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

I do not think there are any other speakers, so I will make a final contribution and wrap up this debate. I am extremely disappointed that the opposition are not taking up the opportunity provided by this debate to re-evaluate their approach to this so-called trial. The reason I am bringing this back is that I am using the parliamentary process that is put in place for delegated legislation to enable us to consider the fine detail of regulation under acts of parliament. The government are, in fact, using more and more delegated instruments. If I were them, I would be a little bit careful about having a go at senators who use the parliamentary process to look at the regulations that the government are relying on to implement large swathes of their acts. This process is there for us to look at the checks and balances of legislation and the implementation of legislation. It is so important because there are so many unanswered questions about this process that the government have still not been able to answer. As I said during my first contribution, as late as the week before last the government still could not answer the questions I was asking in Senate estimates, and yet this so-called trial is due to start on 15 March.

In her contribution, the minister said that we are not prepared to try a new idea. It is not a new idea. That is the fundamental problem. Income management is a failed experiment. I went through the final evaluation from the Northern Territory intervention, which confirmed many of the preliminary findings. There is no substantive evidence that the program has had significant changes relative to the key policy objectives, including changing people's behaviour. There were a whole lot of other objectives. There has not been an overall improvement in financial wellbeing, as you heard from the contribution before. So it is not a new idea; let's put that to bed. It is not a trial because we are not comparing like with like. I point out that, in the Northern Territory intervention, there were a lot of services provided, but they were provided in a top-down, paternalistic approach; they were not working with the community. There were many other problems, including things that we know from debating the Closing the Gap statement in this place last night. We know that many of the measures have not worked because of the flawed nature of those measures. It is not a new idea that providing services, if they are quality services, works as well. Even then, in the NT, where there were some limited services, we have not seen significant improvements.

It is not a trial. There are many ongoing issues. It is not a new idea. Yes, the statistics are appalling. Unfortunately, I can quote appalling statistics for many other communities. I quoted appalling statistics in the Northern Territory. Unfortunately, we have not seen any improvement due to income management in the Northern Territory either. There are still appalling statistics there. They are awful, which is why we need to be doing something about it. Yesterday, in our responses to the latest Closing the Gap report and the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee progress report, we went through a long list of things that we need to do. People seem to think this is a silver bullet approach to dealing with very complex problems. There is no silver bullet approach. There are many people in the community who do not support this trial. We are now hearing from the people who were included in the consultation. They said that the rollout to everybody is not what they understood the government would be proposing.

Some of the other issues that were brought up by the community in the letter from Mr Schrapel that I referred to before were about seeking fundamental information, which is why these questions are needed before the trial starts on 15 March and why I have sought to disallow it. Indue is not a signatory to either the voluntary ePayments Code overseen by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The government could not tell us that during Senate estimates last week, but I am now told that, in fact, they are not. I have not been told that by the government. I have been told by the community that they understand they are not signatories to that ePayments Code. They are not signatories to the relevant industry codes that apply to retail banks and credit unions—most notably, the Code of Banking Practice and the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice. These codes provide for important protections, including setting out the rules for determining who pays for unauthorised transactions—that is pretty important—establishing a regime for recovering mistaken internet payments—again, really important—rights around cancelling direct debit arrangements and obligations on providers for facilitating chargebacks. The government also could not tell me, during Senate estimates in the week before last, what is happening with some of the hire-purchase payments.

Departmental officials have apparently assured people in the community that participants in the trial will have 'substantially the same protections in their relationship with Indue as normal banking customers enjoy'. In their letter, the community members of the 'keep income management accountable network', go on to say that they think this confidence is misplaced. They would be happy to make some more specific comments, but, at first instance, 'an assessment of the ways in which Indue's offerings may fall below industry standards will be best informed by a detailed review of the terms and conditions for both the savings account and the cashless welfare card'. That is why they want to see the terms and conditions that will apply. It is absolutely essential. This card is going to apply to every person in this trial area who is on a working-age payment. If you are on Newstart, youth allowance, the single parent payment or the disability support payment, you are going to be subject to these measures. They are not being given a choice of which bank they can go to. They have to go to an organisation that is not a bank. It is a financial institution, and it is not signed up to those codes. These are just some of the unanswered questions: who is on the community panel, how are you going to find the community panel and how are you going to ensure privacy of the people who are subject to these measures? You cannot just start this trial without knowing these things. In a small, divided community, how are you going to get a person who is independent to make the decisions about someone's personal finances? Again, we do not know. The government may have already decided who is on that panel. It has not been released. As I said, I have tried to find out further information but have not been able to. That is another question the community is asking.

This is not a trial. The government obviously has an ideological approach to this. I am disappointed that the opposition are still going along with supporting the flawed approach that income management is. They have had plenty of opportunity to look at the evidence as well. They cannot call this a new trial. It is a continuation of the same misguided approach that has not worked.

There is some evidence that shows that in some limited circumstances voluntary income management has been successful in some communities. Voluntary income management is a very different proposition. People actually get to make a choice. They are not dictated to. They do not have the same feeling of lack of control. They do not have the feeling of that process necessarily being unfair, embarrassing and discriminatory, because they have made a choice.

People in Ceduna are about to be subjected to this process. They have not got a choice. I am sure the government are not saying that everybody who is on income support abuses alcohol and drugs and gambles. I am sure they are not saying that. But by taking that approach that is the message you send. It is not appropriate. We should be learning from our mistakes. We should be working with Aboriginal communities on support for community delivered programs that work.

This is a flawed mechanism. This is why I urge the Senate—I am giving you another chance!—to say no to this flawed approach that has deeply divided communities. You are dividing communities for a flawed approach. You have heard all the unanswered questions. Support the disallowance and let's have the opportunity for a rethink about how we can actually address this huge problem. No-one is denying there is a problem. There is no use just quoting statistics to try to justify a measure that does not work. I urge the Senate to support this disallowance.