainstream community in Ceduna, have had enough. They have had enough of the alcohol addiction and abuse, enough of family violence, enough of wilful community damage, enough of harmful antisocial behaviour and how that impacts on community teachings, enough of the health ramifications—the people drinking themselves to death—and enough of the impacts that behaviour has on families, both immediate and in the intergenerational manner.

So Ceduna has been incredibly proactive over the years, over a long period. It already has significant alcohol restrictions. The council introduced some years ago, at ratepayers' expense, funded security patrols. This is called the canine patrol. They have dogs, which immediately met with great resistance from the human rights groups around Australia. But in fact those people have become the best friends of many of the Indigenous people visiting the town. They are the people that pick them up and take them back to their accommodation if there is accommodation available. The day engagement centre has a transient camp, training programs and all the normal things you expect in towns with a high Indigenous population. There is an arts centre which is funded. There are youth programs. More recently, we had the introduction of income management, including in a voluntary sense, which has proved quite popular. This is one of the things that help women in particular to deal with humbugging. They could say, 'Well, I don’t have any cash; I've only got my BasicsCard.' Then there have been a small number of people—it has been quite slow to get moving—that have been directed onto income management as a result of police and court orders that have happened around them.

Each time the community in Ceduna has moved to further address this problem we have initially seen a good result but, because alcoholics are enormously resourceful and find their way around almost any obstacle, eventually the effects erode. While you get some people off alcohol permanently with the programs that go with it, there is a core group who are committed to their drug, if you like. Sadly, in many cases these people come from outlying communities, they are bush people. Some come hundreds of kilometres. When they get in town you cannot get them home. They are disengaged from their individual health programs so sickness is a close companion.

Finally, a further option presented itself when Twiggy Forrest's report Creating parity into finding success for Indigenous training and employment came into being. I will come to the effects of that in a moment. It is worthwhile looking at some of the points in that report. It says, quite rightly, that the early years are critical for brain development. It says that Indigenous children are more than twice as likely to be developmentally delayed. There are lower birth weights and higher incidences of perinatal death and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Indeed, I am a member of the House Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs that recently tabled a report into the harmful use of alcohol in Indigenous communities that highlights so many of these points. The tragedy of FASD is alive and well, particularly in some of the remote communities, but of course it strikes closer to home for many of us.

I know these figures have been raised before in this debate, but in Ceduna in the 2013-14 there were 4,667 admissions to the sobering up unit and the hospitalisation rate for assault was 68 times the national average. That is particularly bad but from my point of view it is typical. It is not a figure particular to Ceduna—that is just the place we have the figures for. That is why this trial could well have national ramifications in the longer term.

The larger Ceduna community encompasses the Indigenous communities of Yalata, Oak Valley, Koonibba and the Ceduna Aboriginal Corporation, the local council and the Scotdesco Indigenous community. They broadly represent the homeland communities around Ceduna. They have had enough of the violence, enough of the premature deaths, enough of the FASD and enough of the generational disadvantage and are prepared to do whatever it takes. They have tried everything else that has been on offer before and they are willing to do whatever it takes.

It was in this space that Andrew Forrest's report was lodged. I would like to thank Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge, who had already spent a long time developing a relationship with Ceduna. I accompany him on most visits and I visit Ceduna on a more regular basis. When we were introducing the BasicsCard we needed everybody on board to make that happen. The more visits you have the better you get to know people. Familiarity breeds trust. Alan Tudge in that space was able to suggest that we could take another step and they were receptive. Over months there were more meetings building more trust. Importantly, we asked the communities to contribute to the design of the project. As the first cab off the rank they got to help write the rules on how this might roll out around other communities around Australia. This outcome has been negotiated. It is about give and take. We all own it and we all approve of it.

It is important to note that Ceduna has a mixed population. It is not an Indigenous town as such. This trial affects everyone. It is blind to race. I think that is a very important message for this government to be able to hang its hat on—that we are not chasing Aboriginal people, we are not chasing Indigenous people; we are chasing the problem of alcoholism that is completely out of control in the community. We have alcoholics who will turn their back on every other service and will spend every dollar they can lay their hands on on alcohol. They are intent on destroying themselves. Unfortunately, they destroy not only themselves but their families as well.

I pay special tribute to the Mayor of Ceduna, Allan Suter. He is a very brave local mayor—and I mean that in the best possible way. He is brave enough to call it as he sees it. He is respected in his community on that basis, so he is able to provide the leadership needed in this case. It is so important that the Ceduna district council representing the wider, if you like, non-Indigenous community was able to make a call on that community's behalf.

I remember saying on the day we signed the document: 'Maybe this is the day that the world of welfare has changed. Maybe we will look back on this as a seminal moment in our history as saying, "Welfare is provided to you to provide for your family and yourself in an appropriate way. It is there so you buy the important things in life. It is not there to destroy you and your family. It must be managed in that way."'

Maybe this trial will fail. I do not know—that is the point of having a trial. Maybe we will sit down in 12 months time and say: 'Nothing has changed. We just made a lot of extra work for ourselves.' Well we will not know until we try. I reckon there is enough meat around the subject to say that this could work not only a bit but really well. It will not be a silver bullet. It will not fix every single problem because, as I said, the alcoholics are committed and ingenious. They will find ways to get alcohol, but it will be much harder and they will need the compliance of friends and family if they want to get there, and friends, families and community leaders are saying, 'We have had enough.'

What is it? It is a 12-month trial. Twenty per cent of welfare income will go into a normal account—and this trial does not affect aged pensions—and 80 per cent will go on a debit card. You cannot withdraw cash from that debit card, but you can buy anything with it except alcohol, gambling services and, because you cannot withdraw cash, it is virtually impossible to buy drugs. Most drug dealers do not actually run an EFTPOS machine—well, I have not come across one that does! So you can buy food, housing, clothing, household tools and devices, phone accounts and pay medical bills. You can buy anything, but you cannot buy alcohol, you cannot buy drugs and you cannot buy gambling services.

The 20 per cent allowance is quite significant. On most welfare payments, 20 per cent is a sizeable amount. It could be spent on things like tickets to the football perhaps, treats for kids that are less than a dollar or two, or on raffle tickets. Importantly, the debit card looks like every other debit card that we all have in our wallets. There is some stigma attached to the BasicsCard. It is quite distinctive. When you go into the supermarket and you handover your BasicsCard, you think: 'Everybody knows I am on welfare. Everybody knows that I have my income managed.' With this cashless debit card, no-one will know. It will look exactly the same as all others, for all intents and purposes.

Electronically, it will be different because it will not work at certain cash registers. It will not work at the bottle shop. It will not work on online gambling services. It will not work in the pokies room. For instance, the Ceduna hotel has a number of different tills and, depending on what the local committee decide, it may work in the restaurant. So people may be able to take their family there and perhaps even buy a beer with their restaurant meal. As yet, that is undecided. The point is that an alcoholic is unlikely to buy much alcohol at dining room prices, so there is a regulatory thing in there. We are looking for this to not impact on people who are doing the right thing; we are trying to get people who are doing the wrong thing on the road.

I would like to particularly mention the community heads who signed up to the agreement on the day: Mayor Allan Suter and CEO Geoff Moffatt from the Ceduna council; Michael Haynes, a long-term advocate of the Ceduna Aboriginal Corporation, and Peter Miller—both fine gentlemen; Corey McLennan and Kevina Ware from Koonibba, which is about 30 kilometres down the road and the home of the Koonibba football club—and I might get to that if I have time left at the end of my speech; from the Scotdesco Aboriginal corporation, Robert Larking and Bronwyn Stott; from the Yalata community, Greg Franks and the remarkable Mima Smart—a wonderful leader of that community, strong and forthright; from Oak Valley, Sharon Yendall and Roger Williams—Oak Valley is a fair way up the track, not very far from Maralinga.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of those communities and how pleased I was that those leaders were prepared to step up to the plate, and perhaps get some community ire, and say: 'This is what we need to do to stop our people dying. This is what we need to do to protect our children. We will do whatever it takes.' I was so proud of them. I am proud of Ceduna for taking this on for Australia, for taking this on for all people around Australia, black and white, to see whether we can beat this scourge.

To celebrate the day, it was my 59th birthday, in fact—

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You look younger.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, looks can be deceiving. It was my 59th birthday and Alan Tudge and I celebrated by having a training run with the Koonibba football team. He is a little younger than me and I had not kicked a football for probably 10 years or more. We staggered around the field for a while and enjoyed our run with the boys. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful in the grand final and Thevenard got up. It was great to be out there with the boys and celebrating this very significant moment for Ceduna, not just in Ceduna's history but in the affairs of the nation. We may look back on this as the page-turner.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I particularly thank the member for Grey. He really has his heart in this issue. His community is well served to have him advocating on this issue. Mate, we need more people like you in this place.

If I could go to this issue in a very direct manner. One of the great tragedies of this country has been our inability to see significant progress in Closing the Gap. Despite the best of intentions from many people in government and in the community, we have not made the progress that we need to make as a country. Clearly, if we are realistic about this, simply accepting the status quo is not working. It is our obligation as policymakers to be prepared to try new things. If those things do not work, we can always try other policy measures. Simply having good intentions but saying, 'What's currently out there is not working, but we'll keep adding good intentions and no new policy objectives to this important initiative for our nation,' is not good enough.

It is a great honour to rise to talk about the new cashless welfare debit card and the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. This is a very significant reform in a vital sector. This new cashless card will be trialled and the trial locations will be chosen on the basis of high-welfare dependence and high social harm indicators and openness from community leaders to participate in the trial. This will be a 12-month trial. I want to particularly commend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Alan Tudge, a great mate of mine. This is a case study in effective policy development.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

I am very glad to see the Assistant Treasurer also adding his praise to Alan Tudge. He has done a very effective job in bringing people together. The fact that in this trial we have the overwhelming support of the Ceduna community coming behind this is a real testament to the work that he has done.

This is not an easy area of reform. This is not an easy thing to pull off. It is indeed a very significant change in approach in the way that we deal with the delivery of welfare but it is our obligation to get this right. This new reform is guided by some very simple principles, some fundamental principles about how we deliver welfare as a nation. The first thing is that welfare is there to protect the most vulnerable people in our community, to give assistance to those people who are most in need. This reform does exactly that but it still provides freedom of choice for people because, as a cashless debit card, you can purchase whatever you like but you simply cannot purchase items which inflict harm not only on yourself the individual but on the collective. You cannot go out and buy drugs or alcohol and you cannot gamble your welfare payments away. This is money from the Australian taxpayers to the most vulnerable people in our community to say: we are here to help when you need that vital assistance but we are not going to allow you to use other people's money to purchase things that will harm you and harm the community that you live in.

For me, I think this is an incredibly important reform and one that is long overdue. The fact that we have the opportunity here as a country to give this an effective shot with a community right behind this change, I think, is a real opportunity to make real progress on those noble goals of Closing the Gap, which are so important. For me, I think this is a great opportunity, one that we must not let slip through our fingers. I hope that this bill has very significant support in the parliament in both houses because the reality is, if at the end of this 12-month trial it does not work, we can go back to the drawing board. We can try something else. But surely there is enough cause to give this a shot and, hopefully, change the lives of so many people for the better because that is the obligation of all people in this House. I commend this bill very strongly to House.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to sum up on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015. I thank all of the speakers who have spoken on this particular bill, both the Labor members and the coalition members for their very thoughtful contributions. I thank also the Labor Party for constructively engaging with the government over the development of this bill over the course of the last few months and I am pleased to have their support in this House for it.

I think this piece of legislation could be a watershed bill in how we distribute welfare in this country. The bill enables a trial to occur in several locations in Australia whereby instead of delivering cash into a welfare recipient's account, 80 per cent of their welfare dollars will be placed into an account which is only accessible by an ordinary bank debit card—a Visa debit card or a MasterCard debit card. This card will be able to be used anywhere to purchase anything but it simply will not work at the bottle shop and it will not work at the gambling houses. And because your cash is limited, it means you will not be able to purchase illicit drugs in that process.

The legislation enables this to be trialled for 12 months. It enables it to be trialled in three locations covering up to 10,000 people. The people in the trial site covered will be any person whose income support is predominantly a Centrelink payment so it includes people on Newstart, on the disability support pension and on carers' payments among others. An additional feature of this trial bill will be that it will enable the government to establish a local panel in each of the trial sites and that panel will have real statutory power to make adjustments to people's cards should they choose to make an application.

I said that this would be trialled in up to three locations covering at most 10,000 people. We have already announced that the first trial site will be in the Ceduna region on the west coast of South Australia. It covers five or six smaller communities including the township of Ceduna. Over the last few months, I, along with government officials, have been negotiating with the community leaders on the ground there about what a trial might look like. How would be constituted? What will be the time frame? What would be the attributes of this trial? It was absolutely a codesigned process with those community leaders in Ceduna to come up with what is now a very precise trial for that community starting in February of next year.

I would like to commend the community leaders on the ground there in Ceduna for, I suppose, having the courage to step up to work so cooperatively with the government over the course of this process and design what will be a very effective trial starting next year. We hope collectively, the community leaders and the government, that this will have a demonstrable impact on the welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse, which, unfortunately, is rife in that community. If I can perhaps quote some of the aspirations from some of the community leaders in Ceduna in what they see that might come about from this. I will start with Mima Smart, who is a local elder in the Yalata Aboriginal community. She says that:

There are a lot of people who have died and a lot of people ending up in hospital because their life was destroyed by alcohol. Instead of being in Ceduna drinking, people will now go home to be with their families and teach them culture.

I look at the statement which the community heads group put out when we announced that Ceduna would be a trial location. In this they say:

As local leaders we want to champion the cause for the betterment of our people, and we believe this will benefit the region as a whole.

They say that:

At the heart of this reform, is a change that is being shaped specifically to meet our local needs. It has been a true collaboration to ensure that we can give our mob and our Communities every chance to create real and genuine change in their lives.

Finally, they say:

…it is our belief, today's decision is a landmark decision considering that we are the first trial site amongst a possible 3 Australia wide. We have grasped this initiative; we have helped shape this initiative; and we are confident that this initiative is for the betterment of all people within our region.

That was the statement put out by the community heads group in the Ceduna region, which consists of the leaders of each of the six communities which will be affected.

I also commend Allan Suter, the Mayor of Ceduna, who I think has also shown very strong leadership in his community, working cooperatively with the Indigenous leaders in the area. The work that they have done is also to be commended. We are also in advanced discussions in the East Kimberley region. My hope is that we will be able to announce all or some of the East Kimberley as the second trial site in the not too distant future.

Ian Trust and his leadership group have perhaps been the most vocal leaders in the country calling for the introduction of this card. Ian Trust, for those who do not know, is a very substantial Indigenous leader in the East Kimberley, and I consider him one of the most substantial Indigenous leaders in the nation today. He has been leading a reform effort, and in his view that reform effort should include the introduction of this card. We are listening to him, we are working very closely with him and his leadership group, as well as consulting more broadly. I will perhaps read a couple of quotes from him, Desmond Hill and Ted Hall—three very key leaders in the East Kimberley region, particularly based in Kununurra. They write:

We acknowledge that agreeing to the East Kimberley being a trial site for the restricted debit card may seem to some a rather drastic step. However, it is our view that continuing to deliver the same programs we have delivered for the past forty years will do nothing for our people and, besides wasting more time and money, will condemn our children and future generations to a life of poverty and despair. As leaders in the East Kimberley, we cannot accept this.

They have come out very positively towards working with us as well. As I said, we have some more work to do but we are hopeful that we can announce all or some of the East Kimberley as our second trial site.

Let me address a few of the critiques which the Labor Party raised in some of their contributions. I said at the get-go that I appreciated their support for this bill. I appreciate the constructive way that they have engaged with me over the last few months as we were developing up this trial. There were really four things which were raised, particularly by the shadow ministers Shayne Neumann and Jenny Macklin. The first was that they stated the legislation allows the trial to go for two years, whereas we have always said the trial will just go for one. I can reassure the members opposite that the trial will last just 12 months unless of course there is a demonstrable improvement and there is a desire for the trial to continue beyond that. The firm intent is that this is a 12-month trial in each particular location.

The second critique, and this is perhaps their most substantial one, was that there are no additional supports to accompany the introduction of the debit card in the trial locations. I would like to point out to those members who raised that point that there will be additional supports. We are working on those additional supports as we speak. Those additional supports will particularly include financial management and financial counselling. They will include additional drug and alcohol counselling or assistance to help people get off that addiction and they will include some mental health assistance as well. Again, we are negotiating with the local community leaders as to what makes sense in those communities to complement the introduction of the card. I am hopeful that when the opposition see those supports being put in place that they will also agree that those supports will make a difference and are indeed a good complement to the card.

The third critique was that there was no detail in terms of the evaluation. We are working on that at the moment. I can assure the opposition that there will be a detailed evaluation process which will be undertaken. It will be an independent evaluation, and by and large we will be tracking the main harm indicators in the community as well as taking some qualitative assessments.

Finally, their critique was that there is no detail on the operation of the card. With respect, we are still working through that with the financial services provider that we are contracting with to deliver the card. I can assure the opposition that we are taking this very seriously and it will not be that dissimilar to how the BasicsCard was rolled out under Jenny Macklin's leadership several years ago.

I conclude my summation of this bill by mentioning a few thank yous. Firstly, I thank Andrew Forrest as he was the one who initially proposed this idea to us in his Creating parity report. It is a very good report, and the introduction of a cashless debit card was indeed the centrepiece recommendation. We have not adopted exactly what he recommended. He recommended that 100 per cent of payments be placed onto the card. We have settled on 80 per cent, in part because that is what was agreed with community leaders on the ground. I thank him for putting this idea to us, for the work that he did and for the overall work which he does for Aboriginal people across the country.

Secondly, I thank the community leaders on the ground, particularly in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. In the East Kimberley I mentioned three names—Ian Trust, Desmond Hill and Ted Hall—particularly, but they lead a broader group of leaders. They have been very strong and have engaged with us very cooperatively. In the Ceduna region there are a number of leaders who have come together and helped co-design this trial. I thank them for their leadership, particularly Corey McLennan and Michael Haynes. I also thank the government officials who have worked on this and have worked quite tirelessly over the last few months. I know they will continue to work tirelessly over the next few months and during the implementation. In particular, I thank Ros Baxter, Kai Cantwell and Carolyn Edwards as well as Marnie Wettenhall on the ground in Ceduna.

Finally, I thank my colleagues. I particularly thank Wyatt Roy and Andrew Southcott for leading their two respective coalition committees that have been deeply engaged in this process, in terms of designing this quite radical trial in some respects. I thank them for their work. Our hope is that this trial will be successful, that it will have a demonstrable impact on the very significant harm that is caused by welfare fuelled alcohol and drug and gambling abuse. It is sometimes tragic what we see on the ground. It is tragic that the damage caused is often funded and paid for by the welfare dollar.

We hope that this card and overall package will enable those communities to become healthier, to reduce that welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse and, in the process, that women and children can be safer, the community can be safer and more people, overall, can lead better and healthier lives. Thank you, again, for the contributions from all members of this parliament, and I commend the bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.