Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Schools) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to put on the record my serious concerns about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. I do so to join my Labor colleagues. I particularly acknowledge the shadow minister, the member for Jagajaga, and the shadow minister for human services, the member for Barton, for their contributions to the debate in this place and to the wider issues that this bill seeks to remedy in Australian society.

On that point, I also wish to make a small contribution to an important, wider debate about our social compact to one another as Australians: how we as a society support vulnerable people and how we treat our fellow citizens who are doing it tough; whether we listen to those who are most affected by the decisions we, in this place, make; and what agency we afford to people and to communities to shape their futures and to see their experiences reflected in the decisions made on their behalf by their government. We need to think about agency, dignity and respect as we debate the provisions of this bill. We should not lightly deprive Australians of these. My concern is that implementing the provisions in this bill would do just that.

The debate we're having here about the cashless welfare card trial and its extension beyond any reasonable remit is a debate fundamentally, on the one hand, about ideology and, on the other, about evidence. In both of these regards, debate on this bill and on the wider issues has been revealing. The shadow minister, the member for Jagajaga, in her contribution in the second reading debate set out the principles governing the Labor approach to this issue. This is so important. So I join her in stating that I would like to support community driven initiatives to tackle alcohol abuse and all of its consequences, recognising that there are communities which have been reaching out for assistance but also that a cashless debit card or, indeed, any individual public policy initiative is no magic bullet.

As the member for Jagajaga said, Labor have consistently said that we would take a community-by-community approach to the further rollout of the cashless card. We'll listen to each community's leaders and talk with them about the consequences of this card being rolled out in their community. Wraparound support services must also be community designed, agreed upon and resourced to address the challenges facing these communities. Of course, they're different in different places.

We understand—and this is a very important point—that the vast majority of social security recipients are more than capable of managing their own personal finances. That's why Labor does not support the cashless debit card being rolled out nationwide. It's important that I reiterate the words of the member for Jagajaga, because they go to the very nub of this debate. That last point that she made is so fundamental: we should not assume that people who happen to be in receipt of social security benefits are incapable of making decisions over their lives. We should be very slow to do so. In fact, it's not just me or other Labor members saying this. That is at the core of the concerns which have been expressed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which expressed its concern that the provisions in this bill, unlike some other approaches to income management, do not reflect individual circumstances. It's an odd thing for the party of individualism to be so cavalier in its attitude to this right, although its attitude to rights in general has been exposed shamefully today, as it has, indeed, over the life of this parliament.

I turn again to Labor's approach to this issue, which is anchored in our deep sense of respect for individuals and community and our determination to have regard to the evidence in tackling real problems and helping people who are often in very complex circumstances not of their making. There is recognition on this side of the House of the need for a holistic approach to the challenges this bill is intended to address, rather than a superficially attractive quick fix which answers the call of ideology rather more than the calls of lived experience or evidence.

Earlier this week—or it may have been last week—I read with great interest an article in The Guardian by the journalist Calla Wahlquist, which highlighted a very troubling and, I say in fairness to the minister and his predecessor, no doubt unintended consequence of the present arrangements which are proposed to be extended—in my view without due warrant. This article is entitled 'Domestic violence survivor could not have escaped abuse on cashless debit card', and it recounts the experiences of Jocelyn Wighton, a woman from Ceduna who said that, without access to her entire disability pension in cash, she would not have been able to afford to start a new life. This, of course, refers to the circumstances of Ceduna, as well as her individual circumstances. I think the article dramatically and, for me, movingly and effectively highlights again an unintended consequence of what I believe to be a well-intentioned intervention:

"I'm a domestic violence survivor," Wighton said. "If I was on this card when I escaped from my husband, I would not have made it. I bought secondhand furniture down to the plates and knives and forks. You can't do that on the card."

She talks also—movingly again—about the sense of shame that she has.

I would commend this article to members because it highlights some of the complexities of individual lives that this instrument addresses. I think it requires all of us to ask ourselves if the intervention is appropriate in all cases and if it answers the aspirations that I think we share. This is why we need, as Labor has proposed, to properly consider firstly what is presently going on in Ceduna and in the East Kimberley, to ensure that proper evaluation is conducted and reviewed and also to listen to all of those who are affected and ensure that their experiences can be adequately reflected in the answers we seek to propose going forward. Let's be very clear. The legislation before the House would license, in effect, the expansion of the trials of cashless debit cards beyond those sites presently underway which impact, I think, some thousands of people in additional locations across the whole of the nation without due process or due consideration.

Government members, in supporting this legislation, have spoken of helping young people. It's a laudable goal and it's shared across this chamber, right across this parliament. But we should be careful not to take such claims from government members at face value for two reasons. Firstly, the record of the Turnbull government when it comes to young Australians is simply shocking. The conservatives, since their election, have been prosecuting nothing less than a war on young people. We on this side of the House remember the attempts to leave young jobseekers without any income support for up to six months. We know that today young Australians' futures are being constrained by $17.3 billion of cuts to school education and massive cuts and even greater uncertainty going to post-compulsory education. Young Australians' future is anything but secure under the Turnbull government. Secondly, fundamentally, the evidence is simply not before us to support this claim when it comes to the cashless debit card. We note the claim of the previous minister that it could 'provide additional motivation for a capable young person to take the jobs which are available'. Putting to one side the confidence in jobs being available in particular areas—and let me just say that in some parts of regional Australia, in deference to the areas you represent, Deputy Speaker, I simply do not share the confidence of the Deputy Prime Minister that, wherever young people can move to, jobs will magically appear. That defies the evidence where half of all the jobs in Australia in recent years have been generated in a very small radius around the central business districts of Melbourne and Sydney.

I also note that the bill that we're discussing today was rushed on for debate in the House last year while the Senate inquiry into it was underway, not enabling Labor members—principally, the shadow minister—to properly consult with community about the proposals. This is a fundamental problem with legislation like this. It is also said by government members that the extension of the trial, effectively without limitation, is warranted by reason of the evaluations of the Ceduna and East Kimberley trials. Again, this claim simply does not withstand the most cursory scrutiny. I will return to this point again.

As we return to the debate this year, in this place, we do have the benefit of the Senate committee review. I do hope that government members, if any are going to continue to participate in this debate, will have close regard to this too—and I say not to the tick and flick of the majority but, rather, the good work of Labor senators who looked to the evidence and the submissions before them and found there is an insufficient basis to establish further trials at this stage. If this government were either reasonable or responsible, it would have regard to this and, in doing so, would show at the very least the courage of its stated convictions. If the case for the extension of the trials is so strong, why not let it be shown to be so? What are they afraid of? The Senate has proposed further amendments consistent with the Labor framework laid out by the shadow minister, which I referred to earlier in this contribution, and the evidence before them.

This is the right way to go about this, not to rule the approach out—we're not proposing that through the amendments that we've foreshadowed—but to further interrogate the claims which have been made to consider alternatives and other services, always having regard to those whose lives are directly affected and their human rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has raised significant concerns which should not be lightly disregarded. It remains unclear whether the wide extension of the trial is a proportionate response to the important rights which are engaged. The committee found there to be serious doubts as to whether the measures proposed in the legislation are suitable in contrast with other income-managing approaches which reflect individual circumstances, not the blanket approach which is contained in this legislation. It's clear also that we need to continue building the evidence base if we are to deliver policies which are effective. So, as Labor proposes, let us continue and refine the present trial and see—as the present legislation in fact requires—what comes of this.

I want to speak briefly about the evaluation, because this is something government members have been hanging their hat on improperly. If we look to the evaluation, there are serious concerns that go to its findings, which seem, on fair examination, to be inconclusive. I note, just as one example, there is reference in the evaluation to some positive self-assessments by participants and community leaders, and I take them seriously. But these are inconsistent with some of the objective data which has also been derived. These are things which require further work before we roll out a program such as this more broadly.

Perhaps more telling to me than these issues with the findings—which we need to work through further—are the concerns that go to methodology. These, I believe, have been compounded by this rushed approach, racing to meet a preconceived ideological answer before considering the evidence. We do need to consider the evidence. And, in doing so, we need to reflect on the fact that the evaluation that the government's case is founded on rests on no baseline data, no control evidence and—this would be dear to the heart of the member for Fenner—no randomised individuals forming the basis of the trial. This is what we have seen from so many of the stakeholders—indeed, I would say almost all of the stakeholders without a particular interest; I note the AHA is a supporter—such as ACOSS, WACOSS and the Queensland Council of Social Service. The Australian Association of Social Workers' submission importantly highlights the weakness of the evaluation and, in particular, says:

… it contravenes the expectation of fairness and assumption of autonomy that underpins welfare support payments.

I think this is a really important point and it goes the nub of the issues which are before us here, and that is to give a sense of agency and a sense of decency to the individuals who are affected, as well as to the communities in which they live.

The Labor approach is not to say no to an extension of proposals such as these but to ask that the government properly interrogates them, having regard to the evidence and fundamentally to the lived experience of those affected. That's why I support the amendments foreshadowed by the member for Jagajaga. (Time expired)

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in praise of Andrew Forrest, who has the only big mining company left that is still in an Australian hands. To his credit, he could have sold out for his fortune somewhere along the line. He is very patriotic. He went to a school that was predominantly First Australian. I went to a school that was about 40 per cent First Australian. You can't go to school with kids and play football with them and not end up with them being your mates. I have not the slightest doubt about his sincerity on this issue. A very controversial issue, it's brought him a lot of criticism, but he believes in it. He's the only employer in Australia that I know that employs 600 people of First Australian descent. One of my townsmen went to boarding school in Charters Towers, like myself. He was a boss at Fortescue, a CEO, so I know the intimate workings of Fortescue, quite apart from any friendship I might have, big or little, with Andrew Forrest. They're the only organisation in this country that has a cadre of people—I think there were six in the group—who, if people don't turn up for work, go around, nurse them, do everything humanly possible to keep them at work. It's not just a matter of giving them the jobs; they give them the backup to keep the jobs. When I worked at Mount Isa Mines, I think there were three First Australians on my 12-man gang. I was just an unskilled labourer there. The boss of the lead smelter, Charlie Ah Wing, was one of the pallbearer's at my father's funeral. Charlie was the big boss there, and he was First Australian, very proudly Kalkatungu.

Having said all of those things, if I were on the ALP side, I really would not be throwing stones. They were there for six straight years. Up until two years ago, they were the government of Australia.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More like five.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't want my remarks to be construed as being positive about the other side of the parliament, who have been there for most of the last 12 years.

Our diabetes is at epidemic levels. In fact, I would hope that other nations do not find out what the level of diabetes is in Australia. A lot of people say diabetes is just malnutrition, because the people can't get a decent diet. Most of them are on welfare in the community areas in the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York, where most First Australians live, not in the Northern Territory. In one community of about 300 people, two people died of diabetes the fortnight before I was visiting, and the matron in charge of the hospital there said another one would die that month—three people from a community of 300. That would not be atypical of the community areas in Queensland, where some 40,000 or 50,000 people live. They can't afford to get fresh fruit and vegetables into these areas.

There are a number of people in this parliament still that went on a fact-finding mission to the Torres Strait. I never wanted to go back to the Torres Strait, because, as minister for six, seven, eight years—I don't know; whatever it was—in Queensland, I'd seen paradise. I never wanted to go back there again, because it would never be as good as when I saw it as minister. I have some emotional difficulties in expressing this to the House, actually. When we went to the island of Joey Mosby, who was no fan of mine when I was minister—he fell into a category of people that were not keen on self-management and other areas—he stood up at the back of a meeting and yelled out, 'Bobby, they're murdering my people.' The chairman of the committee, who is now a frontbencher on the Labor side said, 'What's all that about?' I said, 'You people and the Liberals banned market gardens.'

Every house, every family up in the Torres Strait had a market garden. They had yams, taros, sweet potatoes, bananas, mangoes and numerous other things all growing in the backyard. I cannot remember having a meal in the Torres Strait, in my six, eight years—whatever it was—as minister, where all of the food, not just some of the food, was not Indigenous. Turtle, dugong, fish, crayfish, crab and all of the things I mentioned before, fruit and vegetables, all came from the Torres Strait. This time when I went up there to that same island, Joey Mosby's island, I actually paced out the shelf space. One-seventh of the entire shelf was taken up with rice. This is a really grindingly poor Third World country, and you created that—you people in this parliament. It's on your consciences.

Who do we blame? Who banned the market gardens? That sounds horrific and it sounds unbelievable. Why did you ban the market gardens of the Torres Strait? Because you said disease could come down from New Guinea. AQIS couldn't be bothered putting any AQIS officers at the Torres Strait's Horn Island Airport. The only way of getting into Australia is through the airport. They couldn't even be bothered putting a quarantine officer there, and yet they could go and ban every single market garden in the Torres Strait. They couldn't be bothered putting a single AQIS officer at the Jardine River, which is the only other real way of entering Australia with anything from the Torres Strait. You can either land and come by road transport or cross the Jardine River and go on the Jardine River ferry, so all you've got to do is pay someone there to check out the food coming in from the Torres Strait or New Guinea, and similarly at the airport. But they didn't have officers at either place. Over a long period of time, I've kicked up such a hell of a stink, and I proudly say that I think I was the only voice that did, and we do have officers now inspecting at both those places. But that didn't help the Torres Strait Island people, who are now dying in massive numbers as a result of decisions by this place.

No-one seems to feel ashamed. No-one has any sense of shame. What do they do? The Labor government of Queensland went out and brought in Mr Fitzgerald, who had destroyed our government, to tell us what was wrong in the community areas and what to do about it. This absolutely brilliant person came up with the fact that it was alcohol that was the problem. Oh, what a searching finding! Oh, what a brilliant intellectual insight! It was alcohol that caused it. Alcohol was the cause—not the effect but the cause. Therefore, he said, 'Let's ban alcohol.' So he advocated that we have racial laws in Australia: whitefellas can drink but we blackfellas can't. There's no way that you can say anything else except that that is a racist law. It applies to blackfellas; it does not apply to whitefellas.

If you doubt what I'm saying, have a look at the diabetes figures, because they're the highest in the world. I just picked diabetes. There are a dozen other diseases, but I haven't got time to go through all those. On the unemployment figures, every community area in Queensland has a higher unemployment rate than any whitefella community in Australia, by a long way—the highest unemployment rates, probably, in the world. The crime rate is higher than any whitefella community in the country.

When this brilliant ban on alcohol occurred, what happened was that all the alcoholics moved into Townsville, Mount Isa, Alice Springs, Darwin, Cairns or Mareeba—all the no-hoper crowd. So what happened in Townsville is that Townsville now has the highest crime rate in Australia and the highest unemployment rate in Australia. That was imposed by the brainless B-A-S-T-A-R-Ds who imposed the ban on alcohol. I'll be very specific about Townsville. We have 110 cars being thieved every month in Townsville, which means that, over a 15-year period, every single family in Townsville will have their car thieved. That's the result of this decision. The suicide rates in these communities, once again, are the highest in the world. You measure a nation by the way it treats its poorest people and its most downtrodden people. If we're being judged by that then we are judged abominably and we must stand as a pariah amongst nations.

If I speak with passion, it's because these are persons that I know. I was speaking about this to Barry Waldron, the brother of the famous Clarence Waldron—I put Clarence in my book An Incredible Race of People: A Passionate History of Australia because I thought his comments were important enough to go into the book. When they banned alcohol, they said to me, 'We discussed it. We've appointed representatives from your community and'—surprise, surprise!—'they've all voted to ban alcohol.' Three people yelled out, 'Yeah, the missionary ladies.' I'm a practising Christian and I greatly revere the missionary ladies. They set a very good example in the community. But it was a fair call to say that they appointed the missionary ladies to decide whether they should not have alcohol at Doomadgee. Clarence Waldron said—and I've quoted this a million times: 'You don't come here and say what's what, and that's that. This is my land! This is my land! You don't come here and say what's what, and that's that. This is my land!' And, yes, as a person that identifies as a blackfella in my homeland, I proudly say that we held British occupation at bay for nearly 70 years at Kalkadoon. Not a bad effort. Because of that, Clarence Waldron can proudly stand up and say, 'This is my land.' But it's not his land if we go in there and tell him he's not allowed to drink alcohol. The only group of people on earth banned from drinking alcohol are the First Australians in Australia. And why are you doing it? You're doing it to suppress the symptoms, to hide the horror that is out there. You want to hide it so no-one can see it.

Noely Pearson disagrees with me on this. Noel said, 'I don't argue with you that it is an effect, not a cause.' But he said, 'It has now become a causal effect and we must address it.' He has probably changed his position a bit on this. I said to Noely, and most certainly to his brother Gerhardt, that, if it was going to achieve anything, surely it would have achieved something after 10 years.

Now I'm going to switch subjects completely. When poker machines were introduced, under the much-maligned Bjelke-Petersen government, they were banned in Queensland and I was his right-hand man in banning them. As soon as we were thrown out the socialists came in and immediately introduced pokies. They are big bankrollers of the Labor Party—we all know that—and the Liberal Party too. But the Labor Party was in power and they introduced them.

At the Buffalo Club in Mount Isa, where I spend a lot of my time, Bobby Jacobson said: 'I should never tell this story, you should be the last person I tell this to, but $3.2 million a year is sailing out of Mount Isa down the throats of the poker machines and into the hands of the government of Queensland.' That is for a town of 20,000 people. That's coming out of the pockets of the poorest people in that community. Bobby Leong, the prominent First Australian leader and long-term president of one of our best rugby league clubs there—I had the dishonour of sitting on the sideline when his brother scored against 11 tries against Cloncurry!—said— (Time expired)

Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are countless differences between Labor and the Liberals. When it comes to values, we stand on opposite sides of the spectrum. When it comes to policies, we are really, really worlds apart. When it comes to the way we operate, we're nothing alike. There are many points of difference between the Liberal and Labor parties.

The Liberals, our current government, tend to run in, guns blazing, without proper consideration. They base policies on flippant thought bubbles that might make for good sound bites but really do lack in substance and consideration. But we in Labor think things through. We consult with people, we consult with business, we consult with communities and we listen. We use the evidence available to formulate strong, really sensible policy. That's why we in Labor are reserving our position on the cashless debit card for welfare recipients until the completion of the Senate inquiry. For such a drastic overhaul of the current welfare system, it was absolutely crucial that this inquiry was undertaken. I suppose the question is: why would Labor support such a measure if it did more harm than good?

Labor is in this for people. That's how we viewed this piece of legislation. That's how we viewed the Senate inquiry. We view it in terms of how it impacts people, how it helps people and how it assists victims of drug and alcohol abuse and the communities that they live in. Labor will always support community-driven initiatives to tackle abuse. Whilst it's heartbreaking that they are needed in our communities, I have to say my community is fortunate enough to have support from some truly amazing and incredible services. They are services provided by some wonderful organisations in my community like the Caboolture Neighbourhood Centre, our local headspace, the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health and the Primary Health Networks. They're doing wonderful work. These organisations and service providers understand that people who suffer from drug and alcohol abuse are people who need support. They understand that people are all so different. There are different people that may have different needs, different goals and different struggles, so it only makes sense that they may require different approaches.

I don't believe in a blanket approach to income management. I think that's pretty lazy. Neither I nor my party, the Labor Party, believe in a national rollout of a cashless debit card. It's quite clear that the vast majority of income support recipients are more than capable of managing their own finances and that being forced onto income management simply won't help. Labor has said all along that we will consult with individual communities, that we will talk with them and that we will listen—and then, and only then, will we make decisions on a location-by-location basis.

Labor supported the trials of the cashless debit card in the East Kimberley and Ceduna on the basis that the communities wanted to trial the card. After years and years of cyclical issues of abuse and of disadvantage plaguing their areas, they were willing to try something different—a circuit breaker. Labor has been happy to support this test. We've been waiting for the results that have sufficiently indicated whether the trials should be either expanded or concluded, and we're still waiting for these results.

The Senate inquiry has heard that the evaluations of the existing trials have been unreliable and that no judgements can be made on the basis of the information that's been collected to date, so I think it's understandable that Labor won't support expanding this trial until we see credible results. I'd also note that, in addition to the poor quality of the evaluation, the trials haven't really been running long enough to form solid conclusions. I think it would only make sense that the trials on those two sites continue until we can properly formulate accurate results from accurate data. Unfortunately, true to form, we've seen this government announce, in 2017, budget plans to expand the trial to two further locations: the Western Australian Goldfields and, in my home state of Queensland and not very far from my electorate, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. So I would ask those opposite: what if? What if, when we finally get reliable results from these existing trials, we find out that the cashless debit card is ineffective? Or, even worse, what if it had a negative effect on those communities? In particular, we've heard from communities in the Bundaberg and Goldfields regions that there's been insufficient consultation with people who actually live there and know their communities. And yet this government wants to rush ahead without thinking, without talking, without listening and without a clear framework in place. They haven't properly specified how people in trial areas could have a proportion of their income support payments on the cards reduced, and they haven't properly specified how these people can exit that trial either.

There needs to be a plan. We owe it to these communities and we owe it to the people who live there. So until this government can present a plan, we in Labor will oppose expanding this trial. Shaky evidence that's based upon unreliable evaluations and murky consultation processes might be good enough for the other side of the House but it's not good enough for this side of the House, especially when we're talking about people, their lives and their livelihoods, which are all at stake.

The sheer lack of compassion makes me question—it really does—this government's motives behind these measures. Surely, if they truly cared about helping people they'd take the time needed to work out the best possible solution for everyone involved. What they should do is what the Queensland government's done. The Palaszczuk Labor government have been consulting with committees right across the state to formulate an action plan to tackle the epidemic of methamphetamines. One of these consultation events took place in my electorate at Longman, just down the road from my office in Caboolture, down at the Caboolture RSL. I attended alongside our local state member, the Hon. Mark Ryan, who also holds the police and corrective services portfolio. It was a truly valuable experience and a strong reminder of the value of listening. Just to give you an example, when I was attending I came into the Caboolture RSL, signed in and said hello to one of the staff members I regularly see on the desk. She asked me if I was going upstairs to the ice summit. I said, 'Yes, I am.' She said to me, 'I lost two children to ice.' I've been going to the Caboolture RSL for a lot of years and I never knew that story. I never knew that story that she'd lost two children to ice. It just reminds me, re-enforces, how important it is that we consult with people when we're talking about our social issues.

The data and evidence from the round table I attended that day are helping the Palaszczuk government finalise their action plan to really tackle the issue around ice addiction. That draft plan has 65 recommendations. Across different regions and across different demographics, it has 65 actions—not just one, but 65. I think this federal government would need to take a page out of the Queensland government's book. They need to understand the importance of listening, of consultation and how dangerous it is to move with haste and not be patient where it's needed. You can't rush through trials like this.

Labor will not support this trial extending until we have received that evidence of reliable data from the existing trials that suggest they have been successful. We won't support these measures until the government can show us that they have a plan to transition sites following their trials, whether they're successful or not. What's the plan? What's the plan for those people in Bundaberg and the western Goldfields? Of course, we won't support the government forcing such drastic measures on communities that do not want them.

As I said, until the government can agree to Labor's amendments, I won't be supporting this bill, of course. Vulnerable communities like mine deserve the respect of consultation. They deserve to be listened to. Whether it's consultation around matters such as these, such as major overhauls, or changes to systems or services, communities deserve respect in being consulted. Vulnerable communities deserve respect. They need to know that they've got measures that work, not just ones that the government assume do because they've written them on a piece of paper, so of course they must work. They need to be consulted on these.

I've seen the damage that substance abuse can do to a community, and it's heartbreaking. I've heard the stories of lives that have been shattered, of families that have been shattered—of how the life of that woman at the Caboolture RSL and her family have been shattered. More needs to be done, not less. More support needs to be given. But rushing through these measures in their current form won't help with the help that vulnerable Australians need.

Just prior to the member for Kennedy, the member for Scullin spoke, and he was sharing with us a story about a woman re-establishing her life after domestic violence. Part of that re-establishment meant buying second-hand furniture—plates, cups; some second-hand items to get her house re-established. This could be a woman in any part of the country. It could be a woman in my electorate. It could be a woman in Bundaberg. It could be a woman in the western Goldfields. Has this government stopped to think about how important that is for that woman to re-establish herself, to re-establish a home, and what a cashless debit card would mean to her—what it would mean to have income management forced upon her?

I mentioned before that in my electorate, down in Caboolture, we have a great market on a Sunday. It overflows with people buying their fruit and vegies. They're affordable fruit and vegies from local growers. For a lot of people, this is how they feed their family. Could you imagine having a debit card forced upon you if this is where you get your family's food from?

This legislation, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017, needs sensible amendments, ones that of course I agree with, the ones that Labor has put forward. They ensure consultation. They will take a good hard look at the evidence and ensure that people who live in those communities that will be impacted by the introduction of a cashless debit card are consulted and that there is actually an appetite and a welcoming of this as a way of dealing with some of their community's issues.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with pleasure that I rise to speak on this bill in the House tonight. It's a pleasure only in the sense that my comments come from a place of concern about the legislation being put before the House this evening, concern that is based upon both evidence that has come before respective committees of this parliament and the experiences of Indigenous men and women who have talked to me about the implications of this proposal in their communities and concerns about the expansion of such proposed trials into new communities.

The bill before us is the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. In essence, this bill is seeking to remove section 124PF of the Social Security (Administration) Act, which is the one that currently provides for the trial sites for the cashless debit cards in three discrete locations, puts a cap on there being no more than 10,000 participants and in fact expires on 30 June this year. The bill seeks to make amendments to allow for both the continuation of the cashless debit card in existing sites and the potential expansion of the cashless debit card into new locations. Regrettably, it does so on, at best, very flimsy evidence, and that is a real problem for us as lawmakers and policymakers. We do not have substantive evidence before us to be able to say that these measures are meeting the deliverable outcomes—that there were clear purposes set down for the cashless debit card and there have been terrific measured outcomes and you can see the genuine social, cultural and economic advantages of the cashless debit card. We don't have any of that before us so, like my Labor colleagues speaking to this bill today, I have grave concerns about a number of aspects in this bill.

I am deeply concerned about the non-voluntary nature of the measures in this bill. I am also deeply concerned about the clearly disproportionate impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and those who don't have drug, alcohol or gambling concerns, and in these communities there are many. This approach of throwing a big wide net to capture everybody in a community with this very blunt instrument—the cashless debit card—sweeps up everybody and in doing so completely disempowers so many people in those communities.

I could not even begin to imagine what it would be like to have spent my life determining my future and that of my family and being an autonomous human being and a great contributor to my community and perhaps being a leader in that community and to now have to forgo all of that autonomy because the government prefers to cast the wide net and throw a very blunt instrument at what is a very deep, historical, social and economic challenge in many of our communities. To me that is the essence of lazy policymaking. That is an example of a government that has such short-term thinking and has such a narrow focus on the situation before it. It is indicative of a gross lack of vision. It's indicative of the complete lack of ambition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia.

In a few days this House is going to have the Closing the Gap report before it again. Without pre-empting that report, I expect that, like the years beforehand, that report is going to gravely let down Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. Every one of us in this House should be deeply ashamed by the continued lack of progress. I am hopeful that we will see in the Closing the Gap report some progress around some of the education indicators and some movement towards both secondary and higher education achievements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this country, but I think we are all dreading that report in the sense that there will be continued failures of government policy to have the desired impact and outcomes.

You would think that the Australian parliament might learn from these mistakes that we face year after year after year. You might think those of us in this place might think, 'Well, we're not getting it right when we simply seek to impose policy solutions on these communities.' We've got any number of reports and examples to show that this is a pathway to failure. Yet, here we have before us another piece of legislation that I would argue does exactly that. It is exactly what we know doesn't work. Where is the plan for jobs in remote and regional Australia? Where are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people going to be getting their jobs, participating in mainstream economic activity, earning a livelihood to increase their quality of life and having a decent income? There aren't any plans for that on the table.

Where are the plans that are going to improve Indigenous health and wellbeing in Australia? For goodness sake, this government can't even commit to a housing agreement across the states and territories in Australia! Right now, there are communities everywhere screaming out for safe, affordable housing options in their communities. We know that housing is one of those social determinants for quality health and wellbeing in our communities. But, no, we've got no answer for jobs and employment for these communities that are crying out for some kind of support mechanism. We've got no investment in important infrastructure, like housing, in these communities. We've got no additional adequately funded and long-term wraparound services that would assist people seeking rehabilitation around alcohol, drugs, and gambling addictions. That's not part of the government's thinking. That's not part of the plan here. No! And that is why I call this policy out as lazy policy. We see it far too often in this House, and nowhere is it made more clear than policies directed at first nation peoples.

Each and every time this government says: 'Frankly, we don't know what to do. We're going to throw this one out there, and see how that goes. But don't worry. It'll just be a temporary measure. It's a bit of time-out for these communities who are facing challenges.' I don't underestimate for one moment the challenges that a number of these communities are facing. People absolutely are crying out for support and help around the drug, alcohol and gambling addictions that are troubling not just to those individuals but to entire families and networks within communities. I don't underestimate that for one moment. But, as I said, what is required in those situations is community-driven solutions—community-driven solutions that are then supported by us in this House. They are supported financially. Indeed, there are other sorts of support in terms of infrastructure and encouragement around being able to assist communities to implement great community-driven solutions.

We've seen this in places like Fitzroy Crossing, a place that I called home for many years in my life, with some of the most amazing people I have known—predominantly women. Very strong Bunuba women—and not just Bunuba women—have led really brave and courageous changes in their community to deal with the issue around alcohol and the impact that that was having for kids in their community in particular. They have managed to turn around a situation without blaming particular persons and without victimising or socially isolating parts of their communities. They have engendered great community buy-in to the solutions in their town that are going to work to help turn around that alcohol addiction in Fitzroy Crossing. There's much evidence, and that story is now well documented. I say this House should be supporting those kinds of community-driven approaches and pathways that assist communities to empower their own people. They, in fact, know much better than most in this House what will work in those communities.

Regrettably, what we have before us in this House is, as I said, a very narrowly focused piece of legislation that purports to be a temporary measure—but we've seen what temporary measures are like in this House. They have a terrible habit of becoming permanent impositions in communities as decades go by, chipping away slowly at any efforts at self-management and any efforts to restore autonomy to families and community lives. We do people no favours when we disempower them. We do communities no favours when we do not support their own community-driven solutions and approaches.

It is a great disappointment that we appear not to be learning from important lessons shown to us in the past. If there were terrific community support backing in these proposals, or if there were a body of strong evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of these proposals, that would be a different conversation for this House. There have been many alternative approaches put before the Senate inquiry. Regrettably, we're not exploring those in this House. We're not looking at different ways that you might look at increasing taxation on alcohol to assist with those. Again, a narrowly focused— (Time expired)

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to rise today to support the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. Many Australians enjoy the freedom to crack open a coldie—crack open a beer with mates—or have a punt on the Melbourne Cup on Melbourne Cup Day, but we in this House are all aware that the flip side of these freedoms is that gambling, drugs and alcohol abuse can have dire consequences in our society. I see it regularly as the member for Petrie, with different families that come into my office for various reasons. It could be family breakdown or domestic violence, and a lot of the time it is associated with these issues.

The latest statistics—before the member for Newcastle leaves the chamber—from the ABS show that in 2016 374 people died from alcohol-induced causes and 1,808 died from drug-induced causes. That, I think, is very conservative too, because it doesn't look at all the other health effects that are related to it. This is not a subject that members in this place should skim over or ignore.

Beyond fatalities, there are many other associated consequences, including abuse in the family home, depression and ongoing health issues. These ongoing health issues involve chronic diseases that can and will seriously impact on the person's quality of life and their ability to participate in their community. These issues also hinder a return to the workforce. If someone presented evidence to a member of parliament in this place—there are 150 members here from different parties—that a program would reduce drinking abuse by 41 per cent and reduce drug abuse and gambling by 48 per cent, it would be irresponsible for that member not to implement this program. The arguments that I've heard in here today are, at best, very weak. The word 'consultation' has been used, but I'll touch on consultation again in a minute, on the trial programs.

These statistics are very real. They're real. They are the real-life changes that have occurred in two trial sites for the cashless debit cards. The member for Grey in the House yesterday outlined some of the benefits he saw in the community of Ceduna in South Australia. He spoke of the reduction in alcohol use, illegal drug use and the amount of money spent on gambling. He said there was a big reduction. He also spoke on the benefit of the look of the cashless debit card. One of the problems with the BasicsCard, it has been reported, is that it comes with a level of shame; the BasicsCard looks different. The cashless debit card just looks like everyone else's debit card, so there is no shame or stigma attached.

Mr Deputy Speaker, here is my phone. On the back of my phone I carry my debit card. I don't carry cash anymore. If I want to buy a $4 coffee, I don't carry the cash; I just payWave it. And payWave is pretty well accepted everywhere. I would imagine that most people in this House would do the same—that they'd carry their debit card. It's a common form of payment. You don't need cash, okay? It's common to be able to payWave things now.

The cashless debit card takes aim at the social harm caused by alcohol, drug abuse and gambling. I must also give credit to the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, who yesterday spoke about the children that this will affect and the importance of implementing this program right across the country. Participants in the program receive 80 per cent of their welfare payment onto the debit card. So onto the card, like this one here, they receive 80 per cent each fortnight. They can use their card in shops, the same way they use existing debit cards, while restricting the purchase of alcohol or gambling services, or withdrawals or cash payments. And that's fine. The participants still receive the remaining 20 per cent of their payments into their nominated bank account. So they can still actually get 20 per cent as cash. I just don't understand how any member or any senator could vote against this proposal when 80 per cent of the participant's welfare income is put onto a card that can be used for everyday items: grabbing a coffee, going to the supermarket, or buying clothes, schoolbooks or new school shoes for their kids—whatever it is, they can use the card. Twenty per cent they can take out in cash and it can be used for whatever they wish. That sounds very reasonable to me, and not one argument put forward today or yesterday has had a lot of merit to it, if you are against this idea.

In my electorate of Petrie I spoke to representatives from local organisations that see the effects from individuals spending their payments on alcohol and gambling and not on the basic necessities like food and clothing for their family.

Mary-Ann from Kairos Community College, a community college in Deception Bay in my area, thinks this program should be rolled out to all people aged 16 years and over. With her work in the community at Kairos Community College and the school, she knows too many individuals who choose to spend their entire welfare payment on illegal drugs and who, as a result, are currently homeless. That's what she told me. The parliament has the opportunity to help fix this problem. It won't fix the problem completely. People will still have 20 per cent cash, but this will go a long way to fixing the problem, and the statistics in the trial sites currently prove it. Lisa from Active 60 And Better thinks that this is a great program. She believes that intergenerational welfare is an issue prevalent in her community. By helping recipients spend their money on essentials, the program would be a big win for the community. She said it really is sad when you see children at the local pub at midday with their parents rather than being at school.

The fourth proposed trial site is in the federal seat of Hinkler. I thank the member for Hinkler for coming in and listening to my speech today. It is proposed that those under the age of 35 living in the Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Childers and Howard regions who receive Newstart, youth allowance and parenting payments will transition over to the cashless debit card. Last night the member for Hinkler outlined his support of the proposed trial in his electorate. That's what we want to vote on here, to make sure that we can get this trial up into the member for Hinkler's area as well. He's right here next to me. He knows his community better than anyone else in this House, and he would like the opportunity. Extensive consultation has been carried out in the member for Hinkler's seat, including 55 local service providers, I believe, and peak bodies on the front line working with disadvantaged families; two community information sessions open to the public; 26 consultations with local church groups; and 25 meetings with local government. The members who are talking about consultation, are you listening? Are you listening to what I'm saying? There have been three meetings with the Queensland state government and direct engagement with over 70 community members, either through direct correspondence or meetings. Some 32,000 emails have been sent out from your office. Is that right?

Mr Pitt interjecting—

5½ thousand—32,000 direct mail, 5,000 emails, and phone polling of around 500 people by the member for Hinkler. He's sitting next to me. I think 75 per cent of the feedback received from speaking with that community supports the cashless debit card. They support it. This region was selected as a potential trial site, and they desperately want it up there.

The same feedback has been received from the government's other trial sites in the Ceduna—I spoke about the member for Grey—and East Kimberley regions. As I noted earlier in this speech, I was interested to read the comments of Kimberley local leader Ian Trust. He said, 'Unlike other reform efforts undertaken by government, it has been the Indigenous leaders of the East Kimberley who have led this reform.' When comparing trends a year on in the East Kimberley region the results are fantastic: a 28 per cent decrease in St John Ambulance call-outs; a 20 per cent decrease in community patrol pick-ups in the first six months of the trial; a 48 per cent decrease in referrals to the Kimberley Mental Health and Drug Service. So I say to the members that come into this place and say there hasn't been consultation: are they looking at the ABS statistics and are they listening to these figures? Because if they were, they would jump at the opportunity to roll this program out right around the country. Mr Trust said the reason he was one of four Indigenous leaders to sign off on this trial is that they have been trying the same programs for 40 years, and nothing is changing. We come into this place every year and we listen to the Closing the Gap report, and then the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister and everyone says, 'We're making some improvement, but a lot hasn't been improved. There's a lot more needs to be done.' When a program like this that produces statistics and with extensive consultation shows real results, members come in here and baulk, and I say shame on you.

I listened to the member for Denison. What a pathetic contribution that was to this debate earlier today. It really was quite offensive listening to the member for Denison. He rolled out the excuse, 'Well, it was expensive.' Every other time he looks at a government program, he says we're trying to save money. He said it was racist, but we hear from Mr Truss how well it is working in Indigenous communities. It is not racist, because we want to roll it out in other trial sites, like the member for Hinkler's electorate, where the majority of people are not Indigenous. He said it was an ideological vendetta, but I say to the member for Denison that the only person with an ideological vendetta is yourself. You vote against government policy even if it's good policy, even if it's backed by ABS statistics and consultation through these communities where we want to roll it out.

I have heard from other members here today that there's not enough consultation. They're wrong. I say to the people in this House today, the members and those listening in the gallery, if you think of people that gamble and spend their money, and they come back and they've lost all their money for the week on gambling, how do they feel when they come home? I would suggest they feel depressed, angry and desperate. What about someone who's an alcoholic? The member for Denison says 75 per cent don't have a problem. That may be true. Well, they won't be affected, will they? If they don't buy alcohol or don't go gambling, it won't matter if they don't have access to it on their card and they still have 20 per cent cash in their pocket. But what about the 25 per cent that are affected? What about the alcoholic that comes home in the middle of the night and wakes up in the morning and the 11-year-old son says, 'Dad, there's nothing to eat.' How do you think he feels? I think he feels dreadful. I don't think he'll be able to function properly, and I think that they will, in many cases, need mental health support.

This is a win-win situation. I say to members that if you don't vote for this, you are guilty of maintaining the status quo. Look carefully at what you support. I understand that members opposite don't always want to vote for what the government proposes, but this was supposed to be a bipartisan program that's meant to help Australians, the very people that we're elected to represent. I haven't heard any argument from those opposite. If anyone else gets up and talks about consultation again, give me a break, when I've just read out the statistics and the consultation that the member for Hinkler has taken in his electorate alone. I believe that if this goes through, people will thank us. If you have a gambling problem and you can only lose 20 per cent of your cash, and a couple of days later you've got 80 per cent left, I think they'll thank us. I'd ask members and senators to support this bill.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the position put by the member for Jagajaga on behalf of the opposition in respect to this bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. I have listened to most of the speeches given by members on both sides with respect to this legislation. I don't question for a moment the sincerity of their belief in their remarks and in their efforts to respond to what is a very serious social problem, in which alcohol, drug abuse or gambling—indeed at times a combination of all those—are generally the underlying contributing factors.

The reality is that efforts to manage alcohol abuse, drug abuse or gambling have proven to be very difficult across all communities right throughout Australia and, indeed, throughout the world. It's also the case that alcohol, drug and gambling addictions cause suffering to innocent people, often children, to whom we also have a responsibility to protect. That speakers both for and against this legislation have been so passionate tells me that there is some truth to many of the arguments that have been put forward. More importantly, it tells me that there is not unanimous agreement on the merits of the cashless debit card proposal. For that reason alone, the government should proceed with caution. The fact is that the evidence about the effectiveness of the cashless debit card is inconclusive and opinions are, indeed, divided. That being the case, the extension of the program into more communities—that is, in the Goldfields of Western Australia and Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Queensland—should be put on hold.

The fact is that the existing cashless welfare card trials commenced in March 2016 in Ceduna and in April 2016 in the East Kimberly. They were assessed less than a year after that. Unless those trials were an overwhelming success, which is not what the evidence suggests, then the trial period should be extended for a further period and then they should be evaluated. That would enable a much clearer picture of the effects of the trial as well as much more time to consult with local communities about what works best for them. That is what Labor is proposing by extending the trial date of the Ceduna and East Kimberly community programs to end in July 2019. It's one more year. Quite frankly, within that year, there would be a much clearer picture of how effective the trials have been or, indeed, whether they have not been effective.

This is a matter which profoundly affects the lives of people involved in the trials. To tell people that they will not be able to access all of their entitlements other than through a card which limits the way that they spend their money is a fairly profound decision for government to make. Indeed, I ask members of this parliament how many of them would like to have their finances managed the same way. Because it affects people so personally, every member of this parliament should consider very carefully the impact it will have on the lives of the people affected.

The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquired into this matter and reported to parliament in December last year. Not surprisingly, the report was not unanimous. When a parliamentary committee inquires into a matter and presents a divided report, it is a clear signal to parliament to proceed with caution. That is the very purpose and value of the parliamentary committee process. We should not ignore that. Committees of parliament are used as a tool by the parliament to better inform the parliamentary members before decisions are made. Yet the government wants us to ignore that report, which was not unanimous, and thus make a mockery of the parliamentary process.

Since the trials commenced, I have personally received many representations from people knowledgeable about the trials, who have expressed their criticism of them and concern to me. Not too long ago, I spoke with Aboriginal health workers whose work takes them into the Ceduna area. They raised with me their grave reservations about the trials and the negative outcomes that they noted with the cashless welfare card. These were the very people who have to deal with the fallout of the use of these cards and the fallout of the problems that these cards are intended to try and address, but, because they work for government, they are reluctant to speak out themselves and would prefer not to. I understand that, but, at the end of the day, it's people like them that we should listen to, because they are right in the firing line of trying to manage the problems of the communities that we are targeting with the cashless welfare card.

I also listened carefully to the speech of the member for Lingiari. He supports Labor's position and spoke passionately in defence of it. I've known the member for Lingiari since I first joined this parliament over a decade ago. His experience and understanding in the very communities on whom the trials are being imposed, or proposed to be, should not be ignored. I know that he has the best welfare of those communities at heart when he comes into this place and says, 'Let's proceed with caution.' Let's extend the trials for another 12 months. Let's evaluate them then and we will be in a better position to know not only which other communities they should be trialled in, if at all, but also what changes should be made if they are to be extended into a new community. Indeed, are the current guidelines with respect to the cashless welfare card exactly as we want them. I doubt very much that we got the guidelines absolutely perfectly right the first time round. Have we learnt nothing from the trials that might enable us to change the guidelines and make the card more effective, if that is the way that parliament wants to go? I said earlier on that this is an issue that goes right to the heart of how we treat people. It's an issue that makes a huge impact on the lives of the people who are caught up in these trials. That's why I keep reiterating that we should proceed with caution.

There are some other matters that I want to raise with respect to the trials. Firstly, the trials are intended, predominantly, to target a particular sector of the Australian community—that is, Indigenous Australians. In Ceduna, my understanding is that 75 per cent of the people who are participating in the trial are Indigenous Australians. In the East Kimberley, the figure is 82 per cent. This is not just coincidence. The reality is that this trial is predominantly targeted towards Indigenous Australians. The fact remains that Indigenous Australians have been racially discriminated against, neglected, abused and disadvantaged for decades. I don't point the finger at anyone at all in that respect; I simply make a statement of fact. Treating them differently to other Australians now not only continues that discrimination but also is demeaning and demoralising, which is the very opposite of what we should do if we are going to ever close the gap.

I understand that there have been some concerns expressed with respect to our human rights obligations to these people and how this measure may, indeed, infringe and impact on the human rights of those who are participating. That may be a side issue for the time being but the reality is that it is a matter that should not be ignored. In my view, the ultimate answer to fixing the problem is to close the gap when it comes to health, education, employment, housing and the like—doing all the things that enable Indigenous people to be able to live a similar life to everyone else in this country. Maybe the gambling, the drug addiction, the alcohol addiction and the domestic violence would also diminish proportionately as that gap is diminished. I would have thought that one of our most important objectives if we're going to close the gap would be to ensure that people are able to take responsibility for their own lives. Yet this very measure does the exact opposite. It takes away the ability of people to take control and responsibility for their lives.

The social problems of remote Aboriginal communities are, indeed, complex, and both state and federal governments of all persuasions have struggled with the problems for decades. Most of the people affected by the trials are not drug addicts, not gamblers and not alcoholics, yet they will be caught up in the trial itself and they will be obliged to abide by the rules that apply to the cashless debit card. Why are they being caught up in a process when they have done absolutely nothing wrong other than to say that they happen to live in the two communities in which the trials are currently underway? Indeed, if a cashless debit card is to be used, perhaps, rather than identifying specific communities, we should be identifying specific criteria for who should be issued with a card. The criteria might be to do with the person's ability to manage their financial affairs or whether the person is, indeed, an alcoholic, a drug addict or so on. It should be person targeted, not community targeted. I would have thought that that would be a much more effective and much better way of dealing with a cashless debit card if that is the direction that parliament wishes to go in.

I turn to a second matter with respect to my concerns: it seems to me that the cashless debit card program is a tough measure. Some people might choose to use the terminology that it's 'tough love'. Serious social problems are rarely ever resolved by imposing harsh measures. Inevitably, all that happens is that a problem is fixed in one area and simultaneously another problem is created, or that the problem that is fixed in one area is simply shifted to another area. I wonder, when parliament flags that we are going to introduce the cashless debit card to the Goldfields area of Western Australia and the Hervey Bay area of Queensland, whether the people in those communities, with advance knowledge of where it's going, will simply move out of those communities to a different location. I wonder how many of them already did that with respect to the card in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. Therefore, for those who wish to avoid the card's impacts, there are ways out of it and, therefore, in my view, the assessment that then takes place is not genuinely reflective of whether the problem has been fixed—it has simply shifted to another location. That's why—and it's issues such as that—simple observations and simple measurements about the claimed success of a program can so often be misinterpreted.

If we want the best for these communities—and I suspect we all do, from both sides of this House—it would be wise to extend the trials that are currently underway in Ceduna and the Kimberley for another 12 months, because that would enable us, at the end of the 12 months, to not only more accurately evaluate the effect of those trials but also evaluate any unintended consequences that were not foreseen when the trials started. It's a cautionary approach. It makes sense. I see little advantage in moving onto two new sites when we still have more work to do in the existing sites where the trials are underway.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. What was the purpose and what is the purpose of the cashless debit card trials? In principle it sounds encouraging: it was designed to assist people to make positive choices in the spending of Centrelink payments and to limit the amount of discretionary spending on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling. It's critical that we acknowledge in this place that not everybody on Centrelink payments spends money on alcohol, tobacco, pokies or gambling, but it's also important to acknowledge that every person in a trial site, even if they are on Newstart or youth allowance, is affected by this trial.

Isolated sites were chosen so that thorough research could be undertaken to determine whether the implementation of the cashless debit card had an overall positive or negative effect on a community. Isolated communities were chosen so that it would be easier to identify the benefits or unintended consequences of the trial.

The great challenge with this legislation is that, at this point in time, we do not know if the cashless welfare card is, indeed, helping the communities where it is currently on trial. We do not have the conclusive evidence. And now before us we have a bill to extend the cashless welfare card at its current sites, and for new sites in the Western Australian Goldfields and for Queensland. I acknowledge that with the Western Australian Goldfields the government already has some legislative power to do that site but this bill would provide for the extension to places such as Queensland.

I think it's important to point out this is an incredibly expensive trial. It is well purported to be so, but I actually have no idea of the cost as this has not been disclosed. Media reports state that the cost of each Indue card used by Centrelink recipients costs approximately $10,000 each to manage. If that is so, if those figures are correct, this is an incredibly expensive trial, although I do acknowledge that the minister has advised me that when it's in large numbers, obviously, the cost goes down.

We do not yet have a clear determination on whether the card actually benefits participants and communities and it is an incredibly expensive experiment to continue, let alone to expand.

On behalf of NXT, I have a number of recommendations that I would like the government to consider. Firstly, that the government should only ever operate the cashless debit credit card trials in communities where there is support—genuine social licence—to instigate those trials as gauged by broad community consultation and not just the support of a few prominent community leaders. This support must also be forthcoming from the people in the community, some of whom would be recipients of the card.

Secondly, all trials must always be properly supported with wraparound services—namely, all of the support programs and services that can augment and leverage any positive outcomes that the trial may possibly produce. The cashless debit card will not change behaviours of participants itself. There must be a network of social services to support the participant to change their behaviour, whether it relates to alcohol addiction, gambling addiction or another damaging behaviour.

Thirdly, and most importantly, before you roll out the card to any new communities beyond those that are currently legislatively available to the government, you must have conclusive evidence that the card is working effectively and these conclusions must come from independent evaluations.

However, I and the Nick Xenophon Team cannot support the cashless debit card that seeks to expand to trial sites beyond the legislative power the government has until we have the conclusive determination that the card is helping people rather than hurting the communities in which it operates. I do not believe we will truly know how successful the trials have been until much more data is collected, especially as the research findings and community response from the trials to date have been so mixed.

In my following comments, I'm thankful to the published work of Dr Janet Hunt of the Australian National University, who I occasionally quote, and the trial evaluation reports from Orima Research. Whilst I note that the evaluation reports indicate the trial has been effective in reducing alcohol consumption and gambling at both trial sites, these findings have been based predominantly on self-reported data for which we can reasonably expect survey respondents would seek to present themselves in the best possible light. In any case, I note that 77 per cent of participants reported no positive impact of the trial, with 43 per cent reporting that they'd had no change in their behaviour since the trial began and 34 per cent reporting that they did not engage in alcohol consumption, illegal drug use or gambling prior to the trial in any case.

The data we have is also plagued with problems of correlation versus causation. In September 2015 Ceduna introduced alcohol restrictions independently of the trial and the East Kimberley region introduced additional takeaway alcohol management from December 2015. Therefore, unless some complex and rigorous regression analysis is undertaken, it is hard to know whether it was the trial or something else entirely that was responsible for any of the purported positive outcomes.

However, there are a few pieces of more conclusive data. For example, in the 12 months after the Ceduna trial started, there was a 12 per cent reduction in poker machine revenue in Ceduna and the surrounding local government areas. Yet, even here, I note that there was no such equivalent data reported, assuming it was even collected, in the East Kimberley region trial site. So, again, it's hard to know whether the trials are responsible for any reduction in poker machine revenue or there was some other factor entirely at play.

Further, I note that there has been no conclusive finding that there has been a reduction in violence or crime at the trial sites. There has been no clear connection established between participants' reports that they have reduced their gambling and alcohol consumption and any purported reduction in violence and crime. I recognise that community perceptions have indicated a decrease in violence and crime, yet again there's no hard data to confirm these perceptions.

I was also concerned to see that the use of methamphetamines, also known as ice, had significantly heightened among stakeholders from the initial condition stage of the research compared to wave 1 of the research, published six months later. I'm beginning to feel like a broken record here, but, yet again, without comprehensive data collection, it's hard to know whether the cashless debit card trial has increased, decreased or had no effect upon methamphetamine use.

Yet the most concerning finding, I believe, was that only 27 per cent of family members said that the trial had made their family lives better, and 37 per cent said it made them worse. Across participants interviewed, 22 per cent said it had made their lives better, but almost half said that it had made their lives worse. These are really disturbing results. It's one thing to have participants dislike the effects of the card upon their life and their financial freedom but another thing entirely for their families to say the card has made the lives of their loved ones and themselves worse.

In summary, the data seeking to track the outcomes of the trial are less than robust, and the data surrounding the secondary social and economic impacts are even less robust. The clear lesson here is that real longitudinal data need to be collected, and more effectively collected, before we can make any final conclusions about the efficacy of the cashless debit card. I strongly urge the government to address these issues if it seeks to continue the existing trials. We also need to look at homelessness. We need to look at education and connection to education. All of this impacts upon a community, and all of this would be impacted upon by the cashless debit card.

I do recognise that 12 months is too short a period for conclusive outcomes and impacts to be fully apparent. It is for that reason that NXT would support the bill to continue, with a limited extension for a 12-month period in its existing trial sites. This is supposed to be a trial, and I want to make it very clear to government that this is not ongoing, indefinite support of the existing sites. We need to get the data, and we need to get this right. However, I reiterate that the Nick Xenophon Team cannot support this bill in its current form until it can be conclusively determined with solid evidence that the cashless debit card is actually effective.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. The bill that is currently before the House provides the underpinning legislative authority to enable the expansion of the cashless debit card into new regions. The government is committed to addressing the serious harm that's caused by alcohol, gambling and drug abuse paid for by welfare payments. The cashless debit card aims to reduce the devastating effects of welfare-fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse. The card operates like an ordinary debit card, but the primary difference is that it doesn't work at liquor stores; it doesn't work at gambling houses; and cash cannot be withdrawn from it. Welfare payments are placed into an individual's account, which is only accessible with the card.

The card has been in operation since March 2016, when the first of two 12-month trials began. The first of those trials was in Ceduna, in South Australia, and the second trial took place in two locations, at Kununurra and Wyndham, in Western Australia. It began soon after that. In each of those trials, 80 per cent of an individual's welfare payments is placed into their cashless debit card account, and the remaining 20 per cent is placed into their ordinary savings account.

The results of the trials are encouraging. It's reported that there is less public drunkenness, less poker machine gambling, fewer alcohol related hospital admissions, and people are engaging with the support services and working to improve their lives. Many communities have expressed interest in having the card introduced into their region. The cashless debit card is a world-first in how it operates. The trials have been completed and they have been shown to work. There is now an opportunity to expand the card's operation. I commend the bill to the House.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that this bill be read a second time.