Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017, and I do so with great frustration. Let me say from the outset that I will not be supporting the expansion of these cards and, in turn, I will not be supporting this bill. I will certainly not subject further people to what I believe is an experiment that doesn't address the core issues faced by regional and rural people and their communities.

Throughout the committee process examining this bill, which I was a part of, it became clear that there has been insufficient consultation with the communities subjected to the expansion—namely, Bundaberg in Queensland and the Goldfields in Western Australia. Witnesses at the Kalgoorlie hearing in particular expressed serious dissatisfaction with the consultation process that was undertaken prior to the announcement of the Goldfields trial site, describing it as 'very lacklustre'. Senators at the hearing heard that the consultation process in the Goldfields was not broad enough and that participants often felt disempowered by the discussions. Phrases that the committee heard from people in the communities to be targeted by these trials, including in Bundaberg in Queensland and also the Goldfields region of Western Australia, included 'my presence at that meeting was irrelevant', 'they don't listen', 'they've got their minds made up', 'it fell on deaf ears' and 'they've made a decision anyway and all we were doing was rubber stamping'. Other words used to describe the consultation process included 'selective', 'secretive' and 'behind closed doors'. This is the deeply troubling language of exclusion and it is a hallmark of this government.

Further, the bill provides absolutely no guidance as to how consent is to be obtained in the proposed new trial sites. How did we get here? The cashless debit card trial in the East Kimberley in Western Australia and Ceduna in South Australia began by quarantining 80 per cent of state benefits received by all working-age people of 15 to 64 years of age. This compulsory trial included people receiving disability, parenting, carers, unemployed and youth allowance payments. The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, based out of ANU, detailed some of the shocking ramifications for local communities as a result of this policy. In their recent working paper entitled The cashless debit card trial in the East Kimberley it was noted:

Although Australian Government communications state that the CDC is for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous welfare recipients, both the trial sites target Indigenous people disproportionately. Specifically, 75% of people in the Ceduna trial and 82% in the East Kimberley trial are Indigenous.

The origins of this policy were a key recommendation in a review by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest which examined Indigenous employment and training.

So let's have a look at the criticism of Labor's position—and I note there has been criticism of Labor's position in relation to this particular policy, claiming that, if Labor really cared, we'd offer our unwavering support. Some have the view that this card will reduce alcohol-fuelled violence, drug use and gambling in our regional and remote communities. We have heard it spoken many times in this debate. However, the evidence I have heard both in committee hearings and on the ground in the Northern Territory and beyond has been different. Like many dramatic changes to income management schemes, the assumption that people subject to the policy are directly engaged in the overconsumption of alcohol and illegal drugs is unfair and should not be the guiding reason to implement such a measure.

We have never been opposed to this policy in principle. Targeted welfare is one aspect that makes Australia's social safety net so strong. However, I am vehemently opposed to exposing our communities to policies that are not properly consultative or that lack the proper evidence and data to show that they are effective. As I mentioned earlier in this debate, this lack of consultation was a constant and re-emerging theme throughout evidence received during the Senate committee process. The cashless debit card has so far delivered inconsistent results. Before expanding this program, we need to make sure it's producing the right results with the people it's intended for.

Take, for example, a witness in the Kimberley region. Superintendent Adams of the Kimberley police district told the Senate inquiry that, in the 12 months to 30 June 2016, there were 319 domestic assaults in Kununurra but, in the 12 months to 30 June 2017—the time of the trial—this figure had increased to 508. Calla Wahlquist of The Guardian published a damning piece following a symposium on the policy at Melbourne University, and in her piece she detailed the harrowing experience of a domestic violence survivor in which the victim, who was from Ceduna, expressed the view that the cashless welfare card would have stopped her being able to escape a violent and oppressive marriage.

Perhaps most significantly, Dr Janet Hunt from ANU states:

… the expansion of CDC is based on the results of ORIMA's final evaluation report, which shows a questionable effect of the trial and, of which, concerns have been raised about its methodology.

She said:

Just before the report was released, the Minister issued a Press Release which hailed the success of the trial without qualification. But once the Report was public it was clear that the Report's authors had in fact qualified their positive findings with many caveats which have been completely ignored by the Minister in his public statements about the evaluation.

There were major issues around the baseline evaluation assessment prior to the establishment of the CDCT. There was no survey of potential CDCT participants to assess their usage of alcohol and drugs or the extent of their gambling. This did not occur until some months after participants had been on the card. There was never in the later analysis a breakdown of these income support payments, or ISP, categories among people interviewed. So one cannot tell whether the card is good for some groups of ISP recipients and not for others. Despite these circumstances, Labor supported the establishment of the trial in East Kimberley and Ceduna on the basis that these communities wanted to trial the card.

In the interest of supporting the communities who wanted to trial the card and of there being a thorough and proper examination of the outcomes of this policy, I do not support cancelling the framework. I do, however, strongly oppose the expansion of this policy to additional communities until we can examine the proper outcomes of the trials in these regions, which at this point appear to be of little benefit to the people on the ground.

There are certainly issues with other cards, and I refer in particular to the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory. While many of these income management schemes appear to work well on paper, the mechanics of implementing cashless income management systems in regional and remote communities are not without significant difficulty. I say this because only recently a violent storm on the Tiwi Islands disabled the only communications tower in the community, essentially rendering useless the BasicsCard that people there use. People were unable to purchase food, fuel or even power for their homes. And the government's response? I quote: 'People can contact the Department of Human Services Income Management Line, 1800132594, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for assistance in accessing income-managed funds.' Well, that's pretty difficult, considering that there's no working phone to call the Department of Human Services.

There are similarities here with other programs. This approach to income management and the implementation of the cashless cards on the presumption that it will reduce some of the negative aspects of life in regional and remote communities fails to consider more prevalent barriers to meaningful employment which would ultimately dismiss the need for such policies in the first place. Yes, we need employment.

During the Senate inquiry into the government's disastrous Community Development Program, Labor examined the true foundation of why people in remote and regional communities struggle to gain and maintain employment. As part of the report that followed the inquiry, the committee made reference to several papers which highlighted barriers to employment for people in regional and remote communities. In a 2010 paper, McRae-Williams and Gerritsen explained the unique economic and employment challenges within remote communities. They went on to say:

There are limited employment opportunities with a significant gap between the size of the labour force and the number of jobs generated in the local economy as well as inadequate physical infrastructure for many economic development proposals.

Similarly, a 2014 study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare also found that Indigenous Australians generally experience multiple barriers to economic participation, including lower levels of education, poorer health and more difficulties with English.

We know that in the Northern Territory in particular we have over 100 Aboriginal languages. That's why we have the Aboriginal Interpreter Service. We know that English is not the first language for many of our first-nations Australians in the north. There are high rates of incarceration. We've seen the rates increase at such a rapid rate, in particular for Indigenous women. The rise in incarceration rates is an absolute disgrace. There is inadequate housing. This week we've also seen the federal government renege on the most important area where we clearly need to close the gap, and also for the homeless in this country, and that is the partnerships in housing with each state and territory jurisdiction. There is an inability of this government to focus on that and see that clearly as a major economic driver in our remote and regional areas of this country. There is a lack of access to social networks that may help to facilitate employment. All of these things are critical.

There are practical challenges, such as needing to travel to buy groceries and attend medical appointments. These services are either too expensive or simply not available in remote communities. Again I can give you numerous examples in the remote regions of the Northern Territory where food prices are still questionable and too high. When road access is cut because of the wet season, particularly at this time of year, the only opportunity people have to get out of their communities is by air. The cost of those air charter flights is extremely significant. I get phone calls from residents around different parts of the north. Family members tell me the problems they are having in trying to get from Doomadgee back to Borroloola and over to Katherine, where they seek medical assistance, or fly on to Darwin. This is the reality of life in the bush and the regions for first nations Australians. This is what they have to endure. This is the life people live. Let's not make it harder by cutting their access to what little funds they have.

In light of these issues, particularly the lack of consideration from the government of the root causes of so many problems prevalent in regional and remote communities, I cannot support this bill which ultimately seeks to expand the current program to additional regional and remote communities.