Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the 90-second statements, I moved the amendment circulated in my name. In those amendments, I made clear that while not declining to give this bill a second reading, it sadly needs to be seen in the context of the absolute disaster that has fallen on vulnerable communities throughout this country as a result of the ideological position that this government has taken with respect to abolishing the compulsory cashless debit card.

We have seen clear, irrefutable evidence, just as recently as on the weekend. South Australian police statistics show that since the compulsory nature of the cashless debit card was abolished by the Labor government in Ceduna, crime has doubled. Crime has doubled in that time. In a debate not too dissimilar to this last year, when the government applauded themselves when they abolished the cashless debit card, we on this side were very clear with the government that the human misery that would follow the abolition of the cashless debit card was not theoretical; it wasn't asked making a political point. I pleaded with the government: 'Do not do this. If you do this, if you abolish the cashless debit card, as sure as night follows day, we will see alcohol and drugs flood into vulnerable communities.' You don't have to be Einstein or have a PhD and you don't need to sit at the dinner parties that those members of the government sit at with their high-minded discussions to know that if you allow vulnerable communities to be flooded with more drugs and alcohol, the dysfunction in those communities will go through the roof. You don't need to be a genius to work that out, and yet the government went ahead with it anyway. Now we see the statistics don't lie. The South Australia Police statistics show crime out of Ceduna has doubled.

I was in a meeting this morning, in fact, with community members and community leaders from the Goldfields and Kimberley regions of Western Australia, which had compulsory cashless debit cards previously. We had the member for Grey there as well and all of the members that represent cashless debit card sites. It was story after story that just confirmed the statistics—that towns, such as with Ceduna, that had seen a resurgence in tourism and had been seeing great harmony since the cashless debit card was put in place are now seeing that absolutely degenerate.

I always make this point in this debate. This is the heartbreaking thing. It really is. I'm not known in this House for my sentimentality. I'm not known for my sentimentality generally. But I must say that the things that do tug on my heartstrings as a father and as a husband are when I see the outcomes of this decision of the government leading to women and children suffering. I always make this point. I think I am a bit more generous to the government than they are to the opposition. I always make the point that no-one in this chamber wants to see people suffer. So it beggars belief that the government would put in place a policy that they know with certainty will lead to women and children suffering. More drugs and alcohol flooding into these communities hurts women and children the most.

Today, in our meeting with community leaders, including Indigenous leaders, from the Goldfields region of Western Australia, one remarked on how now they are seeing children coming to school again having not eaten, with there being no food at home. They're relying more and more on the school system to try and help them through, whereas when the cashless debit card was in place a huge improvement had been seen because welfare recipients who were subject to the cashless debit card in a compulsory fashion were forced to use 80 per cent of their welfare for staple, everyday goods you would find at a supermarket. They could not go and spend it at the bottle shop. They couldn't go and spend it at the pub. Now we see that money being spent at the bottle shop and the pub. How could anyone in good conscience go ahead with that policy? If you've got a brain, you would know that more drugs and alcohol are going to have that consequence. We now see the human misery and the suffering that has resulted from it.

This is a very narrow bill in that it helps transition people from old BasicsCard technology, effectively—those who were on the compulsory BasicsCard in the Northern Territory—to the updated technology that was the CDC technology. Those opposite criticised the former government for the cashless debit card and yet now are utilising the cashless debit card technology that we had in place on a compulsory basis. They have now turned it voluntary. They are now transitioning everybody in the Northern Territory on the BasicsCard to that cashless debit card, the technology of which we developed.

On the one hand, we are so utterly appalled by what the government has done here on the CDC that at first inclination we would say: 'Don't support anything the government does in this space. They have so tarnished themselves, they have so tarnished these communities, that we shouldn't support anything they do in the cashless debit card space.' But, if we were to take that position, we would deny people on the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory the better functionality of the cashless debit card, which was the card that we had in place and was the card that the opposition at the time criticised and said was terrible. Now they're using our technology in the transition for those who are on compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. Above my deep disgust, to be frank, of what the government has done here, we will place their interests above that deep disgust that we feel and, subject to my amendments, which I've circulated, we will not deny those recipients of the updated card.

It's worth mentioning a couple of things in relation to the so-called SmartCard. The SmartCard is a rebranded cashless debit card—that's all it is. All you have to do is look at some of the providers of those cards and what they've said about the updated card, a card which has cost $217 million. As the Traditional Credit Union explains to its cardholders, 'The differences between the CDC and the new SmartCard are'—hold your breath—'its colour and its name.' That's what $217 million gets you under a Labor government—a change in colour and a change in name. Why would you do that? Why would you spend $217 million to take the technology that was already there and that was developed by the coalition, rename it something else—the SmartCard—but then only change the colour and the name?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You said it had better functionally and that's why you're supporting it.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the minister: keep up. You've lost track.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I haven't.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection. The CDC, which was in place and criticised by the government when in opposition, is now the technology which underpins the so-called SmartCard, which has cost $217 million in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Someone has done pretty well out of it. Some consultant has made a whole lot of money out of renaming it from the cashless debit card to the SmartCard and updating the colour. Let's see what that contract looks like.

But, notwithstanding that absolutely appalling disregard for taxpayers' money, at least those who are on the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory will now get access to the updated technology that the coalition developed with the cashless debit card. In that respect, we will not stand in the way. What we also won't do is speak down to these communities. The Prime Minister was flailing around for an answer in question time. Detail is not his strong suit, as we all know—he's the person who couldn't name the cash rate or the unemployment rate on the first day of the election, which I think says it all about his ability to master detail.

What we won't do is speak down to those communities. You've got a delegation of people from cashless debit card sites—community leaders and Indigenous leaders—saying: 'Reinstate the cashless debit card. We are suffering the consequences of this decision from the government. Please reinstate the card and, at the very least, help us deal with the dysfunction, the violence and the alcoholism that we're now seeing.' Sadly, what we've seen from those opposite—from the minister, from the assistant minister, from the Prime Minister—is this talking down to communities rather than listening to them. At a time when we're talking a lot about the Voice and people's voices, you've got to listen to people's voices in these communities who are suffering.

So I was very disappointed when I saw speaking to the ABC Goldfields on 15 February the assistant social services minister basically say communities were being disingenuous in their criticism of the government repealing the CDC. I sincerely hope the government has walked those statements back. I wouldn't want to be out there as a minister criticising those who are on the front line, mopping up the mess that's been created by this government—and I mean literally mopping up. I mean carrying drunken people who are in the street and helping them find safety. I mean the emergency services and the police who are there to mop up the increased violence, including violence against women and children—things that we are seeing borne out in official South Australian police statistics.

These aren't my statistics. Sure, when the government abolished the cashless debit card, I said in this chamber that human misery would follow. But the government had at least the argument to say, 'Well, that's just your assertion, Shadow Minister. You don't know that for sure.' Even though, again, you don't need to be a particular genius to work out that more drugs and alcohol in vulnerable communities will lead to that, they at least had that very flimsy ground to stand on. Now they have none of that, because it is not my assertion anymore; these are the official police statistics. Crime has doubled in Ceduna—what does the government not understand about that—since you abolished the cashless debit card. It's not up by 10 per cent, not up by 20 per cent; it has doubled.

Again I appeal to the good people in the Labor Party. There's an off-ramp you here, and I think the Australian people give you more credit, even as a government, when you admit mistakes. Walk back from this catastrophic error. As I said to the social services minister across the chamber, and I'll say it on Hansard, if the government reverses its decision to abolish the compulsory cashless debit card in each of the sites, I will be the first person to march into this chamber, seek the call from the Speaker and unreservedly congratulate the social services minister, the assistant minister and the Prime Minister on at least admitting they made a catastrophic error. Every government makes mistakes; the test of a good government is when you recognise the cost of that mistake is too great. I wouldn't want to be going home at night and putting my head on the pillow knowing a decision taken by this government is leading to more crime, including violent crime, in vulnerable communities.

I can't say it strongly enough: this pig-headedness, letting politics get in the way, is quite frankly the worst thing about politics in this country—this pig-headed decision to just ride it out, 'Don't worry about people that suffer along the way, because we don't want to suffer the embarrassment or indignity of admitting we made the wrong call.' Well, I can commit today that I will not come to this dispatch box to crow, and say: 'You should have listened to us from day one; we had it right. You didn't need to be a genius to know that more drugs and alcohol into these communities were going to increase crime and make women and children suffer more.' I won't say any of that. I will, unreservedly, congratulate the government for admitting its error. I think we would all walk away from here feeling: 'Do you know what? There are a few women and children who are a bit safer tonight because there are fewer drugs and less alcohol in these vulnerable communities.' Let's be frank: that's what we're talking about today.

There is a range of other problems here. The government doesn't know, or just won't say—we're not really sure—when the transition will commence. So we won't stand in the way of this bill; our support will be the thing that allows it to pass the parliament. But, to be frank, I don't think it's likely that the crossbench, and certainly the Greens political party, will support this. So our support is crucial to ensure that this happens, and I think that the least the government could do is commit to when it will commence. Last year, the government's regulation impact statement said that current income management participants will continue to use the BasicsCard and move to a new card with enhanced functionality from 1 July 2023. Has the minister repeated this time line since, I might ask the House? No, the minister has not repeated that declaration, that this will take place from 1 July 2023. In fact, the EM to the bill omits any firm time lines altogether.

Instead, without the aid of a new regulatory impact statement, members are being to asked to vote on a vague commencement date outlined in the bill's EM. The minister has not bothered to tell the parliament—much less some of the most vulnerable Australians who will be affected by this decision—when the transition will commence. The minister will need to explain—or the assistant minister, as the case may be—why 1 July 2023 is no longer the government's stated transition date. When did the government know that this would no longer be the transition date? Why are they treating Australians with contempt by not even outlining what the transition date will be? They took this abominable policy to an election and they've now been in government for 10 months. They committed to a 1 July 2023 transition date and yet we don't know anything about that.

I will restate our position. I have moved the amendment circulated in my name. It won't stop the progress of this bill, as far as the opposition is concerned. I want to hear from the minister who speaks on this bill about when the transition date will be. Whilst we aren't going to stand in the way of the bill, the least the government could do is outline to us, if not to the Australian people, when the transition date is—not a fluffy time line and not a range, but a date. When will this transition occur, particularly for those who are on the BasicsCard, who will be able to get the increased functionality of the coalition's cashless debit card, which is now being rebranded at a cost of $217 million? It's getting a new colour and a new name, rebranded by the government.

Finally, I will say again: I appeal to the government: it's not too late to reinstate the compulsory nature of the CDC in each of the sites where it was working exceptionally well. If they don't believe me, believe the community representatives from the Goldfields, or the Kimberley, or Ceduna or other parts of Australia who have seen a tsunami of drugs and alcohol causing huge crime problems in their communities. And it's not some sort of fluffy time frame. Since the card was abolished, we've seen crime statistics double; we've seen the number of crimes double. We talk about crime—I use the word 'crime; I'm as guilty as anyone of just using the anodyne word 'crime'. Well, what is crime? What are the crimes we're talking about? We're talking about public disorder, crimes against property, whether that be a broken window or a fight in the street. But we're also talking about horrific, violent crime. We're also talking about domestic violence, quite frankly. We're talking about neglect of children. And, if these things don't tug the heartstrings of the hardest person in this House, I don't know what can.

So I appeal to the government one last time. We will facilitate in any way, shape or form the government reinstating the compulsory cashless debit card to help the communities who are now seeing a tsunami of crime and of drugs and alcohol into their towns, who are grappling with that. We will facilitate in any way you admitting that you've made a catastrophic error, and I will commend you for walking it back. I will commend you for admitting that error. I think, in the end, politically, Australians will give credit to a government who admits they have made a catastrophic decision that has led to a disaster for these communities, and particularly a disaster for women and children.

So I will restate it: we won't be opposing this bill. We won't be opposing particularly people in the Northern Territory who are on compulsory income management, the BasicsCard, from getting access to the better functionality that the government has adopted and rebranded for these purposes. But it in no way means that we walk away from our vehement opposition of this ideological and destructive decision by the government to abolish the compulsory cashless debit card.

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

Is the amendment seconded?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment. The Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill is a consequential bill. Taken together with the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Repeal of Cashless Debit Card and Other Measures) Bill, which the House considered last year, this bill directly affects the livelihoods and wellbeing of thousands of Australians. This bill unwinds compulsory income management, a policy regime which has been in place over successive governments since 2007. The government has described its new policy as 'enhanced income management'. In reality this is almost certainly nothing more than a euphemism for abandoning the policy.

This bill effectively abolishes the BasicsCard, to be replaced by the government's SmartCard, a near carbon copy of the coalition's successful cashless debit card. Although, as the shadow minister for social services has eloquently informed the House, the government, while admitting that it simply involves a renaming, seems very keen to describe it as a smart card and not as a cashless debit card. It's a deeply confusing position that the government has taken on this particular issue.

I want to start by highlighting to the House the lessons which are available in plain sight to all of us from this government's ill-judged abolition of the cashless debit card last year. The parliamentary debate on the legislation which abolished the cashless debit card was informed by powerful speeches from a range of members on this side of the House, including the member for Durack, the member for O'Connor, the member for Grey and the member for Hinkler, all of whom spoke of the experiences in their own communities of the positive and profound impact which the cashless debit card had in those communities during the time that it was in operation and, subsequently, the very serious consequences as a result of the cashless debit card being abolished.

Last month the former mayor of Ceduna, in South Australia, Allan Suter, who served as mayor of that community from 2006 to 2018—and, may I say, I had a chance to visit that community during my earlier tenure as the minister for social services—said that his town was, following the abolition of the cashless debit card, experiencing a rise in rough sleeping. He noted there were more children not attending school. He was aware of more people presenting to hospital suffering from alcohol fuelled family and domestic violence.

In Western Australia's remote Goldfields region, the local mayors have spoken up strongly about the deteriorating conditions in that part of Australia. Indeed, they have taken the trouble to travel all the way to Canberra today to speak with parliamentarians about the very serious consequences of the government's ill-judged decision to abolish the cashless debit card. Leonora shire president Peter Craig said:

… we've got all the cash back on the streets, there's an increase in people going to hospital …

Coolgardie shire president Malcolm Cullen offered this assessment:

Compared to where we were four years earlier, the children were behaving better and were being looked after better.

Those mayors, along with Kalgoorlie-Boulder shire president John Bowler and Laverton shire president Patrick Hill, called for the Prime Minister and the Minister for Social Services to visit their communities. Around the time of the Prime Minister's visit to Port Hedland, those mayors invited the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Government Services to spend time in their communities to see firsthand the impact of the abolition of the cashless debit card. I endorse very strongly the call they have made. In my own experience as social services minister—visiting towns in the Goldfields region along with the member for O'Connor, and having the opportunity to visit Ceduna with the member for Grey, and, indeed, the opportunity to join the member for Hinkler on a visit to towns in his electorate—I have seen directly the benefits of the cashless debit card demonstrated, and I have heard from community leaders. I was struck particularly by the quiet conviction of senior Aboriginal women and men community leaders speaking about the benefits they had experienced in their communities from the operation of the cashless debit card. I want to commend all the community leaders I've referred to for their courage in speaking up on behalf of the people they represent. I also want to commend the opposition leader, who has visited the Goldfields region, along with the member for O'Connor; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who has visited Geraldton; and the Leader of the Nationals, who has visited Carnarvon.

On this side of the House we have been determined to gather the policy evidence about the effect of the cashless debit card. Of course, we draw on that experience in offering our perspective on the actions the government is now putting before the House in relation to the rebranding of the BasicsCard as a smart card. Conversely, I'm sorry to say, we've seen from the Minister for Social Services, the Minister for Government Services and the Minister for Indigenous Australians a determination to avoid an engagement with the facts. For example, we've raised these matters in question time. The member for Durack asked about a rise in antisocial behaviour in Kununurra. This was explained away by the Minister for Social Services as a consequence of flooding. When asked the following week by the member for O'Connor why there had been a spike in alcohol related social harm in his electorate—no flooding in sight in that electorate, no flooding here, but I'll tell you one common element: the removal of the cashless debit card in both locations—what was the response the Minister for Social Services gave to that point? It was that she accused him of peddling misinformation. It's the side of the House, contrary to peddling misinformation, that has been rigorously going to the affected communities and speaking with local residents to understand what the evidence actually says.

Let me turn to the consultation and design process that has occurred in relation to the move from the BasicsCard to the SmartCard. I've no doubt they spoke extensively to high-powered branding consultants who said: 'We need to think about the name. The BasicsCard is not very 2020s. We can do much better than that. How about the SmartCard, Minister?' 'I love that. The SmartCard—that's wonderful.' It would be amusing if it were not so serious in terms of what is at stake for the tens of thousands of Australians whose lives are being upturned by this government's prioritisation of dancing to the tune of activists in metropolitan Australia rather than meeting the genuine needs of Australians all around our country.

In relation to the bill abolishing the cashless debit card, the government's regulation impact statement had this to say:

Current IM participants will continue to use the BasicsCard and move to a new card with enhanced functionality from 1 July 2023.

That was the last time that time line has ever been referred to. That time line has been sent to the naughty corner, not to be heard again. The explanatory memorandum for the bill presently before the House omits any mention at all of firm time lines. The bill simply says that the transition would occur 'on a commencement date as outlined in the explanatory memorandum.' The Minister for Social Services has not informed this parliament, nor those vulnerable Australians on income management, when the transition will commence. So we are left with a very obvious question: why is the government no longer committed to a starting date of 1 July 2023?

These matters were examined in the Senate estimates process. Departmental officials were asked what lessons had been learned from the transition in relation to the cashless debit card. They boldly ventured to suggest there had been 'some impact'. A study of the cashless debit card transition by the University of Adelaide, commissioned by the government, has only just commenced. Certainly, the terms of reference for that study have not been shared publicly, nor do we know the findings from the targeted transition interviews that Services Australia conducted. All of this is basic information which should be made available to all members and senators. It is equally disturbing that the government is pushing through this bill without allowing a formal inquiry and consultation process to be concluded. The Community Affairs Legislation Committee has given stakeholders only 22 days to make a submission in relation to the very important matters upon which this bill bears and which will affect the lives of thousands of Australians.

There is one other question which simply cries out to be asked: why has the Minister for Government Services gone missing from this important public policy debate? He failed to make a contribution to the debate last year on the repeal of the cashless debit card, nor does his name appear on the list of speakers in relation to this bill. I hope to be proven wrong. I hope that I am drawing adverse inferences, and the Minister for Government Services is going to surprise on the upside. That's what I hope, but I fear my hope is only a faint one. The simple fact is that the job of managing this enormous agency, the front line of service delivery to hundreds of thousands of Australians, is something that appears to engage the minister rather less than playing politics in the way that he seems to show great enthusiasm for. That's a matter for regret, because the lives of many Australians depend upon the efficiency with which Services Australia operates, and certainly the lives of many Australians will be affected by the success or failure of this transition.

The transition from the cashless debit card to the SmartCard involved around 17,400 people. Just to be clear, people only transitioned if they chose to, whereas in this instance the government is telling us that people will be transitioned from the BasicsCard to the SmartCard. That will impact around 24,800 participants, some of whom are on income management because they've been determined, for example, to be neglectful or abusive of their own children.

It's very important that this transition is managed effectively. It's very important that we don't have administrative difficulties that confound the operation of this transition. Based upon the lack of engagement by the Minister for Government Services in the previous bill that went through this place, and the fact that the Minister for Government Services is not even listed, at this stage, to speak in relation to this bill, it is fair to say that it does not appear to be a matter which is consuming a great deal of his time and attention.

There are possibly some reasons for this, which have been revealed in public. The Sydney Morning Herald, on 5 March, revealed that Services Australia had advised the Minister for Social Services that meeting the government's transition deadline would be highly problematic because of 'IT issues'. The opposition has called on the Minister for Government Services to urgently explain what advice his agency has provided to the Minister for Social Services and whether he, himself, holds concerns about the capacity of his agency to deliver. Are these 'IT issues' the reason why the 1 July 2023 commencement date has vanished into thin air again? To what extent has the public debate been informed by a detailed contribution from the Minister for Government Services on this issue? I'm sorry to tell the House that there has been no contribution from the Minister for Government Services on this issue.

It's interesting that the government's own Office of Impact Analysis has assessed the regulation impact statement, in relation to establishing so-called enhanced income management, as not constituting good practice, which is very far from reassuring, it must be said. Indeed, the Office of Impact Analysis said that the government's transition plan required more detail. We now know that $150 million has been allocated to Services Australia to manage this program, but, as the Office of Impact Analysis has observed, the government has still not clarified 'whether Services Australia has the trained resources ready to deliver this program'.

There will be some who will say I am showing a lack of confidence in the Minister for Government Services and that, despite all appearances to the contrary, he actually has a forensic interest in the detail and a passionate commitment to the delivery of services—nothing excites him more than getting under the bonnet, under the hood, of a major IT transformation—and he's going to be terrier-like on this, going after detail after detail. I'd love to believe that's the case, but, frankly, I'm very sceptical. This is a mess, and the sad thing is that the lives of tens of thousands of Australians are going to be affected as a consequence of this government's mismanagement.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. This bill reflects the Albanese Labor government's commitment to reform income management. Last year our government passed legislation to repeal the cashless debit card, or CDC, program. And that delivered on our election commitment to make sure we got rid of the cashless debit card. We see and hear today that those opposite are absolutely committed to bringing that back, which would be very distressing for many in those communities who, for many years, advocated and campaigned to have the cashless debit card removed because of the impact on so many communities. We certainly heard from hundreds and hundreds of people whose lives had been severely impacted by the card, and I'm sure all of those people will be absolutely aghast to hear that the Liberals and Nationals are committed to bringing back the cashless debit card, as they've repeatedly claimed today. The fact is that the cashless debit card was unfair, and it was incredibly detrimental to many people's lives. We heard stories of people that couldn't pay their rent or their car repayments. It was imposed upon communities without consultation and with no notice at all. We know that the former government, the Morrison government, had plans to expand the cashless debit card to other communities and plans to extend it to age pensioners as well. We've seen that reported a number of times. As I say, we went to the election with a commitment to abolish the cashless debit card.

Once that legislation was passed, during the repeal of the cashless debit card, we established the Enhanced Income Management program, and today we are moving these amendments to ensure that income management participants are better supported. We know how important it is to provide all of those services that can be accessed—so vitally important for people in a range of communities. The bill sets out amendments that will (1) provide existing income management participants with the choice to access a more contemporary card, known as the SmartCard and (2) direct all new income management participants to the SmartCard. That means no new participants will be issued with the BasicsCard. The bill is truly a product of meaningful community consultation because we do believe in listening to communities and working with them to get outcomes that best reflect them—not imposing policies and plans upon them like the previous government did. This bill is a product of that meaningful consultation.

The SmartCard is contemporary visa technology delivered by Services Australia which will give participants access to a modern financial experience. It includes access to tap-and-go transactions, online shopping, BPAY and a PIN for added security. In addition, this bill ensures that participants will receive front-facing, people-driven services delivered by Services Australia—not a private company, as was the case under the previous government with the cashless debit card. It caused a huge amount of distress that people were not able to speak to a person about their individual circumstances in order to access the goods and services they needed. This will be driven by Services Australia, and it really ensures that the most vulnerable in our community are best supported—those who need that support. It was incredibly difficult before, when it was a private company, because they had to call and they were not receiving the support.

We've also listened to the strong feedback about the BasicsCard, which includes feedback delivered in the many submissions to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee. This bill takes steps to further address concerns around the inadequacies of the BasicsCard. We know from feedback and consultation that the SmartCard meets the community expectations. This bill gives existing income management participants the choice to move to that more enhanced technology.

I've spoken to many people in income management on the ground in the regions. I've heard firsthand what their communities need and want. This bill, plus the changes we've already introduced, is what communities have asked for. That's what we have done—consulted, listened and acted—and we'll continue to do that. We do that because this government understands it's not one-size-fits-all; complex issues require complex solutions, often on a case-by-case, location-by-location basis after listening to those communities. We understand that genuine consultation is the way forward. We don't impose the massive legislative policy change—as the previous government did—that caused so much distress when the cashless debit card was brought in.

I also highlight that this bill will ensure there are no new compulsory referrals for aged pensioners and special-needs pensioners. We will also ensure that for veterans' payments are non-eligible payments for enhanced income management. This reflects our government's view that it was never appropriate, and ensures that any attempts at changes in the future will actually be put to the parliament for legislative change. We believe it's vitally important to include that.

I reiterate to the House that these proposed amendments do not pre-empt longer-term considerations around any income management, depending upon what those communities may raise with us. But our government was very, very clear about our commitment to abolish the cashless debit card, which we have delivered on. It's an issue that has been raised with us for many years. We made it very clear at that election that we intended to abolish the cashless debit card. We listened to communities and we've done that. As of 6 March 2023 participants in the Northern Territory, Cape York and Doomadgee have all successfully transitioned to Enhanced Income Management. Volunteering participants in other former CDC sites have also been able to transition to Enhanced Income Management.

As I say, in working closely with those communities, we know one of the most important aspects is providing support. We're going to be doing that. Under the previous government, all of the funding for those supports had just stopped. They had no plans to continue them. We are going to continue giving support to these communities with our $17 million for an economic development grant plan which is currently underway to implement projects to create sustainable jobs in Ceduna, Kimberly, the Goldfields and Cape York. And there's $1.5 million for immediate community priorities in the Goldfields, Kimberley and Ceduna.

Today's bill does not change the operation of income management in the Northern Territory and other place based locations. In addition, this bill won't change the eligibility criteria in the assessment process. What this bill will do is give the same choice to existing income management participants in the Northern Territory and other place based locations to actually be able to access and use that contemporary technology. As we said when we abolished the CDC last year, we are committed to informed and detailed consultations with communities on the future of income management and in continuing to work with those communities. Any decisions about the future of income management have to be based on consultation with those communities, state and territory governments and a whole range of people, particularly those participants. We will keep doing that. We will keep talking to all of those participants, recipients, frontline services and First Nations leaders, We will constantly keep working with them.

Also, we will continue to invest in and deliver improved opportunities and services to best support and empower our most vulnerable people. That's exactly what we've done with the support services that we have put in place. We're ensuring that Services Australia plays such a vital role in the assistance that people need.

I would like to finish by, again, just raising with the House the community concerns that have been raised now that we're hearing from the Liberals and Nationals that they intend to bring back the cashless debit card. We know it was always their intention to expand it further. I imagine that would be very distressing for communities right throughout the country. We know they wanted to extend it to so many communities and to our age pensioners as well. Today, they have confirmed that that is their intention—they want the cashless debit card back. Well, we have made it very clear. We repealed the cashless debit card and we will continue to fight their objective of bringing it back. We want to work with individual communities and get the best outcomes for them. That is exactly what we have done and that's what this bill today relates to. I commend the bill to the House.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HILL () (): If ever there was a clue that the government is doing the right thing, it is when we are in the middle of the opposition's hysteria and the Greens' sanctimonious nonsense. The Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023 should not be controversial. It really shouldn't. It simply delivers the government's election commitment to reform income management. It gives the choice to nearly 25,000 people who are currently on income management to access superior technology. Most of those people are on the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory, and so it implements new technology while we honour our election promise to consult with communities on income management.

The provisions in this bill merit exactly what exists in the current legislation while that consultation continues. It responds to recommendations from the senate legislation committee that the BasicsCard is out of date. That's because the Liberals and the Nationals failed to invest in it. They were so focused on pumping $70 million of taxpayer money to a private company for their precious cashless debit card that they failed to invest in the BasicsCard and left Indigenous communities languishing with substandard technology. For people on the BasicsCard, it's still only accepted by pre-approved merchants. People are still restricted on where they can shop and what they can buy. So this bill will implement better technology, a modern financial experience, a contemporary debit card with an associated bank account and really radical stuff like 'tap to pay' and having a PIN! It should not be controversial. It will stop the stigma and shame for so many thousands of Australians. But it is in the context of and also progresses and honours our election commitment to scrapping the cashless debit card, and we have done that. It's a principled position.

With the second reading amendment—I've read it—I'll give them points: at least they're now being honest. They want to bring back the cashless debit card. That's what it says. They put out a media release today telling Australians that their policy is to bring back the cashless debit card and forced income management. Let's be very clear: this is not just about vulnerable communities. It's not about the semiracist stereotypes that you want to conjure of Indigenous people. As the previous Senate report said, this is a racist scheme. The former government's scheme, the Liberal Party's scheme, was a racist scheme.

Last term, I called out the Liberals' and Nationals' secret plans to expand the cashless debit card nationwide to force all social security recipients, including pensioners, onto the card. It was met with hysteria and denials. The former prime minister said in the election campaign, 'This is an outrageous scare campaign.' Well, it turns out I was right. I'm going to quote from Niki Savva's book Bulldozed. From a prominent backbencher: 'We had no agenda for a fourth term. We didn't tell people what we'd do with it. In fact, there were three policies agreed to by Morrison's Expenditure Review Committee ahead of budget. The first was to expand the cashless debit card.' That's right: their No. 1 secret priority was to expand the cashless debit card. Also on page 271, it says, 'The other options ticked off by the ERC were an expansion of the cashless debit card.' They had no agenda for a fourth term; that's right—and they didn't get one. But they did have a secret plan to expand the cashless debit card. It was ticked off before the election, and they didn't tell Australians. But at least they're now being honest; I'll give them that. They want to expand the cashless debit card.

Australians should be very clear: this is not about these four communities; this is about their nationwide expansion plan as the former government alluded to. They dropped all the hints. There was a breadcrumb trail of all of their statements. When you lined them up, it was clear as day. I've never had an answer to the question: why would you introduce legislation to allow yourself to force all age pensioners onto the card if that's not what you wanted to do? There is still no good answer.

The former social services minister, Anne Ruston, said that they were looking for it to be the universal platform. You might be pleased to know that the bill before the House also removes once and for all the ability of the Commonwealth to make a mandatory age pensioner referral. I can accept that people can have a different view on this, but the terms in which the debate is being conducted are disgusting and, frankly, offensive. Look at some of the language. Here are some direct quotes from the parliamentary debates. This is what those opposite say.

What the Labor Party has done is unleash a tsunami of alcohol and drugs into vulnerable communities … It will be an increase in violence and antisocial behaviour. More domestic violence and more neglected children will be the outcome of what the Labor Party did today …

We know that the people who will suffer the most from that tsunami of additional alcohol and drugs will be defenceless children who will be neglected and—predominantly—women who will suffer domestic violence.

There will be a tsunami. This is a good quote. Apparently an authoritative source now is a report in the Australian. Who knew? You no longer call it the 'Government Gazette'; it's the 'Opposition Gazette' now!

Yet what we see is Labor ideology at work. … I refer you to some pieces by Ellen Whinnett in the Australian. The headlines are: 'Cashless debit card cut, "now it's bedlam" in Ceduna' and 'How the cashless debit card's axing left chaos in remote WA'. That's chaos and bedlam.

It's bedlam: kids not being fed, women getting bashed up, 'street brawls and a large number of intoxicated individuals arguing and fighting'—all because of the Labor Party.

The terms of the debate are over the top. We've had report after report from the former Senate committees looking at this that concluded unequivocally that, for all the good that income management can do for some people, overall it did overwhelmingly more harm than good. We can all sit here and listen to these anecdotes. I remember last term we were called paedophiles at one point. So we can all have the insinuations that somehow we're relishing seeing women being bashed and children being molested. That's their tactic: smear us in that way. They can use the little semiracist stereotypes that somehow this is about four isolated communities and there's nothing to see here, but we know the truth.

Their plan is forced income management right across the country. That's their ideology. It's what their prominent backbenchers say. It's what the former prime minister alluded to. It's what the former social services minister was committed to. It's what we now know from Niki Savva's book was the plan of the ERC. It was ticked off. It wasn't just a policy at the election; they'd costed it, they'd done it and it was ticked off.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Niki's always right, isn't she? A great source—a primary source!

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And none of your former ministers denied it, did they? Have you seen one of them come out and deny the fact that that was their plan?

Not content with their record, I'll just point to paragraph (e) of the second reading amendment, Madam Deputy Speaker. It's truly ridiculous. The shadow minister embarrassed himself with this. It says:

(1) notes:

…   …   …   

(e) the Government has committed over $217 million of taxpayers' funds to this expensive rebranding exercise;

According to the shadow minister, 'It's going to cost $217 million to change the name and the colour of the card.' I suggest the opposition check their facts. Of that budget allocation, $158.4 million—more than 70 per cent—is expenditure directly on existing and new services in these four trial sites. So let's be clear: what they've said not just in debate but in their second reading amendment is demonstrably, unambiguously, utterly false. Of the expenditure proposed with this bill, $158.4 million is to go directly into current and new services in those four trial sites.

The now opposition spent years forcing income management on these communities—little guinea pigs, they were, around the country. They spent years promising the world to these communities but did nothing.

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

Member for Bruce, there is a point of order. Member for Hinkler?

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My area is one of the trial sites, and I'm absolutely opposed to any of them, including myself, being referred to as a guinea pig. The member should withdraw.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The trial sites—

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

Thank you. I'd ask you perhaps to rephrase that, please, Member for Bruce.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll contextualise my comment. The notion of a guinea pig is common parlance for an experiment. This was a public policy experiment. It was a trial. It was trial also, as you well know, that was supposed to be subject to proper evaluation. As the Auditor-General found, your program was never evaluated. You kept saying you were going to do an independent evaluation and you never did. So it was an experiment where you didn't even have the guts to go and collect the evidence and the results. So instead we're still here, after all these years, dealing with innuendo, assertion and correlation, which is not causation—it's just disgraceful.

But back to the point: the opposition spent years promising the world to these communities. They promised they were going to turn up with investments but they did nothing. Your second reading amendment—let's be clear—is, in practical terms, opposing $158 million of investment in these four communities. Speaker after speaker on that side is getting up and telling us about the social problems these four communities are experiencing. Yet their second reading amendment is really saying, 'We don't want to do anything about it,' because if the House voted for their amendment there would be no investment in these communities. The members who spread this nonsense should come in here, apologise and correct the record—or, at the very least, fix their ridiculous second reading amendment.

Those opposite had no plan for funding services beyond 30 June this year. The few services they did put in lapsed on 30 June this year—just like myGov, My Health Record, the critical national cultural institutions and all the other things we heard about during question time. It's another example of how they booby trapped the budget. They created fictional surpluses in the out years by not providing funding in years 2, 3 and 4 for things that were critical and had to continue.

In the East Kimberley region there are now a total of 11 support services funded by DSS, including the Strong and Resilient Communities Program, A Better Life, the family safety national plan, the Children and Parent Support services. The amendment the opposition has moved would see that funding stop. In the Goldfields, Anglicare Western Australia is funded for social and emotional wellbeing through the Strong and Resilient Communities service. Funding for this service is about $450,000, and it will be extended until 24 June if this bill passes without the second reading amendment. In Ceduna there are 15 support services funded by DSS. In the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region there are 17 support services funded by DSS.

So let's be very clear—I'll make the point one more time, Madam Deputy Speaker: what has been said by the opposition in debate, and what has been asserted by the opposition in the second reading amendment, is demonstrably false. I'm not allowed to call it a lie, so we'll just stick with 'false'. That's what it is, and they should withdraw or, at the very least, change their amendment and correct the record. If they vote for their second-reading amendment, they are voting to not provide funding to these communities. That's the choice they're making; that's the proposition which they're putting forward. I don't know—you could muse on one hand that they're just stupid and don't realise the practical impact, or you could muse on the other hand that they do. I'm not sure which is worse, but we'll leave that as a point of reflection.

I'd also note that under the government's approach the new, enhanced services smart card will not be privatised. Services Australia public servants will provide all aspects of the client interface under the government's new approach. People will interact with a government department, not a private financial services business who knows their details. When they want to change their PIN, check their balance or seek permission for things, they'll deal with a public servant, not a private company.

The final thing I'd just note is the Greens amendments. Look, they're typically populist. They no doubt will play well to a certain section of the community on social media, and the meme machine will crank up. Apparently that's the entire point of parliament for the Greens political party, to get social media memes to pump out. Occasionally they move a ridiculous amendment where the Liberal and Labor parties have to vote together because it's just so patently ridiculous. Then they get that little photo each week they put up, 'The old parties are voting together.' We know the business model. It's similar to Pauline Hanson's, actually. They hate hearing that.

But the practical impact of their amendments, let's be clear, pre-empt community consultation. They don't want the government to sit down with Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory, if the Greens party get their way. They don't want the government to actually go out and finish the consultation on income management that we committed to and are undertaking. Bizarrely, they also pre-empt their own Senate inquiry, the one they established with the opposition. They've set up a Senate inquiry to look at this, but now they're moving amendments in here which would undercut their own Senate inquiry and community consultation. But that doesn't matter, because all those words won't fit on a meme, will they?

They'd also mean that about 4,000 people in the Northern Territory and Cape York would be exited against the community's wishes, ahead of consultation—not a properly planned exit; just kicked off. They don't allow for the important referral pathways which really matter for states and territories. The Greens amendments would see the role of the Cape York Family Responsibilities Commission undermined. I had a Zoom with Noel Pearson, actually, before the election, when I was working on the policy around the abolition of the cashless debit card, and we provided assurances—we talked this through—that those collective decisions through the FRC would continue. They can under the government but not the Greens.

They'd also see the child protection authorities in states and territories no longer able to make referrals. They're critical referrals made for the benefit of individuals and contributing to meeting the needs of children under their care. They'd no longer see the people on the banned alcohol register in the Northern Territory able to be referred. I do encourage the Greens not to persist with these ridiculous amendments. Accept that they're a stunt. Stick to your own process. Just be consistent with yourself. Wait for the community consultation and the Senate committee report.

I commend the bill to the House, condemn the opposition's second-reading amendment and ask them to do better.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm happy to speak on this bill. We don't oppose this legislation, but this is change for change's sake. It shifts people from the BasicsCard to the smart card. It shifts people from income management to enhanced income management, whatever that means in practice. It is what comes next that is of greatest concern for electorates, like Nicholls, that have high levels of disadvantage. This bill extends the enhanced income management regime to include all of the measures that are already in place for the income management regime, and it gives people subject to income management the choice to move to enhanced income management and the choice to move from the BasicsCard to the smart card with an associated bank account.

The bill directs all new entrants to the enhanced income management regime while further consultation is undertaken on the long-term future of the income management and enhanced income management regime—yes, I'm tired of saying it already. But that's the sting in the tail, and those opposite have put their cards on the table. They are against compulsory income management and want to it be entirely voluntary. A voluntary component must remain an option. Greater Shepparton in my electorate was part of the extended trial of income management from July 2012. The feedback I have is that voluntary participants have benefited from income management by better managing their regular bills, removing the stress and anxiety of unpaid bills, forming good financial habits and generating savings for discretionary items or to cover unexpected emergencies. There is a clear pattern of people staying on income management once their finances are under control because they see the benefits and they know it works.

The history of income management is not based on a voluntary system. It was compulsory, and it was mandated for good reasons. Under the coalition government, there were two different cards provided to different groups of social security recipients: the BasicsCard and the cashless debit card. Both were compulsory for the specified groups of social services recipients and the means for payment of social services payment. The BasicsCard goes back to the Howard government's intervention of 2007. It has limited functionality—for example, it has no tap-and-go functionality and can be used for only around 18,000 merchants.

Those on this card are referred to as being 'under income management'. During the Senate community affairs estimates on 15 February 2023, officials admitted that there is no technological difference between the cashless debit card and the government's new SmartCard. The cashless debit card was introduced in 2016 and had greater functionality than the BasicsCard. For example, it allowed product-level blocking and could be used for around 900,000 merchants. Labor has legislated the scrapping of the cashless debit card, with approximately 17,400 participants given a choice: they could receive their social security payments like other participants or they could have it paid onto the government's new SmartCard.

We have legislation to transition around 24,000 people from the BasicsCard, most of whom reside in the Northern Territory and 84 per cent of whom are Indigenous Australians. The BasicsCard has been used in my electorate since 2012. It was one of the five regions chosen by the then Labor government, based on statistical indicators of disadvantage. From perusing various papers examining the trial, it is clear that compulsory participants experienced a higher level of stigma than voluntary participants and both cohorts had issues with the practical use of the card. There was also the view that applying compulsory income management across whole cohorts without regard to their individual circumstances and capabilities was not an effective application of the policy. This is an argument for reform, not an argument for abolition. It also raises broader questions. It's easy to categorise, even demonise, compulsory income management as punitive, but this ignores the original premise—that income management was about helping the most vulnerable.

While the government has not been clear, it is likely it will abolish compulsory income management. This will mean that people who are presently on the BasicsCard or who moved from the BasicsCard to the SmartCard will likely be given the same choice as was given to those on the cashless debit card: to have their social security payment paid into a bank account in the normal way that it would be paid for others.

Compulsory income management has enjoyed bipartisan support since 2007, and it covers some of the most vulnerable in our society, including those who have drug and alcohol dependencies and children who are the subject of abuse and neglect. Labor labelled the cashless debit card a 'failed program', yet they are shamelessly relaunching the same service to provide voluntary income management to vulnerable communities.

Since the repeal of the CDC, at a cost to the budget of more than $200 million, we have seen vulnerable communities feeling the devastation through a spike in crime, gambling, alcohol fuelled violence and child neglect. Removing the compulsory nature of this income management service is not going to change these circumstances or provide vulnerable people with the assurance and the assistance that they need. Already, Labor's SmartCard is beset with problems in implementation and transition, and that is despite the admission by department officials at the Senate community affairs estimates on 15 February 2023 that there is no technological difference between the two cards. In fact, the same company will deliver it.

It might be unfashionable to say this, but the Australian taxpayer also has a stake in this system. There is a view—and I don't share it—that using support payments to impose financial management is unfair and discriminatory. The original intent is contained in the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Act 2007, and the stated objectives are:

(a) to promote socially responsible behaviour, particularly in relation to the care and education of children;

(b) to set aside the whole or a part of certain welfare payments;

(c) to ensure that the amount set aside is directed to meeting the priority needs of:

(i) the recipient of the welfare payment; and

(ii) the recipient's partner; and

(iii) the recipient's children; and

(iv) any other dependants of the recipient.

Surely taxpayers who foot the bill to provide a safety net—a welfare payment that provides for priority needs of the vulnerable, can have the expectation that the money is indeed spent on the basics of shelter, food, clothing and education. Just one day after the publication of an Australian National Audit Office report in June which reaffirmed the Auditor-General's view that valuations of the cashless debit card program failed to provide evidence that it was effective, the social services minister announced that she was in the process of being briefed by her department on how the program could be terminated. The ANAO report did not recommend that the government abolish the CDC, nor did it say it wasn't effective; it was just that evaluation measures needed to be improved.

Once again we are in this place debating the implementation of ideology, with no regard to the consequences for our fellow Australians. If the SmartCard is a step along the path to scrapping compulsory income management, then those opposite had better be prepared to deal with the inevitable tragic consequences for the most vulnerable in our society.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've been listening to this debate on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income management Reform) Bill 2023 for a little while, and the ability of those opposite, the former federal government—the coalition—to try to privatise any government services at all just never ceases to amaze me.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You made exactly the same card, you just made it blue!

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take that interjection, that the card is the same. Except, of course, that the private company which was running the card may or may not have had various relationships with those opposite, and that's a matter for the public record—

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

Order, the member for Solomon will resume his seat. Member for Hinkler, is there a point of order? We're less than a minute into the member for Solomon's speech.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is reflecting on members opposite. He is indicating and suggesting that we are corrupt and taking payments, and I ask him to withdraw.

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

The member will resume his seat and the member for Solomon can continue.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Those were the words of the member opposite and not mine. But I do commend the bill and I commend the minister, the member for Kingston, on her work in this very important area of public policy.

This bill delivers on our government's election commitment to reform income management. It's a product of meaningful community consultation and proposes amendments that will give effect to the broader rollout of enhanced income management, focusing on expanded access to a modern financial experience provided through the enhanced income management regime and the SmartCard. It also takes further steps to address the clear message given by the Senate legislative committee that the BasicsCard is out of date. The government has listened to feedback from communities that the BasicsCard technology is out of date and does not meet their needs. The service offering of the BasicsCard has become increasingly out of step with modern expectations. The former government, those opposite, didn't invest in the BasicsCard because they were focused on pushing more and more people onto their privatised cashless debit card. This bill will give access to a modern financial experience for all new income management participants by providing a contemporary debit card and associated bank account.

This bill provides all existing income management participants a choice to move to the enhanced technology until a decision is made on the future of the BasicsCard. Users currently on the BasicsCard will have the choice to transition to the SmartCard. This bill also ensures that new entrants will not be placed on the old technology of the BasicsCard. That's a very good thing, because it is out of date. The BasicsCard is only accepted by preapproved merchants, limiting where people can shop and restricting where people can spend their money. Currently, if a BasicsCard holder attempts to shop outside the available permitted merchants, they are often shut out of legitimate transactions purely because of the restricted technology. That can stigmatise BasicsCard users unfairly. The SmartCard will give participants a better experience, with increased choice on how and where they can spend their money. The more modern SmartCard also provides banking functions, including the tap-to-pay payments that we all take for granted, online shopping and BPAY bill payments—and we all know how handy they are.

Importantly, the SmartCard is delivered by Services Australia and has a PIN for added protection. The updated SmartCard technology reduces the likelihood that a welfare payment recipient will be subject to undue harassment or rejection of a legitimate in-store payment because of their welfare status. Card users shouldn't be rejected simply because that business has not been signed up to accept the BasicsCard. With this bill, the Albanese government will deliver more choice through the SmartCard, which is a better product, with modern financial technology that will meet community expectations and do so at a cheaper cost than the previous cashless debit card. The privatised cashless debit card has now been abolished, and that is a good thing. All compulsory welfare quarantining in cashless debit card regions has ended, and on 6 March former cashless debit card participants in the Northern Territory and Cape York and Doomadgee region transitioned to the new, enhanced income management program. Our work now is to support these communities and always continue to consult.

The October budget allocated $217-plus million to abolish the Cashless Debit Card program and fund support services. The sum of $158.4 million, over 70 per cent of this funding, will be used to provide support services to people in former Cashless Debit Card program communities. We will not abandon these communities—quite the opposite. After consulting with them, we are supporting them. This includes support for a youth mentoring program in Ceduna, which runs activities including after-school and holiday care; parenting education and support in Wyndham; community navigator programs; and financial literacy and digital literacy. Coming from the Northern Territory, I know how important these services are and how important support is to communities. We're empowering them with better technology, but we're also making sure there's a proper use of taxpayer funds in supporting these communities. The government is also investing $17 million for an economic development grant round, which is currently underway, to implement projects to create sustainable jobs in Ceduna, East Kimberley, the Goldfields and Cape York, and $1.5 million for immediate community priorities in this region—real money backing sustainable futures and pathways for these communities.

Our government understand the decisions that impact First Nations people must be made in the spirit of real partnership. Our government is working with communities on what the future of income management looks like for them. I look forward to the future voices of people in First Nations communities making sure that we are doing the right thing, as advised by them, and making sure that the data, the evidence and the information provided by those who are looking at this program stays relevant and responds to feedback and so forth. Any decisions about the future of income management will be based on that genuine consultation with communities, state and territory governments, and experts in the field. We'll keep getting on with the job and we'll reform income management to provide a better experience for participants into the future.

This legislation is simple and directly responds to the clear message from individuals and communities where income management operates that the BasicsCard was out of date and no longer meets their needs. That is why, as I have highlighted, this bill will ensure that no new income management participant is issued the out-of-date BasicsCard. It's important to note that, while the bill offers existing participants a choice to access enhanced income management, it does not expand on the existing legislation. Existing income management participants will have the choice to move to enhanced income management and will receive the necessary support from Services Australia when they choose to do so.

Services Australia currently supports income management participants and will continue to do so for all who choose to move to enhanced income management. Services Australia is providing all aspects of client interface for enhanced income management. This is a significant change from the Cashless Debit Card program, the privatised program, as individuals will interact with government rather than a private business to check balances, to get replacement cards or to get advice on how to set up a regular payment. With Services Australia delivering an enhanced income management, rather than a private, third-party interface, this support will be available to provide not only income management support but also support in other areas. Individual support, tailored to the needs of each participant, will include assisting them to set up new regular payments for bills or other essential services.

For many people, moving to the SmartCard may mean that they need help to learn how they set up their rent payments and other deductions, and that is where Services Australia support is essential. This bill is an important reform for thousands of Australians. Our government is committed to giving more choice to the nearly 25,000 participants currently on income management to access this superior technology.

These changes will benefit the more than 22,400 people in the Northern Territory, where I am from, who are presently on the out-of-date BasicsCard. It will benefit the nearly 5,000 of those Territorians who are vulnerable and disengaged youth whose access to modern financial technology is delayed by the out-of-date BasicsCard. Moving to the SmartCard will have a long-term positive effect on their financial literacy. That is very important. This reform will have a long-term, intergenerational impact on communities in the Northern Territory and across the country.

I note that this bill does not remove the income management program or amend the underlying policy. The same existing restrictions apply to an individual's welfare payment where they meet specific eligibility criteria to ensure a portion of their payment cannot be spent on restricted goods. Nor does the bill change the eligibility criteria which determine whether an individual is placed on income management. As such, no participants will exit the scheme who would otherwise be subject to income management. When it comes to income management, the rules and the laws applying in Alice Springs and the Northern Territory have not changed.

What has changed is that the users of the SmartCard will have a superior experience to the BasicsCard technology. They will have access to cutting-edge financial technology like that which most of us enjoy. They will have more choice over how and where they can spend the money, and they will have an enhanced user experience with Services Australia. It is an important piece of legislation for communities in the Northern Territory and around the country, and, again, I commend the minister and I commend this bill to the House.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. It is a bill that I feel very passionately about, and, while we are supporting the legislation to go to the SmartCard, I want to use this opportunity to again speak about my immense disappointment with the government's abolishment of the cashless welfare card, and the reasons why I am so upset for the communities affected. I'm especially upset for the women and the children in those communities where the cashless debit guide has been abolished.

Let's do a quick recap. What was the cashless welfare card? Trials were run across four communities, three of them very remote communities, where, when you look at the statistics, there was great dysfunctionality. There was a very high crime rate and very high incidences of people with alcohol problems and/or gambling problems. When you looked at presentations to hospitals and when you looked at school attendance, those communities were suffering. What was brought in as a trial was to say, okay, we have a few communities here under great duress and great stress. The most vulnerable people in those communities were children. In some of these communities, a very high percentage of the population moved onto these cards. The cashless welfare cards worked on the premise that everyone on that card would get 80 per cent of the welfare paid to a debit card that meant that they could not purchase alcohol and/or could not purchase gambling products.

I know one of these communities very well, the community of Ceduna, which I grew up relatively near to. I know people there and I have been to Ceduna a number of times as well. Virtually every person I knew and spoke to about this card said it changed almost overnight. As soon as people could not go and purchase alcohol, could not go and purchase gambling products, the atmosphere changed and it was safer. In some of these communities children were on the streets at night because it was not safe in their homes. During the daytime people with drinking problems are obviously a problem for the community and it makes the community feel very unsafe. What this card did was change that. Was it perfect? No. Was it a thing that you would elect to do? No. But what it did was make women and children feel safer. So I have never really understood the ideological obsession of those opposite to abolish the cashless welfare card. In a perfect world I know you wouldn't need it but it was having a real, tangible impact on the ground. If there is one thing you want to do as a government it is that you want to have tangible influence on the ground and you would want it to work. When I hear others saying it will be more efficient, or there are going to be mentoring programs, that is good, but it is really hard.

Alcoholics are alcoholics. When you have the cashless welfare card, you also want to incorporate programs with it. People need help when they are coming off any sort of addiction. But when an alcoholic goes from not being able to get cash to being able to get cash, guess what? They are going to start drinking more. All of the dysfunctionality of the behaviour that comes from that will happen. We had a representative group here today in this building talking about exactly this.

I was also surprised that the new government felt that this was a priority. This was not something they did a year or two after coming to government or did some consultation before they did it. One of the first things that those opposite did when they came into government was to abolish a card that meant alcoholics couldn't get money to drink. Especially in some of these remote communities where there is a high percentage of people on these cards, straightway the atmosphere changed.

I really made sure I spoke on this bill. We don't all speak on every bill that comes through this chamber, but I really wanted the opportunity to speak on this bill and take every opportunity to speak on this issue because it is a great shame on those opposite that they have done this. I think about the ideological obsession of those opposite. I heard when the bill to abolish the card went through this chamber that some on the other side said, 'People need more cash. Twenty per cent of cash is not enough. You need to buy some potpourri at the farmers market.' This is rubbish. These people are not spending money at farmers markets; these people are alcoholics. These people are spending money on booze and these people are now dangerous. These children are now not as safe as they were when the cashless welfare card was in place.

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're despicable for saying everyone on the card is an alcoholic.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am hearing interjections of the word 'despicable'. What is despicable is the fact that you as a government thought that you could abolish something that was keeping families and children safe. If you think that is a good idea, well, you are missing—

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

Direct your remarks through the chair.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I am saying is you might want to go to some of the communities. I ask the member opposite: have you ever been to any of those communities?

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

I remind the member again: remarks are through the chair. I will ask the member to cease interjections.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand by the statement and I stand by the people I have spoken to. I stand by the statement that I have made, that the communities where the cashless welfare card has been demolished are now less safe. There are children who are not safe in their homes who were before, and there are things happening in those communities where the whole community doesn't feel safe. You might have an ideological obsession with abolishing the card, but to say that—

Well, Ceduna isn't. Ceduna isn't a dry town. This town is now more unsafe, and many people feel more unsafe in these communities because of what this government has done. This government has made a lot of mistakes in the first 10 months, but I put this up here as the worst decision—and there are a few vying for that position. You can disagree about economic things, you can disagree about union involvement, you can disagree about taxation, you can disagree about whatever, but to make a decision that has meant children and women are not as safe as they once were is a great shame on this government.

As I said, we will support this bill. Obviously the government has a complete ideological obsession about not having compulsory income type policies. They want everything about this to be voluntary. I say to those opposite: the children and women who are now in danger and weren't have you to thank for that, and your ideological obsession with the cashless welfare card.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak in support of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. This bill is the next step the Albanese government is taking to reform the previous government's failed income management program. I've been fascinated to sit here for a little while and hear some of the arguments we've heard from the other side. On the one hand we hear from the previous speaker that this is the worst decision ever made, yet on the other hand we have the member for Deakin saying this changes nothing. Somewhere in the middle there, I guess, is the truth. At its heart the purpose of this legislation is to provide choice for more Australians. When implemented, this legislation will allow those on the BasicsCard to transition to the SmartCard. At the same time it will ensure new entrants to the income management program are not placed on the old technology of the BasicsCard.

Let me speak a little about some of the issues we've had with the BasicsCard—and I can assure the previous speaker that it had nothing to do with potpourri or farmers markets; I don't know where he got that from! The BasicsCard is only accepted by preapproved merchants. What this means in practice is that it severely limits where people can shop, irrespective of what they're attempting to purchase. Currently if a BasicsCard holder attempts to shop outside the available permitted merchants they are shut out of these often legitimate transactions purely because of restricted technology, and, therefore, they can't shop around for price. We heard complaints about the stigma and the lack of privacy of having a BasicsCard. We heard complaints about different prices for those on the BasicsCard. The BasicsCard couldn't enable tap-and-go or BPAY payments—fairly standard processes in modern Australia—and didn't even have a PIN for security. We heard complaints of people's BasicsCards being taken and used by others, leaving them completely without money. Basically, the BasicsCard just made people's lives that little bit more unnecessarily difficult. It was disempowering and humiliating.

This legislation will replace the Basics Card with the SmartCard, which is a much improved product. It features technological improvements that incorporate modern financial technology in an effort to meet community expectations. It looks like any other debit card, so it doesn't breach the privacy of the user every time they use it. This was a crucial bit of feedback from individuals and communities in areas where income management operates. Stakeholders said that the BasicsCard is quite simply out of date and insufficient to meet their needs. Submissions to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill which repealed the cashless debit card last year also gave us the clear message that the BasicsCard is out of date and not sufficient to meet the needs of people in the communities. The Albanese government is taking action to improve the operation of this scheme, to ensure it actually helps support those who wish to use it.

We heard from the member for Deakin that he believes this bill is nothing more than a rebranding exercise—not the worst thing ever but a rebranding exercise. It is a $217.7 million rebranding exercise, according to him. Yet what we understand from the evaluation of the previous cashless debit card trial sites is that it was the support services provided alongside the cashless debit card that were what was making the difference. But guess what? Those programs were not funded by the prior government past 30 June this year. So in this bill, of the $217.7 million, 70 per cent—$158.4 million—actually goes to refunding those support programs across the four existing trial sites. The member for Deakin's amendment, should it get up, would see these programs end when the funding ends, as they had allocated, on 30 June. This is quite a stunning level of politics above what's actually right for the community.

The smart card is designed to operate in the same way as any contemporary credit or debit card. It allows for modern payment functions that include the ability to make tap-and-go payments, to shop online and to make BPAY bill payments. In this day and age that is pretty standard functionality. It will also be delivered by Services Australia, not a private for-profit provider, and it will have a PIN for added protection. It will help avoid awkward discussions about paying for products in shops. It will enable the user to maintain privacy about their financial arrangements. It will expand the choices available to those on income management, and all of that is a good thing. The whole premise of this government's approach to income management is to empower individuals and communities and to support them in gaining the skills they need to better manage and make decisions in their own lives, alongside refunding support programs that actually made the difference to the community.

Sadly, the former government did not invest in this technology, because they were too focused on pushing more people onto their privatised cashless debit card but not funding the support programs. Under the Albanese Labor government Services Australia will be providing all aspects of client interface for enhanced income management. This is a significant change from the cashless debit card program, as individuals will interact with government, rather than private businesses, to check balances, get a replacement card or get advice on how to set up a regular payment. With Services Australia delivering enhanced income management, rather than the private third-party interface, this support will be available to provide not only income management support but also support in other areas where Services Australia can assist.

The private cashless debit card has been abolished. On 6 March former cashless debit card participants in the Northern Territory, Cape York and Doomadgee regions transitioned to the more enhanced income management program and all compulsory welfare quarantining ended in cashless debit card regions. Our work now is to support these communities, and that's why the government is investing $17 million for an economic development grant round currently underway to implement projects to create sustainable jobs in Ceduna, East Kimberley, the Goldfields and Cape York and a further $1.5 million for immediate community priorities in the Goldfields, East Kimberley and Ceduna.

This bill offers that same choice to use the contemporary technology to more than 24,400 existing income management participants in the Northern Territory and the other place based locations nationally. It also ensures all eligible participants will be part of the enhanced income management and no new participants are given the BasicsCard. This bill does not change the portion of payment which cannot be spent on restricted goods, which will remain the same on enhanced income management as it was on the prior income management, dependent on the person's circumstances. It also does not change the items to be restricted, which are alcohol, gambling products, pornography and tobacco.

The Albanese government is working with communities on what the future of income management looks like for them. Any decisions about the future of income management will be based on genuine consultation with affected communities, state and territory governments and experts in the field. The amendment moved by the Greens would eliminate this important consultation if passed—the basic respect of consultation, of asking the people affected what they want. I'd really urge them to rethink this amendment. We have committed to consulting on the future of income management, and we must consult with participants, communities, women's groups, First Nations leaders and service providers. The feedback from First Nations community leaders told us more consultation was required on this future. We'll keep getting on with the job, and we'll continue to reform income management to provide a better experience for participants.

The October budget allocated $217.7 million to abolish the cashless debit card program and to fund support services. Of that, $158.4 million, over 70 per cent, will be used to provide those important support services which we know are the things that actually make the difference and work in former CDC communities. This investment is being directed to services to support people, like a youth mentoring program in Ceduna which runs activities including school and holiday care. There's parenting education and support in Wyndham and a community navigated program in financial literacy and digital literacy. This is because the consultations showed that the support programs which empowered communities and individuals were the ones that made the difference to the community—to help the community develop antiviolence measures. It's really critical that these programs continue.

This government is serious about working with and for communities that need support. That's why we are implementing this policy, and I encourage all in this place to support it.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. Today we've seen leaders from communities in Western Australia come to this parliament and meet with the opposition leader, other senior shadow ministers and members of the coalition from Western Australia to talk about just what the practical impacts have been in their communities thanks to the abolition of the cashless debit card. It was a very sad day in this chamber when, ultimately, the parliament and the Senate passed legislation to repeal that program. That's because it was such a vital tool in helping to address some of the most significant challenges, particularly in the communities that it had been trialled in. They were struggling with serious issues, particularly around alcohol and other substance abuse. As we know, it was a very simple proposition: to provide welfare support payments through the system with the cashless debit card. It meant that all sorts of purchases could be undertaken through that scheme without allowing purchase of certain prohibited items, like alcohol. Of course, participants were not able to remove cash and turn a welfare payment into cold, hard cash. That was not just to prevent it being used on alcohol but, potentially, for other substance abuse and things that, frankly, were the source of the most significant challenges in those communities.

It has been heartbreaking to hear from people from those communities first hand. In the case of Western Australia, some have come to this parliament today, in desperation, to share their story of just what impact this decision has had on their communities. They're not motivated by anything other than wanting to do the best thing for the communities that they live in—to have all the tools at their disposal to manage some of the challenges that have befallen their communities. Of course, they support the cashless debit card wholeheartedly. What has always surprised me about the cashless debit card is that every local member of parliament who had a trial site in their community supported it. When they spoke in this chamber about the cashless debit card deployment in their communities, they talked about the benefit that it had in managing the serious social challenges in those communities. If we, as a parliament, are not prepared to listen to local members with real on-the-ground experience, and the feedback from their community leaders about such a program, then what exactly are we doing here as the House of Representatives? Those representatives, the ones who actually knew what they were talking about when it came to the success of that program, were all utterly in favour of its continuation. Yet now—and, I suspect, because of certain groups of influence foisting this policy on to the now government and the then Labor Party opposition—those opposite now have to pretend that this is something which has community support and has not had a diabolical impact on the communities that have had it taken away from them. We know that's just not true. That evidence is from the leadership that is taking significant steps to reach out to this building by physically attending here and doing all that they can to try to get access to decision-makers in government. I believe the Prime Minister indicated in question time that the minister has agreed to meet with that delegation from Western Australia, and that is a good thing. That is a relief. Hopefully, she doesn't just meet with them; hopefully, she listens to them. Hopefully, she listens to their stories and their explanation of why the cashless debit card was making such a difference in their communities.

I'm from South Australia, and in the electorate of the member for Grey, which covers about 90 per cent of our state, in Ceduna one of these trials was occurring. Allan Suter, the now former mayor there, was renowned for doing all that he could to embrace any opportunity to make a meaningful difference in his community, and he embraced significantly the opportunity of the cashless debit card and, of course, espoused its success. Rowan Ramsey, the member for Grey in this chamber, of course was in a position to report very clearly and very directly to us, as the local member for that electorate, as to the value and benefit of that scheme there in Ceduna.

I've travelled to Ceduna once or twice in my life. I remember being there in 2013 and observing the very significant issues, particularly with alcohol abuse, in the Ceduna community. One of the most heartbreaking examples was that a young man whose principal place of residence had become the local sobering-up centre, he was on such a permanent rotation of inebriation, being taken to the sobering-up centre, then leaving that sobering-up centre and again embracing alcohol on a daily basis. When the police would ask him where he lived when they had to very regularly intervene in issues of his public disturbances and ask for his address, he would give his address as the local sobering-up unit because he lived there. He was there every day, continuously, repeatedly. That young man is an example of someone who was, regrettably, able to use his welfare to feed that alcohol addiction. What the cashless debit card was achieving, which is exactly what the communities were embracing, was breaking that cycle of people being able to use their welfare to fund certain habits that might have included but were not limited to alcohol and drug abuse et cetera. Of course, apart from the damage they were doing to themselves through that addiction, which was significant in its own right, it flowed on to impact on other people, the public peace and the community.

Ceduna was just one example where the community, having operated that scheme as a pilot for several years, embraced and supported it. Obviously, like any program, there was a need to consider, fine tune and look for opportunities to improve the way in which it operated, and that was the case in many of the sites. Local businesses had to adapt and understand how to properly interface and interact with it. But it is a great loss, and this bill that we have before us is really a continuation of this agenda that the government has to remove from the community the tools to fight against some of the significant social challenges that they have. We very much regret the repeal of the cashless debit card. As the lead speaker for the opposition, our shadow minister, had indicated, we are not going to stand in the way of this bill passing, subject to the very sensible amendments that we are proposing. A lot of money has been spent. It seems that we are getting a card with a new name and some kind of payWave capability for more than $200 million, which is a spectacular cost. So the value for money within this proposal interests me greatly.

But, as I indicated, we in the opposition are prepared to not stand in the way of this bill passing, subject to our sensible amendments being approved. But we note with great regret the aftermath of the repeal of the cashless debit card and that this is, of course, part of the implementation of that policy platform and it is causing heartbreaking consequences in the communities that have been using it. It's a lost opportunity for the communities that hadn't been using it to have access to it. It's a lost opportunity to be able to make sure the support programs, the welfare programs and the welfare payments that are provided to people are indeed actually used for the purposes in which they are intended, and that communities can be empowered to not need to deal with those additional challenges that the free use of cash from welfare can create when those social problems exist.

With those comments, I urge the government to strongly consider supporting our amendments so that we can co-operate and progress this bill through the House. This area of policy and the consequences that we are seeing are very regrettable, as is the re-emergence of problems that had started to be dealt with in those communities where the cashless debit card was rolled out. I hope the government will listen to the community leaders that are making such important and vital points about what the aftermath has been in those areas that have now lost the use of the cashless debit card. We hope the government will reconsider this area of policy. We hope they support these amendments. I commend those amendments to the House.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This address is not only to this parliament, but it is to all of those people listening across Australia that actually listen to the broadcast of parliament. I think there is a whole lot more, from my experience. You listen to these addresses live. There were two addresses today that made a fine contribution to this debate. One was from the shadow minister himself, Mr Sukkar, member for Deakin. The other, from the opposition leader of the House, Paul Fletcher. They, as government ministers at the time, lived through the processes, the intricate policy statements and the criticism they received as government members for what they put in place with regard to the cashless debit card at that time. Because I was only an observer—why was I an observer? I have great respect for senators and members of this House. When they ask me, 'Why do you get on so well with Llew O'Brien? He's a nat.' He is a representative of his community. Why do I see the member for Dunkley re-elected? Because she has established herself very tightly with the community of Frankston and the surrounds that she represents. I reflect the electorate of Monash. I think I do—white cut for toast, bit thick.

Making a contribution to this debate is more than just consideration of some policy. It's actually about people's lives and how they live them. The passionate addresses by some in the House and what has conspired over these last few months after the election of this government has been a real eye-opener for me. It has been a great support for me, because what I have always done is listen to the members of parliament that represent their areas. I have great respect for the members of parliament that represent these areas, particularly the former member for Lingiari and the current member for Lingiari. I don't know the new member very well, but I knew the previous member very, very well. Their commission was to bring the difficulties around Indigenous policy to the House.

Before the election—I've got to explain myself first, in saying this to you—I was not a supporter of bringing in the cashless debit card. I wasn't vocal about it, but I just wasn't a supporter of it, for the all the reasons to do with not interfering in people's lives. The best philosophy that I can live by is that Australians have equal freedoms in all that they do and in all government services, and I felt that that card was a restriction on those freedoms. But this is what the communities were asking for. This is what the members of parliament on my side and the Labor side were asking for. They said, 'This will work,' and they gave me the reasons that it would work.

I have Indigenous communities within my electorate. I try to address their concerns in everything that I do, but I listen to those that have got a lot of Indigenous people in their communities because they're the ones who are closest to the people and they're the ones who know who the strong Indigenous leaders are in their community. We have heard stories from both sides of the House about strong Indigenous leaders—in Ceduna, for instance, as we just heard from the previous speaker—yet before the election we had the then Labor opposition taking the very high moral ground on this issue, saying, 'We will abolish this card on coming into government.' And they did, until their own people came to them and said, 'We have made a terrible mistake.'

This is now what has been happening in our communities since that time, even though we put into place some hundreds of millions of dollars worth of support services. But, quite often, support services are putting ambulances at the bottom of the hill, delivering after the fact of the problem. We don't just do it in Indigenous affairs; we do it in lots of portfolios, where we say, 'Because we have this problem, we will put more ambulances at the bottom of the hill, rather than dealing with the issues within community that we need to deal with so we are not faced with this.'

To me, the Voice is a part of that, but you all know where I stand on that. This is what I will put to you: had we listened to the Indigenous representatives here in this House and in the Senate and had we listened to what their communities were saying, we wouldn't have gotten ourselves into the debacle that we now find ourselves in with this legislation, which is trying to roll it back and say, 'We'll give it a new name; we'll call it the SmartCard,' while the underlying thrust of the policy is exactly the same.

The member for Deakin, the shadow minister for social services, was criticised because he said, 'What's changed?' Well, what has happened in these communities is a change all right, and, as has been described by many members today, that change hasn't been just a little change. That change has been a quite destructive change. In fact, the change has been so great that it has exposed not only those being affected by the alcohol, violence, drugs, stealing and money being ripped off from one another, as was the case beforehand; it's actually affected the lives of the authorities—the police and the welfare agencies. You've put enormous pressure on the services that you have provided as well. What are you going to do, have another intervention? How long, as has been explained here—even though you've now allotted another $150 million—just for the process to go through to put the new card in place? It's the same as the old card.

An opposition member: Different colour.

Different colour, different name. That's going to take quite some time to put in place. And there has been a question mark: are there enough people left in the services that the government provide to actually implement it? Have they got the expertise to implement it and how long will it take? How much damage is going to be done in those Indigenous communities before the card comes into play? Are there no interim arrangements? Can people not choose very quickly? Can community leaders in given communities say, 'We want our people to stay on the old card', or is it too late for that? Have they gone? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows.

What I know is the government has got itself into a terrible pickle and it's trying to put lipstick on the pig, and you can't. Go and ask any of the members of this House that have major Indigenous communities in their electorates. Go and ask them. Go and ask them what they think. Go and ask the member for Grey. Go and ask Mark Coulton. Go and ask what they think. They just might happen to know what they're talking about, because they deal with the Indigenous leaders in their communities. They know them as friends. They know them as colleagues in their community and they work with them. They always have. They're long-serving members. They understand the issues. I know—politicians don't understand anything! No! When we try to inflict upon the Australian communities things that we think should be done, from here in Canberra, how often does that fall in a hole? How often do you hear somebody say, 'Oh, we've had years of inaction here.' No, we haven't. We've been trying with the wrong policies for a long time. We have failed to listen to what Indigenous people say to us. We have failed to listen to what Indigenous communities say to us—failed. And the outcome is that something that was working quite well, as I hear from the members, is no longer working.

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

And supported by the community.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And supported by the community—all the community, whichever colour they were. It was supported by all of them. There's always more to the story. My uncle Keith Skinner was the lighthouse harbour master pilot for Ceduna port. My Aunty Loris and Uncle Keith lived over there after he came off the Lighthouse Supply Ship Cape York as the deputy mate. He went to Ceduna and he brought all the ships into the harbour. I only ever heard these wonderful stories about this beautiful place—Ceduna—yet in this parliament today, what do I hear? I hear shocking stories about what's going on in Ceduna. I hear the complaints that are coming to members. I hear the difficulties that the police force and all the agencies that support the Indigenous communities are now having. That doesn't paint a beautiful picture of a wonderful city. That doesn't mean you should have guard fences and barbed wire for protection. That doesn't mean people are being exploited for their weaknesses. Goodness! We do that right across Australia. What it does say to me is, 'We've made a mistake.' And no-one's been brave enough to say, 'Yes, we have made a mistake, and this is the legislation we're putting in place to fix it.' If that were the case, I'd be totally supporting you.

We're not opposing this legislation, but we are making the point that people with a certain ideology and process, within the parliament, make big commitments in election campaigns without addressing what the people actually need and want, and what a difference it's made in certain communities, and what a blessing it's been to a lot of women and children who were better off under the old scheme. Does anybody think of that? I'll say that again: women and children. They're real people; they bleed. They could be my kids or your kids. It could be your wife, your sister or your family. And what do Indigenous people hold most sacred? Family. What we can do for family, as a nation, is get on with this legislation. We can recognise we've made a mistake and get this over with as quickly as possible because we may just save one life.

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

I'm grateful for the member's comments. I also support the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023, which provides an improved card to replace the BasicsCard, it must be said. However, the tragedy is that the SmartCard is, by any measurement, a direct replacement for the cashless debit card; it's just without the compulsory component.

As it's just been explained to us, about the only thing different is its colour and its name; it's now the SmartCard. Even the technology is provided by the same provider, Indue. You, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, and other members would have heard government members railing against this injustice that the government should be wasting its money—millions of dollars—with a private provider, Indue. When they've tried to come up with a new card themselves, they've had to retreat to use Indue to provide the technology to run the card. For goodness sakes! It is beyond comprehension that they didn't think to check those details before they threw rocks at the glasshouse. After trashing the card—this is the cashless debit card—last year, it's back. Or it's going to be back—hopefully, if they can ever get it organised—with a different colour and a different name. It reminds us of that great mistake the government has made—that is, the abolition of the cashless debit card. It is, without doubt, a graphic example of ideology overcoming reality.

When this was being proposed by the minister I made some warnings, and I'll come to those in a minute. On the weekend I picked up the Weekend Australianas, hopefully, another three or four hundred thousand Australians did—and there was an article by Ellen Whinnett, to whom I'm indebted; thanks, Ellen. She had been out to Ceduna and talked to lots of people on the ground to get a handle on what is happening there. I remind the House that Ceduna was the first community in Australia to stick its hand up to take on the cashless debit card, and it's been a very good period of time in Ceduna as that place has improved under it. This is what she found:

South Australian police data show 111 offences were recorded in Ceduna—population 3000—in January. This is almost double the number of offences being recorded monthly when the card, which quarantined 80 per cent of welfare payments for some vulnerable recipients—was abolished four months ago, and is almost triple the crime rate of the previous January.

That was when the card was in place. Now, I didn't want to mislead the House, so I checked the police statistics and confirmed that those numbers are correct. There are some more numbers they provided. When Chris Lovell addressed Ceduna council he noted that police had been tasked 422 times in December, when there were 146 victim-reported crimes and 42 people arrested. In January police were tasked 418 times, and there were 200 victim-reported crimes and 50 arrests. Between 1 February and 3 March Ceduna police had been tasked 381 times, with 138 victim-reported crimes and 25 arrests. That's in three months. About 1,200 tasks would be one in three people if it were somebody different every time, for a population of a bit over 3,000. They are appalling statistics, and the crime of it is that those numbers weren't happening when the card was in place.

When I asked Minister Rishworth in this House about the deterioration of social behaviours in Ceduna, she said that Ceduna had been dealing with a funeral on the day she was there, so that's why there were fights. Of course you have fights at funerals. In the Goldfields she said there were too many visitors. In East Kimberley she said there was a flood—not in response to my question but at various times. You can't explain this stuff away. These were the very things I warned the minister about before the government made this move. I said, 'You will own the result.' I warned her privately, I warned her in this place, in the House, and I warned the government in the press when I put out press releases, spoke on radio and whatever. These numbers I've just given to the House are exactly what I predicted would happen. It doesn't give me any solace to say, 'I told you so.' I am grieving for this community, which is dealing with some serious issues here. In the period before we had the cashless debit card in Ceduna, many of the shops, at least in the main street, had bars over the windows. Over the four years of the card those bars disappeared, but they're coming back. I understand the butcher's shop main window has been broken three times.

To give people a bit of an understanding of what's happening, a personal story on the ground, I'm going to do something I don't normally do in the chamber. I'm going read a letter from Allan Suter. Allan was mayor of Ceduna when the cashless debit card was introduced. He was appalled by the carnage that had happened over there, the six untimely deaths caused by alcohol consumption that led to a state coroners report. Of course that eventually led us firstly to the BasicsCard and then to the cashless debit card. While he's the former mayor, he still lives there and he is still vitally interested in what happens in his community. I'd like to thank him for the work he did through that period of time. This letter will take a little while to read out, but I've got time to do it and I think it'll be worth the House's time to hear it:

We are experiencing a growing problem within Ceduna partly due to the cancellation of the cashless debit card. At the same time, we have a very good situation with our local Ceduna/Koonibba Indigenous population because of their capable leadership and generally excellent relations with local people. Almost all trouble is caused by people from remote communities who are predominately in Ceduna to drink and have absolutely no concern for this community.

Many of these visitors have abandoned housing and children in their communities to sleep rough in Ceduna in order to cater for an addiction to alcohol, gaming or drugs. There are unsupervised gangs of children roaming in those communities.

In the past weeks our next-door neighbour has had his home broken into 3 times. Our whole neighbourhood has endured sleepless nights because of drunken revelry. Our local golf course and adjacent land has numbers of rough sleepers and in some areas is more like a rubbish tip than anything else. At times our central business area is inundated with visitors waiting for an opportunity to get a drink, humbug people or whatever. We are spending $13,500.00 on security shutters on our house because it seems necessary for the first time after 44 years living here. We would like to see this repaid to the many locals who also have needed to instal security since the card was cancelled.

Tourists are advising all who will listen to avoid Ceduna at all costs because it is dangerous. I heard such a discussion in Streaky Bay between a group of young visitors who were going west. During last week we had 42 homeless people arrive on a bus with no arrangements to accommodate them and I strongly suspect the cost was covered by a government agency or by a government funded agency. These people were camped in the Adelaide parklands and were certainly not welcome visitors there.

I might add that this was during the festival of arts. He continues:

I believe that they may be here to attend a funeral, but they will remain in the longer term. This has solved a problem for Adelaide by dumping it on us.

I am concerned that the above trends will adversely affect Ceduna residents and that this may only be the "tip of an iceberg". It is my opinion that many of these problems are being caused by Government funded agencies or Government agencies making it very attractive for visitors to stay in Ceduna in order to drink or cater for addictions.

Some examples of the problems and cause are as follows:

My suggestion is that the level of services provided to rough sleepers by Government Agencies and Government funded agencies should be reviewed as a matter of urgency with the aim of discontinuing those services which encourage rough sleepers to stay in Ceduna and achieve very little else. Providing such services within remote communities would be much more helpful.

If these issues are not addressed as a matter of urgency, many valued citizens may decide that Ceduna is no longer a great place to live.

Allan Suter

That was written on 15 April.

I think that's a very powerful letter. It is from someone who loves their community and has a very good relationship with the Indigenous community. Indeed, he worked very hard with the Far West Aboriginal Communities Leaders Group to build support for the card in the first place. Those leaders have been vocal in defence of the card in the past, but they are simply worn out. They are sick of having to fight the same battles. They have to come here to Canberra and fight the same battle for a decision that they have already made.

As a government, we put forward in the last parliament that this card should become permanent, but those who sit on the other side of this chamber now, the government, refused to back that point of view. Eventually, we got a short extension, just until they got into government and could cancel it. They made it one of their first actions in government to get rid of the card—to get rid of the card so people could drink more, gamble more and take more drugs! That was more important than a host of other things that the government had to do when they got into power. Quite frankly, they've created a hell of a mess.

I know Ceduna is not the only community dealing with this. We feel like we are going back further and further into a dark time. The resentment will build in the community among those good people who are doing the right thing but getting dragged down by these visitors who come in and just will not go back to the homes in their communities that we have provided for them.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise tonight to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. While he is still in the chamber, I'd like to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Grey and his commitment to his vast electorate, but particularly to Ceduna. I can't remember the exact time, but I was in Ceduna with the member for Grey at the start of the process for this card. I met Allan Suter, the mayor at the time, and a couple of the Aboriginal leaders in the community. I can't remember their names, but they were an impressive young group of people. They went through enormous personal challenges and attack from within the community to bring this into place. They had a belief that this card—and, at the time, that having Ceduna as part of the original trial—was going to benefit their community. Through that enormous show of strength of leadership, they did prove to be correct; it did make a big difference. Ceduna is a beautiful place—when I was there I thought what a wonderful place it was—so I can understand the member for Grey's frustration.

One of the trial sites at that time was to be Moree, in my electorate of Parkes. The reason I thought Moree would be a good one and put it up for consideration was that the recipients of welfare in Moree are about fifty-fifty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. I think one of the big mistakes in this whole argument is that the race card has been played—that this was actually a racist thing to do. The member for Hinkler is here. I'm sure his contribution will talk about the positive outcomes in his area, so I won't go there, but the member for Hinkler's constituency and mine were somewhat similar in that they weren't entirely Aboriginal communities.

Minister Tudge at the time agreed that Moree could be a trial site, but one of the criteria for having the card was that it had to be accepted by the community. We sent officials from the department to Moree but, once word got around that Moree might be a trial site for the welfare card, the activists in the community whipped up a lot of fear that it would be a racist thing. There was quite a lot of intimidation in the community, particularly towards the council, who had to tick it off.

At the time, the publicans also led a major attack against it. Indeed, one of the publicans came into my office and wanted to know how much compensation there would be for his business if this card came into play. That means that the business plan for his hotel involved people spending money that came from the government that was designed to feed, clothe and educate their children and give their families a quality of life that was somewhat acceptable. The fact that the money going to these families was going through the bottle shop and through the poker machines indicated to me there was a reason why we should have the card there.

As it turned out, the council changed its mind and we didn't get the card to Moree. Interestingly, one of the loudest voices against the card said to me a couple of years later, 'Maybe we were a bit hasty.' Maybe we should have looked at this a bit closer now that Moree and other communities in my electorate are dealing in particular with lawlessness. One of the reasons that young kids are roaming the streets at night-time and getting into trouble is that it's not safe at home. Home is where people are drunk, they are stoned and there's no food. The police, for instance, tell me that quite often when young kids get caught stealing, the first thing that they are stealing is food, because they're hungry, and one thing leads to another.

I've listened to Minister Rishworth's contributions to this place in question time, and it's absolutely amazing how out of touch the ministers, the people in charge of these departments, are with reality. Sadly, we're starting to see a fair bit of that in this parliament. I'm getting lectured by members on the other side, who have got 0.05 of a per cent of the population as Aboriginal, about what we should be doing. After the Northern Territory, the Parkes electorate has the next highest percentage of Aboriginal people. It's a great privilege to represent Aboriginal communities. They support me, and we have built up a relationship over the last 15 or 16 years. It gives me and other members of this side the ability to stand here and not speak on some philosophical, ideological rant like we were still at some university debating club. We're actually talking about people's lives here.

I think it goes right back to what you think welfare is. Is welfare pay for not working or is welfare assistance from the taxpayers to their fellow Australians who are doing it tough, making sure that we don't have people living on the streets, that they can feed their children, that there is money to educate people? That's certainly my idea of what welfare is. It's not pay that the adults in the family can decide to drink, gamble or whatever. So I think there's a big philosophical difference here.

I personally am very supportive of helping people who are doing it tough. I think we're a very generous and caring country. But part of that is changing the circumstances of those people so they're not there for their entire lives. Right across my electorate at the moment, we have people doing incredible work with young Aboriginal people to help them have a better life and we have seen great results. Last year over 70 Aboriginal kids did the HSC in Dubbo; that's an enormous increase. These young people are going off and joining the police force and the military. They're working in local trades. Some are going to university. Some are working in the meat processing sector or whatever.

One of the great frustrations—and I don't want to go too much into the issue around the Voice, but that's had a lot of discussion in this place. The Aboriginal people in the Parkes electorate are people in the community who are not leading separate lives; they are just getting on with it. And it's not just an Aboriginal problem. That's why I think the welfare card should not be considered an Aboriginal card; it should be considered a card for people on welfare. We've got young people from all backgrounds falling on hard times because they're getting caught up in meth and alcohol, and the lawless activity that comes from that.

In some ways I'm actually pleased the government has seen the error of its ways but it's a shame we had to go through this level of hardship where the genie is out of the bottle and it's going to be very hard to put it back in, as the member for Grey indicated. Hopefully the government has learnt a lesson from this—that it should be listening to the people in the communities. That's what the members on this side do. I spent the week before last out in my river towns speaking to members of the tribal council, the cultural centres and the Aboriginal medical services, just chewing the fat and getting a feel for what the big issues were.

I will finish on another matter. The member for Bruce spoke earlier. The document that he was quoting from was Niki Savva's novel. Seriously, that's his reference point! The scare campaign that the member for Bruce ran before the last election to scare the most vulnerable members of our community—that their pensions were going to be taken away from them and cards would be given—was completely baseless. One of the reasons when opposition becomes government—they've actually laid groundwork where they have to save face, on the ridiculous statements they made in opposition, by changing these things. The Minister for Social Services's contributions to this place have been absolutely ridiculous in their nature, in their lack of understanding of what the changes in policy have meant for people. I have a lot to do in my communities. Quite often it's the elderly, the grandmas and the aunties that are keeping the families together. They are not opposed to having their welfare on a card to protect them from humbugging from people, because if you've got cash you are vulnerable to being humbugged for that money.

I will support this legislation. I hope the government has learnt a lesson on this—that we don't live in an ideologically driven landscape that's completely removed from reality, that we do things in this place that sometimes are not easy—and you have to fight for them—but make a difference in people's lives. These cards made a difference in people's lives. The government have created chaos with their changes. I will support them to try and get this back on track.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To those who might be listening to this debate at home or elsewhere: you might think that the cashless debit card trials were only in Aboriginal communities, but they were not. In fact, the biggest trial site in the country was in my electorate of Hinkler. At one stage there were over 6,000 participants, roughly the equivalent of the other three trial sites put together. Those numbers change over time—they move up and down depending, particularly, on youth unemployment—but the trial site in my patch was very, very different to the other three. Roughly five per cent of the community, that's all, identify as being of Aboriginal heritage. The trial was for those aged 35 and under in the electorate of Hinkler, who were on four payments: Newstart, youth allowance, parenting payment single or parenting payment partnered. It took literally months to put this in place. There was a significant plan and there were significant support services. We had support services both online and face to face in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. If anyone had any challenges, they could talk directly to somebody.

Do you know what, Mr Deputy Speaker? After a very short period of time, those services hardly got used. But what did get used was the cashless debit card, to make a real difference for people who found themselves in difficult circumstances. I had never before dealt with any policy that had such strong support in the electorate; in fact, no matter what you looked at, it was almost 70 per cent supported. We had media doing ReachTEL polling and we had what we did locally. There were all sorts of claims all over the place, but ultimately my community supported this. They supported the cashless debit card rollout because they wanted to see change. They know change is difficult, they know this is tough policy and they know it is necessary.

Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, I know you get similar things in your electorate. There were a number of times when a constituent would come in and yell—you can tell when there's potentially a spray on its way—but overwhelmingly people would say, 'Keep fighting for this.' They'd talk about their aunties, their uncles, their cousins—their grandchildren, in particular—who'd had enormous benefit from the card being in place, because they simply couldn't spend all of their support on alcohol, drugs or gambling products.

I know it's tough—there's no doubt about that, and I have said it many times—and I know there are no silver bullets, but the reason we fought so hard for this is that it works. If there is one kid who gets fed because we put this in place, I'll continue to fight for it. I'll tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are a lot more than one. There was feedback from teachers and school principals, all of whom, as you know, can't talk about this publicly because they are prohibited from making those contributions by their agreement with the state, as state school principals and state schoolteachers. Police very rarely can go on the record. They are all enormously supportive because it works. We had feedback on rent rolls improving and being paid. I had produce agents tell me people whom they'd never seen before were coming in regularly to buy food for their pets.

We see that those opposite have knocked this out based on an ideology, based on the socialist alliance of the people in Sydney and Melbourne. It's not those people who live in these communities. It's not those people who need to make changes. It's not those people who see the consequences. On the other side of the chamber we have an absolutely idealistic government that rubbed this out because it didn't like it. That's what it comes down to.

I go back to the commentary from the Minister for Social Services, Minister Rishworth. In an interview on 23 June 2022 she said, 'The government wants to talk about the transition and the pathway forward because we have said that we're getting rid of this privatised card.' In the same interview she said, 'So we're getting rid of the privatisation element of it.' I'll go to another statement, on 4 June 2022: 'We are abolishing the privatised cashless debit card.' On 2 August 2022, in the West Australian, she said it was:

… privatised welfare that was born of a Liberal Party ideological obsession forced on communities …

…   …   …   

It was privatised welfare.

On 30 June 2022 she said it was a 'privatised compulsory cashless debit card', and on 28 July 2022, once again from the now minister, we had: 'That was privatised welfare.'

Yet what do we see, Mr Deputy Speaker? I draw your attention to the estimates hearing of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on 15 February 2023, where officials made some statements under questioning from Senator Ruston. She asked:

I'm just wondering if you could give us a quick rundown on the functionality differences—that is, the technical functionality of the SmartCard versus the BasicsCard.

There was this contribution from Mr Thorpe:

… the enhanced income management and SmartCard, which will be available from 6 March, works on a broader range of services.

Well, it's the same range of services, because it's a debit card. It makes no difference whatsoever.

Senator Ruston:

I'm more interested in the technology that sits behind the card. On that basis, from the technology perspective …

Mr Thorpe:

The same organisation, Indue, is providing the banking services …

The same one. The exact same one. What did it cost? Well, just under $12 million and, would you believe, it was a limited tender or a limited approach. In fact, it was exceptionally limited; they only approached one provider. Guess who that was? Indue. So Labor, by their own definition, have privatised welfare. Do you know what the only substantial change was, Deputy Speaker Buchholz? The card's going to change colour. It will be blue instead of silver, because silver is actually the most popular card colour. Call me a cynic, but Labor have privatised welfare by their own admission. It is exactly the same. The only difference is that it is not mandatory.

I'm advised—I'll have to confirm these numbers—that in my patch there are now fewer than 30 participants on the card. Can you imagine the cost per card for that? For those opposite to rail against what we tried to do when we were in government, well, it was exactly what they are doing now. We tried to get people off the BasicsCard and onto the CDC because it has much better technology and it works. They are getting to the point where they can get down to product-level blocking, which is so much better. The technology works. It is a debit card. It is much better for those individuals. What we saw throughout the election was a scare campaign run by Labor, who have now done exactly what they said they weren't doing. So, if it is privatising welfare, I come back to the same point: by their definition Labor have privatised welfare—the same card doing the same things from the same provider, except it has changed colour.

We had all sorts of information coming through the office over a period of time about breakfast clubs having less demand, about kids going out on events and excursions—kids who never got do those things before—that were paid for. People had additional money. We have seen those horrible reports from places like Alice Springs. We have seen what's happened. We have heard from my good friends and colleagues, including the members for Grey, O'Connor and Durack. I would say to those opposite: this is lived experience.

This claim is that it is about politics and that people hate it. Well, those members all got re-elected, as I did. They all got re-elected, and you don't get that unless you have the majority of your community onboard and they do, because what we did made a difference. You only have to listen. I heard the contribution from the member for Grey; he has actual numbers. There is a reason we couldn't get these numbers in Queensland, because the Queensland state Labor government wouldn't give them to us. We tried. If you look at the Auditor-General's report, it is scathing of the department for not delivering what the minister asked for—scathing. Yet my community still supports the rollout, still supports these changes. They want to see change in their community, because we have significant challenges with multigenerational welfare dependence. My patch still has, as far as I'm aware, the lowest per capita income in the country. It is not these remote communities; it is ours. These are large—very large—regional areas. We on this side put forward millions of dollars in support services. In fact, when an audit was done at the commencement of the cashless debit card, there were almost 70 providers providing support throughout my electorate—almost 70—fully funded. Yet what do we continue to see from those opposite? We see all sorts of claims about privatisation, all sorts of claims about scare tactics for pensioners. I don't see how you are an aged pensioner if you are aged 35 or under. That applied in the trial site in my patch—age 35 or under.

While I have the opportunity, I want to thank the local community reference group in the electorate of Hinkler, who came under not only significant pressure but, in some circumstances, abuse from those individuals out there, those keyboard cowards who chase individuals down on Facebook and other social media platforms and abuse them simply for being involved. The reference group just want their community to be better. They volunteered and they did it pretty tough, I have to say. Even the location of an information session was attacked by these so-called activists online because the organisers dared to take the money from Department of Social Services to run an event to give people information. These were the types of things that we were up against, and yet my community continues to support it because it matters to them, to their kids and to their grandkids. We cannot continue to do the same things and expect to get different outcomes. If you want to make change, you have to make tough decisions—and these are tough but necessary decisions.

I'll come back to where I started. For four of us on this side of the House these are lived experiences. We know what it is like to implement the trial. We know what it takes. We know how hard it is. We know that there are members of the community who are opposed. They are entitled to their views. I sat in here and I heard those opposite rail against this because they said there was no way off the cashless debit card. Guess what? There is a really simple solution. You can go to work. You can get a job—right now, we have an unemployment rate under four per cent—and you can do whatever you like. It's your money.

We saw when this was implemented a significant change in youth unemployment alone. I want every single one of those kids to get an opportunity, I had one when I came out of high school. At the time, I did not realise how fortunate I was to be offered a trade. How was I to know there were 280 other kids lined up? I simply didn't know. But it was an opportunity that I was given and one which I utilised and, to be honest, took for granted for some period of time. I don't take it for granted anymore. I want those kids to have that same opportunity. I have to tell you that they are not going to get it while they continue to be isolated in multigenerational welfare dependent families. We need to do something about that.

We are in the place where we can make a difference. We are in the place where we can make decisions that will help them. That is what this is about. It is not about being difficult. It is not about challenges for individuals whom we know have issues with alcohol and other problems. This is about those fundamental pieces of being involved in the community. You have to feed your kids. You have to take the opportunity of the support that's being provided to utilise it for the right things.

Why do you think we have seen so many people come to this parliament from places like Laverton, Kununurra and the Goldfields over in the west? The biggest activist in my patch against the cashless debit card was an individual who would never be honest and who didn't live there, and yet over and over we saw those opposite take those types of submissions as reasons to make the decisions that they have. It is the wrong approach. The overwhelming majority of my community supports the cashless debit card. Those opposite should hang their heads in shame. They fought against us when we tried to do exactly what they are doing they did with the BasicsCard. They removed this without community consultation. It was an across-the-board decision—'We are doing this because we are opposed based on our ideology.' As the member for Grey has said, it has unleashed chaos in some of these communities. Mine is very, very different, but it works and I will continue to support it.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Hinkler on his contribution. He is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, He's a fellow tradie. He's worked assiduously behind the scenes in the party room. The member for Hinkler is someone who genuinely cares about his community and is here because he wants to make a difference. There are not too many people who could speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023 with the same sort of authority. In fact, there are really only four people who could speak on this bill with the same authority as the member for Hinkler. I commend him for his great work in this space.

I rise to speak on this income management reform bill with some concerns. These are concerns which have been raised by the opposition on behalf of wearied and worried Australian families. These are families who are barely making ends meet, families who have struggled over the last six months to put food on the table, to turn on their air-con, to pay for kids' sport and to keep their businesses afloat. As we speak, there are businesses across this country whose owners have their heads in their hands, wondering how they are going to make payroll on Thursday and how they are going to make all of the payments and deal with all of the bills. I've been there. I've been there in my own small businesses for over 30 years. I'll just dip into the overdraft one more time; I'll put it on the credit card—anything to keep the business alive. For those people who are out there tonight who might be listening to this, know that there are people in this chamber that understand your predicament, and we have been where you are. Every decision we make in this place—I know this is going to sound trite—but for every decision we make in this place we should have you and your families front and centre of our minds.

Those people are, after all, the people who elected us. They are the reason why we are here. These are real people who, in my view, have been abandoned by this Labor government, a Labor government whose priorities are out of whack. They're out of touch of the needs of everyday Australians, and they are patently out of their depth on things that matter to everyday Australians. I speak on this bill concerned that this Labor government simply have no idea what they are doing—either that or they just don't seem to care. I'm not sure which one it is. Maybe it's both. While the coalition will not stand in the way of the government on this bill, we have a number of questions which those opposite have yet to this answer.

Question one: when will this reform actually take place? It appears as if Labor don't know when the bill will take effect. Either that or they are keeping Australians in the dark, yet again. Regulatory impact statements help policy makers, in particular government, consider how proposals affect businesses, individuals and community organisations, as well as broader social, economic and legal impacts. This process must be entered into honestly and in good faith. Last year, the government's regulation impact statement for the bill abolishing the cashless debit card stated:

Current income management participants will continue to use the BasicsCard, and move to a new card with enhanced functionality from 1 July 2023.

Australians and the Public Service alike expect the government will keep its word when it says something like that. Australians rely upon that. Where they can't, where government can't keep their word, then Australians expect their government to be honest, to be clear and to give some sort of an explanation. That has got to be the bare minimum obligation on government.

Yet, this government has not offered any deadline since that statement. The bill text, the explanatory memorandum and the government's material fail to mention any start date or firm time line. We are being asked to vote on legislation with a vague commencement date. While we do so in good faith, it is incumbent on this government to do their job and keep Australians and their elected representatives informed. The fact that those opposite haven't even bothered to tell parliament, much less some of our most vulnerable Australians on income management, when the transition will commence shows a complete disregard for the Australian people. It shows contempt. It shows arrogance and ignorance and, dare I say, incompetence. This Labor government are so blinded by an ideological crusade on income management that they are willing to risk the wellbeing and independence of vulnerable Australians in regional communities.

Question two: how will they manage the transition? The Sydney Morning Herald on 5 March 2023 revealed that Services Australia had advised Minister Rishworth that meeting the government's transition deadline would be highly problematic, because of what it called IT issues. We are calling on the government to tell us what advice they've received on this matter. Do they share our concerns? Do they share the concerns of Australians on the capacity of their social services safety net? What is this government doing about it? Instead of answers and clarity and honesty, we've had ministers going to ground and throwing political darts. You can rabbit on about politics and play your nasty political games, but in the end it will be Australians who suffer the consequences. That is Labor's way: they play games, they make bold promises, and they rack up the bill for everyday Australians. In the end, average Australians pay the price.

The opposition understands that maintaining the systems which support Australians to access the services and payments they need, including income management, is vital. We would be happy to work with the government to improve the efficiency and technical capacity of Services Australia, but technical capacity means attracting and retraining skilled workers. That's why it's very concerning that, instead of strengthening Services Australia's workforce, Labor have actually cut jobs. Can you believe that? For a party, an organisation and a government that have been so front and centre in saying they're all about jobs, they have cut jobs. In fact, in December the Australian people were told by an agency spokesperson that up to 1,000 specialist IT jobs had been axed. Under questioning in Senate estimates, Services Australia revealed that 1,024 contractor jobs had been culled by this sneaky Labor government. This exacerbates the brain drain in government services. They deprived Services Australia of the expertise it needs to support Australians, particularly those who will undergo this transition. The Community and Public Sector Union has been calling for years to cut the use of contractors. Once again, the federal Labor government is doing the unions' bidding, instead of listening to the experts and delivering for Australians in need.

The fact is that the government haven't thought through the implications of this transition. Even the Office of Impact Analysis found that their assessment wasn't good practice and that the transition plans require more detail. Despite $150 million being allocated to manage this transition—$150 million in taxpayers' funds—Labor still can't answer whether Services Australia has the trained resources ready to deliver this program. Inefficient technical capacity, job cuts to appease the unions and a shoddy assessment process—we know where this goes. We've read this book; we know how it ends. It means budget blowouts. It means service cuts. It means panicked purchasing and Public Service bloating. It means the federal Labor government showing the Australian people just how out of depth they really are.

Question 3: what will these changes do? The worst part is that, despite all of their investment, incompetence and intransigence, the government still don't actually know what the new program will do. Speaking to ABC Goldfields on 15 February, the Assistant Minister for Social Services said the new SmartCard will be able to be used for online transactions, 'which the cashless debit card didn't allow'. Let's fact-check that. That is fundamentally false. The Services Australia website says:

You can use your CDC at over one million EFTPOS terminals around Australia and do your shopping online.

In fact, during Senate estimates that same day, officials admitted that there is no technological difference between the cashless debit card and the government's new SmartCard. They're even run by the same organisation: Indue. The government labelled the cashless debit card a failed program, yet they are shamelessly relaunching the same service to provide voluntary income management to vulnerable communities. It's the same service with a different name. They rebrand; they rebadge; they reheat. They've treated their 10 months in office as though government is just another do-it-yourself project. They sand down quality policies, throw on a lick of paint or some tacky content and post it on Facebook, hoping that Australians will wear it.

What was one man's treasure, Labor have turned into another man's trash. Removing the compulsory nature of this income management service takes away its major strength. It forced those who could not otherwise manage their income to confront the harms they are inflicting on others and themselves, but particularly their families. It made it much more difficult to fuel addiction and fund unlawful behaviour. I really, seriously wouldn't have thought that anybody in this place could have thought that blowing money on the pokies or on online gambling would have been better than putting clothes on your kids or feeding your kids. I've been very, very vocal and outspoken about our obligations as a community, particularly in relation to gambling, and if people have got such a huge problem with their gambling, blowing money that they can't afford, or if they can't look after their children, then government has an obligation to step in to look after those kids.

Labor have taken the coalition's landmark income management program which was saving lives and livelihoods and they have dismantled good policy. They have shaved it down, they have broken it and now they are fumbling their way back to the drawing board. Since the repeal of the CDC, we have seen vulnerable communities feeling the devastation. Street crime, gambling, alcohol-fuelled violence, child neglect—no one is suggesting that these things didn't happen under our watch. No one is suggesting that. But why would we change something that seemed to be working? The definition of insanity is to keep doing what you have always been doing and expecting a different result. We introduced something different and we got good results, and those opposite have trashed it. What a waste of taxpayers' money! What a waste of Australia's goodwill!

Question 4 goes to why this Labor government continues to turn its back on regional Australia. The continuation of the cashless debit card program was in direct response to calls from community leaders who told us that it was making a difference. The cashless debit card strikes a balance between allowing welfare recipients to make independent purchasing decisions and helping to create safe communities. The unions get what the unions want because the unions pay Labor's way to this place. The coalition saw lives being destroyed in vulnerable communities because of generational welfare dependence, child abuse, alcoholism and addiction. We took action because good governments take action when confronted with challenges. The cashless debit card was core to that response, and it worked. Ask the people of Ceduna. Ask the people of the goldfields. Or, close to my patch, ask the people of Bundy and Hervey Bay.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Late last year, with a cross-party delegation, I visited Kenya in Africa, looking at the famine there. Four failed rainy seasons have caused such heartache, such hardship. Indeed, it has resulted in the worst drought in 40 years, and 942,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. The delegation, which included Liberal members—Labor too—visited a refugee camp near Kakuma. Earlier, Deputy County Commissioner Mwachaunga Chaunga told us of the difficulty of the balancing act that the community and the leadership in that community faced when coping with the refugees, many of whom have been residing there for three decades—30 years. Many of those refugees are from war-torn neighbouring countries or other nearby countries experiencing famine and hardship, and have never known anything other than the confines of that refugee camp.

Progress is being made to integrate outsiders, albeit slowly, Mr Chaunga said—those people from Somalia and other nations—and to allow them work permits. But while I was at that camp, I spoke to somebody who said to me that there was one thing that was working—in fact, a provision which was having some success. Food rations for refugees in the camp had been reduced when we were there to 80 per cent of the recommended amount, and recipients were receiving half their monthly handout as food and the remainder as a targeted debit allowance. We cannot make this stuff up: I said to him, 'What do you call it?' and he said, 'We call it a cashless welfare debit card.' Go figure! We had just abandoned that as a policy to help our most vulnerable here in this country, and yet it was working in Kenya. When I told this person that we had such a policy in our country but that we had wound it back, he just shook his head. He didn't need to say anything, he just shook his head.

Ceduna has a population of 3½ thousand. It was established in 1898, so it's not a new town—not a fly-by-night community by any stretch of the imagination. It has been there since the late 19th century. We heard the member for Gray earlier talking passionately and powerfully about the benefit of the cashless debit card in Ceduna. There was an article in the Australian on 10 February by Ellen Whinnett, who, coincidentally, was with us on that trip to Kenya. The article talked about how residents of the remote town of Ceduna held a crisis meeting following the abolition of Australia's first cashless debit card program, amidst fears that it had contributed to a rise, to a spike, in alcohol abuse; regretfully, to child neglect; and, as was described, to absolute bedlam.

The mayor, Ken Maynard, was there. We should listen to our mayors when they speak, because they're at the forefront of communities. They're the first level of government in this country, and when they talk about issues affecting their communities we should listen very much; we should meet with them as much as we can. I don't think that's happening all that often at the moment. I think that ministers should go out of their way to make sure that they don't talk at but that they listen to people such as Mayor Maynard. He said that he believed the abolition of the card had caused, in his words, 'some negative impacts'. His predecessor, Perry Will, said that the decision had led to problems on the streets, including drunken fights, vomiting, defecation and people accosting tourists for money. The former mayor said that he had run the visitor information centre for more than a dozen years but that he had retired, and he was just glad to be out of it. He was the one who used the word 'bedlam'; he said:

By bedlam, I mean vomiting, urinating, defecating in the streets—

It's awful stuff—

around the business areas and on the lawns and on the seafront, fighting in the streets, smashing bottles and littering all over the town with alcohol and takeaway food containers.

I'm not standing here and suggesting that the cashless debit card is going to solve all these problems: I am not. But, indeed, what they've seen in the community, and they would know—they live there and it's their lived experience—is that those problems, those very worrying and disturbing incidents, lessened when the cashless debit card was in place. I'll quote Perry Will:

People begging, accosting tourists for money to buy alcohol. All this behaviour was at a minimum when we limited the amount of cash available and people still had money so that they could buy food and clothes, in particular for the children of dysfunctional families.

That's what former mayor Perry Will had to say. Ellen Whinnett's article continues:

Four business owners who spoke to The Weekend Australian but were too fearful of repercussions to be named publicly, said there had been an obvious increase in public drunkenness and anti-social behaviour in the town centre—

in the central business district, since the cashless debit card had been withdrawn.

One business owner said they had locked themselves in their shop and called police after a brawl outside saw locals throwing rocks at each other.

You have to feel for the police; you really do. Their job is to obviously keep law and order, but when law and order unfortunately goes awry because of stupid policies, you have to feel for them, you have to feel for the communities, you have to feel for the families and you have to feel for the mums who are potentially facing greater risk of domestic violence. They want the best for their children; they do. They want to see their kids go to school in good, clean, new uniforms. They want them to go to school with breakfast in their bellies and with lunch in their schoolbags. If the money is being spent on things other than that, then what a shame that is. If the money is being spent on gambling or grog, what a terrible shame that is. This article by Ms Whinnett says:

While the Labor Left had always despised the card—

we know they did; my words, not the journalist's—

some Labor figures have privately expressed nervousness about its abolition following the government's backflip to reintroduce alcohol bans in response to an explosion of crime and violence in Alice Springs.

We know the cashless debit card worked because we've heard from the lived experience of the members for Parkes, for Hinkler and for Grey, but perhaps even more powerfully we've heard from the mayors, we've heard from the mums and we've heard from ordinary everyday Australians for whom the cashless debit card had made such a difference. It's not just the Australian; this is an article from the ABC, an interview:

Once a Kimberley stockman, Kenneth Paul Green now lives on a disability pension—the product of a chronic back injury—

life as a stockman can be tough; it's a hard life—

in a home on Kununurra's fringe.

…   …   …

For Mr Green, he said he eventually appreciated the card, as it helped make sure he always had rent money, and—

this is the critical part of this paragraph in the story in the ABC from 25 September last year—

enough funds to see his kids through school—

enough funds to see his children get an education—

"To me it was a lifesaver … it controls my spending," he said.

The article also quotes:

Miriwoong woman Majella Roberts said the card helped her save money for her six children.

"On pay day you save it for a couple of days … without people asking for it," she said.

"Use it in the shops, clothing shops, even for cabs as well."

Then it goes on to talk about:

NT man Malati Yunupingu—a resident of Gunyangara community in East Arnhem Land—went on the basics card after cancer made him too sick to work.

The Gumatj clan elder said the card helped him save money for food, and fears if it was ever removed—

what must he be thinking now—

completely, vulnerable children in his community would go hungry—

would go without food—

"It would make Yolngu people starve," Mr Yunupingu said.

He also added:

We are living in a different world now. Mother and father are playing cards, on drugs, instead of thinking about the kids. That's the saddest part of it.

He was right; that is the saddest part of it.

We would do well as a parliament sometimes to stop playing the ideology card, to stop playing the partisan card and to listen more closely to those people who come to this place in good faith and tell us of their lived experience in their communities. Canberra is a rather insular place. It's a wonderful place—it's the capital of this nation—but it's rather insular. When people from these remote communities take the time, the trouble, the effort and the expense to come here and tell us their stories, we should at least listen to them—not talk at them, not let them just talk to our advisers, but as ministers and shadow ministers listen to their wise words and heed what they say.

Today we had representatives from Western Australia's northern Goldfields. They travelled to Canberra to have a roundtable discussion on what could only be described as the disastrous decision to abolish the cashless debit card. Patrick Hill, who is the President of the Shire of Laverton, and Peter Craig, who's the President of the Shire or Leonora, representatives with lived experience on the ground, provided real, passionate, experienced accounts of what we've seen as the impact since Labor removed compulsory income management. They attributed the card's removal to the chaos which is unfolding in their communities.

They're very good communities. I've been to many of these communities in remote Australia. As the member for Hinkler said, it's not just remote Australia; it's his wonderful Queensland community as well. They are good communities and they are good people. Yes, they need help. They were getting it. The representatives unsuccessfully sought a meeting with the Prime Minister. I appreciate that the Prime Minister had former US president Barack Obama in Sydney, and that's important, but is it more important than the people who have taken the time and trouble to come across the country to see their Prime Minister? They're just as important, I would argue—perhaps even more so.

Now, I know the Leader of the Opposition visited the regions in February. He heard firsthand accounts of the changes that were occurring in those communities because of the removal of the income management system. Labor was repeatedly warned that abolishing the Cashless Debit Card would lead to drug and alcohol fuelled violence, and you know what? It is happening. Now, we are calling on Labor in good faith. We are asking the government, having listened to the lived experience, having seen what is happening around this great country in those wonderful remote communities, to reinstate the compulsory cashless debit card, because it will not just save people's livelihoods; it will save their lives.

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to all the speakers who have been before me, both those I have heard directly in this chamber and those I have tuned in to from my office between meetings. I remember when this was before this House before, and I'll be very frank: this isn't an issue that is directly relevant to a large majority of people in my electorate, but I recognise that all of us, the 151 members in this place, represent a little piece Australia with different experiences in different electorates. I remember watching those who spoke about this passionately, begging the government, 'Please don't do this.' There's no joy in 'I told you so.' There's no pleasure in seeing the consequences of what's happened. It would have a much better to have said, 'Actually, Labor was right, the government was right, it's okay and it worked out fine.' That's what we wanted.

But here we are. Instead of actually listening to the members and the people who are speaking to them, this government are applauding themselves for other things they are doing. They are talking about a voice but not actually listening to the most important function of a voice, which is this place. That is what this building is. This building is a voice for the nation. Every single person in this chamber and those who represent the states in the Senate are a voice for each person in each electorate, whether they voted for us or whether they didn't, whether they can vote or whether they can't. That includes refugees, children and non-citizens. It includes people from every background, every corner of this country. Our job in this place is to be a voice for them. So when members come in here and plead with the government to listen to the people in their electorate, that is disappointing, because, by ignoring them, those opposite are not respecting the purpose of the voice in this place for every Australian.

The continuation of the cashless debit card program was in direct response to calls from community leaders who told us in the coalition that it was ensuring more money was being spent on essentials and on supporting positive changes. It wasn't a top-down imposed program. It was in response to the community, because that is this parliament working at its best. In all of the discussions around the referendum this year, there are those who claim there is something flawed in our democracy that needs to be fixed. There may be other good reasons for the voice, and we will have that debate. There will be a committee, there will be a parliamentary debate and then the people will have the final say. But if those opposite are claiming that part of the justification is that our democracy is somehow broken, well, the closest you may get might be the actions of this Labor government; that is the closest. Even then, here we are with those opposite, who represent the people who are telling them that this is broken and not working, standing up in this place and being heard.

The cashless debit card strikes a balance between allowing welfare recipients to make independent purchasing decisions and helping to create safe communities. There is a principle behind that we should never forget—that is, we should never make the lottery of life, the accident of who your parents are, be the decisive and only thing that will shape your destiny. That can't be what this country is about, because no child gets to choose the circumstances of their birth. Sometimes they didn't win that lottery, and whatever we can do to give them the best shot of life, we should grab with both hands.

Despite the evidence that was put before this place when this was debated last year, Labor chose to end the card, which was at direct odds with the wishes of those communities. Labor are more focused on the opinion of those that they might see on social media than those who are actually experiencing it firsthand. We heard many members talking about lived experience. Lived experience isn't just a slogan that we throw out every time suits us; it is a reminder of who we should be listening to. This wasn't just a random decision. This was amongst one of the first decisions of this government. It said a lot about their priorities, what they thought was important. One of the first decisions was to abolish the cashless debit card. The consequences of that were seen almost straightaway, particularly violence, and we know the link between alcohol and violence. So vulnerable communities are feeling the devastating impacts since this repeal. It has unfortunately and tragically led to not only an increase in crime, gambling, and alcohol-fuelled violence, but also child neglect. The areas of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Leonora, Coolgardie and Laverton areas were affected by Labor's abolition of the cashless debit card and their mayors have reported the surge in crime statistics.

The government can't just wring its hands and walk away from situations it has created. We hear a lot of talk about responsibility and turning up, but it's about what you do and not what you say. Again, the coalition warned Labor about these consequences, and, again, we take no pleasure in saying, 'I told you so.' We submit that this unnecessary transition, which was imposed for ideological, not practical, reasons, will generate many thousands of customer interactions with Services Australia, imposing extra costs for every taxpayer and creating a burden of time and anxiety for those being transitioned off the CDC. You can understand the frustration for a community that gets used to and familiar with the system to then have the rug pulled from them. You have to get familiar with a new system. So this is not a valuable use of taxpayers' money, especially during this cost-of-living crisis. Australians deserve a government that is not going to treat vulnerable communities as an afterthought.

There are certain specific issues that we should address. The first is in terms of IT. The Sydney Morning Herald reported a few weeks ago that Services Australia had advised the minister that meeting the government's transition deadline would be highly problematic because of IT issues. The opposition has called on the minister to urgently explain what advice the agency has provided to the minister and whether those concerns are shared. The minister has gone to ground. We haven't heard anything from Mr Shorten on this issue. We ask: are these IT issues the reason why the 1 July deadline has been dropped from the government's talking points? It's a legitimate question that deserves an answer.

The apparent IT issues that were identified by Services Australia beg the question about whether this is related to job cuts under Minister Shorten.

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

Job cuts?

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Job cuts. The opposition understands that maintaining the system which supports Australians' access to services and payments, including income management, is vital. That's why it's very concerning that, instead of strengthening Services Australia's workforce, the minister and Labor have launched a wave of job cuts, and that's often a criticism levelled on this side, but it's not one that's done in areas that create need and actually solve problems, and that's what we're concerned is happening here.

In December the Australian people were told by an agency spokesperson that up to 1,000 specialist IT jobs had been axed. But, under questioning in Senate estimates, Services Australia revealed that this figure was actually much higher. We now know that the figure is at 1,024 contractor jobs, culled by this minister of this government. Of those, only 130 have returned to the agency. This is a significant brain drain, and you can't turn a tap off and turn it on again and not realise that there's a consequence for that brain drain and loss of corporate knowledge. The Community and Public Sector Union has been calling for years to cut the use of contractors, and the Labor minister is ticking off on that wish list.

In the final few minutes I will talk about telephone support. Under Minister Shorten, Services Australia will struggle to manage the transition. Earlier this year it was revealed that phone wait times for Centrelink had blown out under this government. According to Services Australia, from 1 July 2022 to 31 January this year, it took an average of over 18 minutes for a person to be connected with a Centrelink operator. When people wait on the phone for a long period of time and then get to the end and it hangs up when they're told, 'I'll transition you now,' some people just give up. There's an assumption that people don't have other things to do or people to care for. Over 2.1 million Australians chose to terminate a call rather than wait. That's 2.1 million people who had a legitimate query and a problem to be solved that wasn't, and that cascades through their lives and through the lives of the people they are responsible for. This data, which was obtained from Senate estimates, also reveals that under Labor there has been a spike in wait times for Australians calling about the BasicsCard—again, flip flopping on programs. You can't just assume Australians, particularly vulnerable Australians, can just respond to what you're asking them to do. It's just not fair and it's not realistic.

From July last year to January this year it took over 13 minutes on average for someone to be connected with an operator. It's just not good enough to take that long. Imagine what the wait time will be when this transition gets underway. We submit that this will create absolute chaos. So the opposition has lodged a series of questions in writing to the minister about how he plans to deal with telephone support under enhanced income management and it's disappointing that to date there has been no response. The people who call this line are among the most vulnerable in our society but this out of touch government doesn't seem to care. They do not have a plan to manage what will no doubt be a significant volume of calls coming through.

I return to how I started, that the purpose of this chamber and this parliament is to be a voice for every single person in this country. Speaker after speaker who represent vulnerable communities in Australia stood up last year and begged the government not to take this course of action. They now stand up and say please, finally, listen to us now that you know the pain that it is causing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to support the government's bill, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023, but also to support the amendment moved by the shadow minister, calling for the reintroduction of the cashless debit card across the current trial sites.

This is very close to my heart. The Goldfields and the northern Goldfields are a part of my electorate and I have worked with those communities since late 2015 for the introduction of the card. I've watched this debate and I've watched members from the other side, including the assistant minister, make statements that are completely untrue. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they made those statements out of ignorance, as opposed to some other term which, as it's unparliamentary, I can't use in this place.

One of the furphies I've heard over and over again is that the card was imposed on these communities. Nothing could be further from the truth. In late 2015, when I was in Leonora one evening, a wonderful, beautiful Aboriginal elder, Nanna Gay Harris, approached me to say that there had just been two teenage suicides in the town—that two young females, sadly, had taken their own lives. She pleaded with me: 'What can we do about this? What can you do?' I said: 'Look, I haven't got all the answers and I don't even know if I have got an answer, but I know that we're trialling a cashless debit card in Ceduna, which would restrict the amount of money that a welfare recipient would receive. Eighty per cent of that money would go on their card, and that money wouldn't be available to buy alcohol or drugs or for gambling. I don't know whether that is the answer, but we can give it a go.' She said: 'Please. We need to do something in our community.'

It's also a furphy that these communities weren't consulted. This was followed—and these are Department of Social Services figures—by 270 consultations across the northern Goldfields part of my electorate. I attended some of them. We travelled all across the Goldfields with people from DSS to explain how the card would work, and most of the communities embraced the cashless debit card. It's a mistake to say that we forced this on the communities. We travelled to places like Tjuntjuntjara, 600 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie in the Menzies shire. The people there made it very clear they didn't want the card. 'We don't want this Indue fella,' is what they said. We carved the shire of Menzies, in which Tjuntjuntjara sits, out of the legislation. The town of Menzies would be in the card trial, but the community of Tjuntjuntjara would not be in the trial site. To the north, the Ngaanyatjarra Council made it very clear they didn't want the card, so they didn't get the card. No community in the northern Goldfields who wasn't crying out for the card had the card imposed on them. I want to put that furphy to bed very early on in my speech tonight.

When the card was introduced, we saw some amazing results, anecdotally. In towns like Coolgardie, where there's one store, one side of the store sells groceries and household items, and the other side of the store sells alcohol. Once the card was introduced, all the people that were queueing up on one side queued up on the other side. Children were being fed and going to school with lunch. The demand for breakfast services and others diminished considerably, because, all of a sudden, the money wasn't being spent over here in the bottle shop queue; it was being spent over there in the grocery queue. Rents were being paid, the power bill was being paid—all the sorts of issues that create dysfunction and instability in families because all the money is being spent over here at the alcohol till. That was repeated right across the trial sites, whether in Kalgoorlie—which is a much bigger town of 30,000 people and it's much harder to identify the individual outcomes—or in Laverton and Leonora, back to towns with one store. Des Cannons, the owner of the Laverton general store, told us just the other day, when the Leader of the Opposition visited the northern Goldfields, that the difference is dramatic. From pre the cashless debit card to the cashless debit card, the shopping patterns are dramatically different. Of course, now we're back to no cashless debit card. So we're seeing massive dysfunction returning to those communities, particularly in the northern Goldfields.

The leaders of those communities travelled to Canberra this week. I welcome them into the House: Peter Craig, President of the Shire of Leonora; Patrick Hill, President of the Shire of Laverton; and Marty Seelander, who is the CEO of the Pakaanu Aboriginal Corporation. They have travelled a long way, believe me. It's a thousand kilometres from Laverton to Perth. Then you get on a plane, and you fly from Perth to Canberra. It's not easy to get here. These people didn't come because they wanted to take a week away from their very busy work and their jobs. They came here to tell people in this place what life is really like on the ground in their communities.

We were in government for nine years, and I can't remember an incident where a member of the previous government disrespected people of my community, like the assistant minister disrespected these people in a radio interview on ABC Goldfields on 15 February. In response to a question from the presenter, Ivo da Silva, about Patrick Hill talking about the dysfunction in his community since the removal of the cashless debit card, the assistant minister said, 'I don't think this is the time to play cheap political games.' This is the shire president of a community that's in crisis, who is much loved across the Goldfields. I listened to that interview, and the presenter, Ivo da Silva, was very much taken aback by this attack on someone who is so well regarded and so well loved across the Goldfields community. The minister went on to say that, basically, Patrick Hill was wrong, that there are many complex matters and that many people on the ground told her that the cashless debit card didn't actually make that much of a difference.

What would have stung about that for Patrick Hill and the other members of the Laverton Shire Council was that the following evening, when they all walked out of the shire council building at nine o'clock after their shire council meeting, there was a woman lying on the street right outside the shire building—and I know this because I saw the bloodstain on the road when I arrived there a few days later. She was badly beaten and bleeding profusely. Of course, they administered emergency first aid. They called the police and the ambulance, and the woman was flown to Perth. Subsequent CCTV footage revealed that the man sitting just up the road a way had systematically beaten and kicked this woman for an hour and 10 minutes. An hour and 10 minutes! He had kicked her in the head so many times that half her scalp was missing. If people don't believe that this happened, it happened right outside the shire building the day after Justine Elliot questioned these people about whether they were making up or exaggerating the problem in their town. I just think that it's an absolute disgrace that they were disrespected in that way. I certainly hope that the assistant minister apologised to them this afternoon when, apparently, she met with them.

So here we are, in the situation where we're seeing the outcome of what is, effectively, policy by Facebook—policy by social media. There are some people who are active on Facebook who managed to get the attention of the member for Bruce and others. They ran a very successful campaign denigrating the cashless debit card. These are people who I have to say live a very long way from Laverton or Lenora—a long, long way. They denigrated the cashless debit card and the Labor Party saw a political opportunity to campaign. They made up this complete nonsense that there was some plan to introduce a cashless debit card for pensioners and they refused to vote on a motion put to the Senate by Senator Anne Ruston, who was the minister at the time, basically saying that the cashless debit card would never be introduced to pensioners. That would have been inconvenient for the lie that they were spreading around the place, but they got some political advantage out of it—no question. I would venture to say that there were probably votes in it in some electorates—probably quite a lot of votes.

But the people who paid the price for that were people like the woman outside the Laverton shire buildings on the evening of Thursday 16 February. They're the people who paid the price. That's the blood money that she paid for a few extra votes. So I'm here tonight to plead with the government for the Prime Minister and the minister to come to the dispatch box and take a leaf out of Peter Beattie's book. He made a political art form out of saying, 'I'm sorry.' Come, because you got this one wrong. Come to the dispatch box and say that you're sorry. Say that you're sorry you got it wrong and that you understand now that there are people who are really suffering because of the decision that you made. This isn't just student politics anymore, there are real consequences to the decisions being made in this place. Those consequences are being played out in towns like Laverton, Leonora, Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie and Menzies. That's where the consequences are playing out. It isn't too late, though; those communities were making progress. Things had stabilised and there were fewer alcohol-related incidents.

We saw over the weekend reports in the national newspaper that crime statistics in one of the other trial sites, Ceduna, in the seat of my colleague the member for Gray, have risen by 100 per cent. They have doubled. Those people are paying the price for the decisions that were made here in this place. As I said, it is not too late for the government to do a Peter Beattie here and to admit they got it wrong. The Prime Minister could come in here along with the minister and say to the people of Laverton and to the people of Leonora: 'We're sorry. We got this one wrong and we're going to reinstate the card.' Call it the SmartCard; call it whatever you like. It's still being run by Indue, contrary to many of the minister's statements. Call it what you like. Reintroduce the SmartCard. I'll be the first to get on my feet and congratulate the government for making a courageous move. Given that we've now hit 7.30 pm, I will conclude my comments. But, to the Prime Minister and the minister, please consider— (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.