Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the advantages of this package of legislation is that we will no longer have such things as prescribed communities. With respect to your question, Senator Ludlam, that may well have been the case when this was first introduced, four-plus years ago, and people were getting used to the system. Large supermarkets like Coles or Woolworths were also getting used to the system. People were not used to having a particular set of their Centrelink money budgeted. We have to be clear here: there is no reduction in the amount of money you get every fortnight; it is just given to you by the government in a different way. People may go shopping with $300 on the BasicsCard and $300 in cash and be unaware of how much you could buy for $300, as you might. When you fill your trolley up you may find you had put more in your trolley than you had on your card. So there was a lot of re-education and we then introduced a whole series of money management programs for people. Also, there are now points of query where you can look at what balance you have on your BasicsCard.

I do not find that those are problems anymore in the Northern Territory because for the last 18 months now Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the Territory have had a BasicsCard, if they fit into a certain category of people receiving Centrelink benefits. There are no such queues and there have not been for about four years now. Indigenous and non-Indigenous people get a card. We find more particularly that only certain shops have those cards, because those cards are meant for basic supplies, for food, for clothing, for educational purposes and for toys. They are not meant for a whole range of other goods. They are not meant for alcohol, for cigarettes or for cameras. They are not meant for a whole range of things, but I have found that, if we have discovered that there are certain shops that ought to get a BasicsCard, the representation I have made to the minister's office has been met pretty sympathetically. It has been a trial and error to begin with, but I think in most places it is now operating fairly smoothly.