Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Assistant Minister for Social Services (Senator Fifield) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to income management proposals.

It is quite obvious that the government does intend rolling out this card. It is nothing short of an extension of income management—make no mistake about that. The idea is that the whole of someone's income will be subject to this so-called cashless card. Let's just skip over the bit about how taking away the decision making over the whole of someone's income disempowers them and the fact that cash plays an essential part of the economy in low-income communities, particularly Aboriginal communities, and let's look at the evidence the minister has used to say that this works: it was written in the Twiggy Forrest manifesto, so it must work! What a lot of nonsense—a billionaire has some thought bubbles and all of the sudden that is evidence that income management works, completely ignoring the reports and evaluations that show that it is not working and completely ignoring the question, or the minister was unable to provide an answer, as to whether the final report on the evaluation of the new income management has actually been submitted to government and whether the government has taken those recommendations or comments on board, whatever they may be. If it is anything like the first evaluation report of the new income management, it certainly did not show that income management is a glowing success or that it is worth the millions and millions of dollars expended on it.

The cost per person of income management is astronomical. Twiggy Forrest's report says that we should get the banks to do this not the government. Are banks going to do it for nothing? I do not think so. Will it cost the government or the person receiving the 'pleasure' of being income managed—in other words, those on the lowest incomes, the most vulnerable members of our community? The government did not answer my question as to who they are thinking they will roll it out to? But a media report—obviously, again, based on sources from the government—says that it could be rolled out to at-risk people, to the long-term unemployed—as if just because you are long-term unemployed you cannot manage your money—to jobless families and to some young people.

This is to ensure spending is on a healthy lifestyle. There is no evidence to suggest that income management does lead to a healthy lifestyle for a start. Who will make the decisions on what are essential services, what are essential goods and what is a healthy lifestyle? Will the banks do that? Will a government bureaucrat do that? Will Twiggy Forrest do that since he has, apparently, this brilliant idea about a healthy welfare card and rolling it out to people so that they can have a healthy lifestyle?

Income management is degrading and humiliating to people. Those are not just my words; those are the words used by people who are being income managed. When the Howard government originally came up with income management, the whole idea was that it would assist people to learn how to manage their money and then they would be moved off income management. More than seven years later, those same people who have been subject to the humiliating and degrading income management are still being income managed. It has cost thousands of dollars per person. Over those seven years, imagine how we could have spent that money and how we could have actually assisted people to overcome the barriers to employment and the disadvantage that they are suffering. If we had invested that money in positive incentives to help people instead of penalising people, I think we could have addressed some of the issues we are still dealing with. We could have put in place positive incentives instead of the cuts that are now being made, in particular to programs that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

This healthy welfare card will not assist people out of disadvantage. It will not assist people to find employment. It is degrading to people to imply that just because they have not been able to find a job that they cannot manage their money. Income management entrenches dependency. It does not encourage people to take control of their own decision making. It will become yet another barrier to employment. This is a ruse to rollout income management across the whole of Australia, to anybody on income support—make no mistake about it. That is what this government is considering. They are considering an extensive rollout. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.