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

I'm hardly surprised One Nation are opposing this. Why would they actually look at the evidence? Instead they choose to quote from the Minderoo Foundation, who have always supported this, because it was Andrew Forrest's idea in the first place. All they're doing is quoting—misquoting—the ORIMA evaluation, which has been torn to shreds by so many people who have the research qualifications to look at properly designed surveys rather than push polling. I spoke of that earlier. I don't know if Senator Hanson heard that before she came into the chamber. I spoke earlier of the fundamental flaws in the survey design and the ORIMA report. I will acknowledge that it is not just Senator Hanson who misuses those figures; it is also the government and Minderoo, of course, trying to promote their wunderkind answer to significant disadvantage in Aboriginal communities.

I say again: it is not that we don't believe that these issues should be addressed. What we disagree with is the approach that's been taken, given that the overwhelming evidence shows that income management does not work. There are many people in the community—the participants, particularly—who do not support this card, both in the East Kimberley and in Ceduna. Allan Suter was quoted. Again, he's always been in favour of this card. He is the mayor. He is the one that refuses to consult with the people on the card. That's on the public record from the Senate inquiry, where he said, as I mentioned earlier, that people can call in, but, since the trial started and, particularly coming up to the rollover, he has not consulted members of the community.

I'm deeply disappointed that Labor still refuse to give up their addiction to income management. We all know they had the chance to stop this when they came to power at the end of 2007, but they didn't. They let it roll on and, in fact, they renewed it to the new income management in 2012, a time I clearly remember. But the evaluation shows that it didn't work. That was a proper, independent evaluation. To call the ORIMA report a proper, independent evaluation is a misuse of the word 'independent'.

In terms of some of the academic work that has been undertaken, let's look at the wraparound services—which are something that we all agree should have been given to these communities, but they should have been given to the communities right from the start. People shouldn't need the card to get access to better services. I will quote from the most recent evaluation of the cashless welfare card from CAEPR, the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, at the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, by Elise Klein and Sarouche Razi. They found in their research on the wraparound services:

Even aspects of the experiment that were meant to support people on the CDC were poorly applied.

They said:

The types of services funded were limited in scope, focusing on treating assumed vices such as drug and alcohol addiction, and an inability to manage finances. This narrow focus overlooked funding for community development initiatives already on tight budgets, which may have more relevance to people on social benefits. The ORIMA final evaluation acknowledged the poor implementation of service funding:

Even that report said:

Overall, the evaluation found that the support services funded through the Trial had not been implemented in a timely manner.

They go on to say:

Most notable, however, is the limited reported use of these services by people on the CDC. The ORIMA (2017b) final evaluation found that only 12% of people they interviewed on the card reported using drug and alcohol services, and 10% used financial and family support services. This suggests that the assumption that people on welfare had vices to be serviced by drug and alcohol programs, and money management programs was not justified. As well, for people wanting to use the services, the services were not available in time.

They also talk about how it's made money management hard. I talked quite a bit yesterday about how people feel they have less control of their finances. They could be reducing their financial literacy, which is what the final evaluation of the Northern Territory new income management found it had an impact on. There was evidence that they think suggests that people in fact became more dependent on income support because of income management.

The report concludes:

The trial of the CDC in the East Kimberley is perverse contemporary Indigenous policy. Not only did the trial, by limiting the amount of cash, bring material hardship, it furthered the disempowerment of those marginalised by relational poverty. The terms 'community' and 'consultation' were used by government and advocates of the card as a tactic to give the impression that the diverse populations in Kununurra and Wyndham were unified in approval of the card. They do not reflect the substantive opposition to the card from many people living in the study site; indeed, the White Card—

for those that don't know, that's what the communities call the Indue card—

has become a symbol for disempowerment and neocolonial government control.

Use by the Australian Government of bespoke 'evidence' to tell only the story that the government wants to be heard is disturbing. It has two purposes: to continue the trial and expand the program in other regions—

it's quite obvious we're seeing that in the next debate we're about to have—

and to obfuscate the reality that the CDC's logic is deeply flawed and reliant on jobs that do not exist. The card cannot achieve the aims it seeks, as the framing is perverse and disconnected from the lives of those on the card.

I have to say that reflects what I've heard people say—most certainly in plainer words than that. Overwhelmingly, people who are actually trying to survive on the card have talked about the impact it's had on them, their difficulty in managing their money—and, again, there are many complicated reasons for that. They're reliant on cash and, when you're living on a low income, you do rely much more on cash because you can buy second-hand goods. You also need the cash to be able to send people to school. I spoke to people on the ground in Kununurra who felt shame when they had to get tokens instead of being able to use cash, for example, at the fair the year before last. They spoke again of the shame of not being able to have enough cash to buy things for their children at the school fete and in many other circumstances. They talk about the fact that everybody knows what the card looks like.

Again in the debate yesterday I heard from someone who was participating in the debate who obviously hasn't spoken to many people on the card, because that person—it was Senator Macdonald—said the card is just like any other card. That is absolute nonsense. It's not just any other card. On my credit card or on my bank card I can actually BPAY. I don't have to give everybody my credit card number so they can deduct the money for whatever I want to buy off my credit card. Or I can pay my power bill. I don't have to pay my power bill that way; I actually pay mine with BPAY. They can't; hence, it is not the same as for everybody else. It is just not true.

And everybody in communities knows what the Indue card looks like. They know what the white card looks like. That's what it's commonly called. They've probably seen a number of people whose card wouldn't work having to stand separately from the queues, because the refusal rate has been high. The government said they've dealt with that. Well, I can tell you right now that that's not true. Just last week I spoke to participants on the card who said they are still getting refusals for use of the card. It does make people's lives harder.

The government consults with their hand-picked leaders, who aren't necessarily the people in the community that the community would say are their leaders. They don't listen to the leaders who don't support the card. In fact, some of those in the East Kimberley, who did support the card originally, don't support the card anymore. That is never spoken about in here. It has caused deep division in communities, and we shouldn't be causing deep divisions in communities. We should be looking at the services that work. We should be working cooperatively with and being led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

At the Close the Gap breakfast this morning, that was the clear message in the report they released today. There are a number of very important points in that report, and I urge people to go and read it. It is a damning report on the 10-year strategy. We haven't met the targets that were set in place to try and close the gap. In fact, they found, this year, the gap has widened. They said the plan was essentially abandoned halfway through the 10-year process. They talked about needing to make sure that from here on in we have a proper strategy; we need the infrastructure in place. But, really importantly, there need to be Aboriginal controlled and led processes. The word a lot of people are using is 'co-design'. We shouldn't be doing things to Aboriginal communities; we should be working with and being led by Aboriginal communities if we are going to close the gap and address issues around Aboriginal disadvantage.

The current approach is a paternalistic, top-down approach where people feel disempowered. This is what the report says—that the card has become 'a symbol of disempowerment'. We undermine people's financial literacy and their ability to control their lives. The most personal part of somebody's life is controlling their finances and making those day-to-day decisions. What we've done is taken that away from people. We've made their lives harder. Also, there are innumerable ways that people are getting around the card in the first place. The results that everybody quotes in here are not real results. It is flawed methodology. Please support this. Please end this farce so we can invest the resources that have been wasted—over a billion dollars since 2007—on income management.

We still have the same levels of disadvantage in the Northern Territory. In fact, things in some areas have got worse. I keep hearing people talk about school attendance. There was a study released over January that looked at the impact of the Northern Territory intervention on school attendance. It showed that school attendance decreased when the intervention came in. It actually had an impact on birth weights. There are very complex issues here that also relate to the issues of intergenerational trauma, the impact that trauma has and the chaos that it can cause. It is not a simple issue. It is not a simple solution. It is not accepted by all the participants I've talked to—which is probably something you would expect in terms of the people who would contact me.

Yes, there are some people in the Kununurra and Ceduna communities who will tell you that things have improved in those communities. I've heard the story about how it is cleaner now. Well, for a start, they actually have rubbish cleaners who, when I went out there, were going around picking up the rubbish before most people got up in the morning. But, secondly, I've been told by people who actually live in Kununurra—as recently as last week—that there are still a lot of the same issues going on that were going on previously. And I heard some specific examples of some troubles, which I am in fact not going to repeat here, because I don't want people using them as stereotypical behaviour.

The fact is you don't change issues around addiction by taking over control of people's lives. The sort of evidence you hear about that sort of personal behaviour is the same when you're trying to bring in the drug trials—addiction expert after addiction expert told the committee that was looking into it that it won't work and that it's not the way you address addiction. It's a health issue. Drug and alcohol addiction are health issues, and that's the way we should be addressing them. We need to be providing the services that actually address people's needs.

Please: support this disallowance and get rid of this farce so we can move on to the issues that we all agree we need to be addressing. Focus on that. Focus on making sure that we get Closing the Gap right through the refresh process. Make sure that we are focused on the issues that will truly make a difference. This doesn't. It's a waste of resources and it takes attention away from what we should be doing. I urge this place to support this disallowance.

Question negatived.