Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this disallowance motion. Before I start stepping through some information on what the intent of both the bills and the regulations is, I just want to address a couple of issues. First of all, on the government side of this chamber, we don't believe the outcomes of these trials will be magic. We don't believe they'll be magical, Senator Siewert—through you, Deputy President. We believe they're trials—exactly what we say they are. We believe they're a chance, in a very intractable area of public policy, to try something different. I'll get into it in more detail later on, but I would also say to Senator Cameron that, as part of the new bill, we have improved and increased the amount of information we are seeking to gain from these trials and to actually feed that into the process. And I think you're aware of that fact. It is something that the government is committed to, because these are trials. We are trying to see what works and what doesn't.

I arrived in this place just a few days over one year ago. One of the first things I did as chair of a community affairs committee was to take a committee hearing to Kalgoorlie on this very topic, and we heard from a lot of leaders in the community up there. Yes, there were clearly views on both sides of the debate. There were clearly those in favour; there were clearly those against. Some of those who were against have subsequently changed their minds. Perhaps there have been others who have gone the other way. I've certainly only heard from those who were against but who are now in favour. I'm thinking particularly of an Indigenous leader who I talked to about this issue. But the point is that the idea that there hasn't been consultation either in the existing trial sites or in the proposed trial site in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region is simply false. I'll go through some of the consultation that has gone on. Probably the one I know most about is that my good friend Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor, wrote to all 20,000 households in the Kalgoorlie trial site and asked their opinion, and he got an extraordinarily good response both in terms of numbers and in terms of those supporting the trial—somewhere in the order of 83 per cent. I'm not sure what mechanism Senator Cameron is proposing in order to gauge community views on these trials, but I would have thought that's a pretty good measure of support.

Let me go through what we are actually trying to do. The government is committed to reducing the social harm caused by alcohol, drug abuse and gambling, particularly in areas of high welfare dependency. That's an objective that I think everyone in this place would share. The cashless debit card does operate like an ordinary debit card but aims to reduce the effects of alcohol, drugs and gambling abuse by limiting both the availability of cash and the items that can be purchased. There are three existing trial sites—Ceduna, East Kimberley and the Goldfields, most recently—which, I will point out, were agreed to by this place. The Parliament of Australia agreed to these trial sites. There is now a move to try and somehow undermine them or, as Senator Cameron flagged, to limit the Kalgoorlie trial site. And the Greens, including Senator Siewert, very clearly oppose all the trials. But this parliament has put in place three trial sites, and those three trial sites should continue. We have another bill coming before this place which seeks to establish a fourth trial site in the Bundaberg-Hervey Bay area.

There has been anecdotal evidence that we've seen positive impacts in the community. I agree: that's anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is worthy, but it certainly shouldn't inform future public policy decisions whilst we consider the fourth trial site. The fourth trial site will operate in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay until 30 June 2020. This allows time to roll out the program in the area and for it to operate for a minimum of 12 months. We will need to update the limitation on the number of participants from 10,000 to 15,000, recognising the increase that would come from introducing the fourth trial site. Bundaberg-Hervey Bay will be different from the existing trial sites in terms of its criteria. The trial will target people under 36 years of age who are receiving Newstart, youth allowance (jobseeker), parenting payment (single) or parenting payment (partnered). Around 6,700 people would be transitioned onto the cashless debit card. It does represent a different approach and would be more targeted than the Ceduna trial in South Australia and the East Kimberley and Goldfields trials in WA. If passed, it would be the largest trial site.

The expansion of the cashless debit card, under these criteria, allows testing under a different set of criteria in a different context—in particular, in a much larger urban population and, obviously, involving a very different potential cohort of people. One of the criticisms of the initial trial sites concerned the relatively large Indigenous populations. I will point out that the Kalgoorlie trial had around a fifty-fifty split in terms of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants. In Hervey Bay-Bundaberg, there is a predominantly non-Indigenous population. One of the other differences compared with the existing trial sites is that the selection of trial participants in Bundaberg-Hervey Bay will not allow for volunteers to come onto the cashless debit card. Again, this will allow the government to test the impacts of the cashless debit card trial exclusively for the selected group, as has been asked for by the community. The criteria for trial participants also set out some exceptions where a person would not be transitioned onto the card, drawing on policy parameters used in the existing sites. This includes a provision for the secretary to exempt a person whose inclusion in the trial would impose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing. These exemptions and discretionary powers will be used to ensure vulnerable people are not adversely affected by the trial.

The selection of the cohort in this area has occurred as a result of significant consultation with the community, as we heard during the Senate committee inquiry into the legislation. This is designed to help address key social problems that local people have identified during meetings—in particular, high youth unemployment, intergenerational welfare dependency and local children whose needs are not being met. According to regional youth unemployment data for March 2018, these communities have a youth unemployment rate of 28.7 per cent, a significant increase over the past year. It compares to a state average of 13.4 per cent. Bundaberg and Hervey Bay have a high level of long-term and intergenerational welfare dependency. Children born to parents who are welfare dependent are more likely to become welfare dependent themselves. Ninety per cent of the people in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay who are under 30 and on Newstart or youth allowance had a parent or guardian who received income support at some point in the past 15 years. Of that cohort, around 13 per cent had a parent or guardian who received income support at least once each year for the past 15 years.

The findings of the ARC indicate that the risk factors such as attitudes to work and welfare, attitudes towards alcohol and drug consumption, and family influences contribute to intergenerational welfare dependency. The council also found evidence that young people from welfare-dependent families are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or consume illegal drugs, highlighting the relationship that welfare dependence has on a young person's outcomes in life. On average, across Australia 46 per cent of people attending government funded financial counselling for their problem gambling were also receiving a taxpayer-funded benefit. In the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area it is 73 per cent. Additionally, people in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area attending financial counselling for their problem gambling are more likely to have been on their current benefit for longer than five years, compared with other people in Australia attending problem gambling counselling.

The cashless debit card could help stabilise the lives of young people in the area by limiting spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling, thus improving their chances of finding employment or successfully completing educational training. By targeting a younger cohort we can influence positive behavioural change before welfare dependency becomes entrenched in a person's lifestyle. We've seen that a spillover benefit of the card is that it can increase motivation to find work. As part of the final evaluation report there was feedback from some card participants that almost a quarter of the people on the card are spending several hours a week looking for work. This is an increase from 11 per cent in February 2017.

The Department of Social Services has undertaken significant consultation with key stakeholders and community members. Specifically, between May and December of 2017 over 188 meetings, including three community information sessions, were held across the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area. A community reference group was established in late 2017 to work through local policy and implementation issues to ensure that the cashless debit card is implemented effectively in their community. Additionally, a local shopfront will be established with staff who can link people with existing services. Through the community reference group the department will monitor service demand to ensure that the cashless debit card is complemented by appropriate supports as people adjust to the change.

Complementing the card will be a further investment of $1 million in community services. There is already a significant number of services in place, including 70 federally funded services across the area, including drug and alcohol services, financial capability services, employment services, and family and children's programs. The bill will allow the program to respond to unforeseen circumstances, such as widescale power outages and natural disasters, allowing trial participants in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay to access their full payment as cash. This measure will ensure that participants and their families remain supported in the event of widescale emergencies. The bill will also allow the establishment of a community panel in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area to allow participants in the area to apply to have access to a higher proportion of unrestricted funds. Consultations with community leaders in the area have indicated that a panel will be useful to make the trial flexible to the needs of their community.

As I stated earlier, government has announced a second evaluation of the cashless debit card across all three current trial sites to assess the ongoing effectiveness of the program. My understanding is that the University of South Australia has already begun collecting baseline data for that second evaluation, and it will use research methodologies developed independently by the University of Queensland and drawing on those baseline measurements of social conditions in the Goldfields as developed by the University of Adelaide. Findings from the second evaluations will be published in late 2019.

Obviously in order for us to have a meaningful outcome of that evaluation we'll need to see all three existing trial sites continue to run. Ideally we will see, with the support of this place, the new trial site in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay allowed to proceed through its complete trial. That way we will get a good understanding of what works and what doesn't and what the impacts are.

Other changes that will come will include strengthening of provisions that will enable merchants to block the sale of restricted goods to trial participants at the point of sale. Merchants in trial sites will be more readily able to service participants of the program through the option to implement product-level blocking solutions, automatically blocking transactions where a participant is attempting to purchase restricted goods with the card. In doing so, the future bill will also clarify restrictions on cash-like products such as gift cards, vouchers, money orders or digital currency where these could be used to purchase alcohol or gambling products. These products are included as restricted goods, as has always been the intention of the program. Clarifications and changes such as these allow the trials to be more meaningful moving forward. We need to be able to, as I've said, see what works, see what doesn't work, change what doesn't work and try again.

Consultation in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area demonstrates that people want a way of breaking the cycle of welfare dependency, and this is certainly what I heard in my time in Kalgoorlie. Everybody I spoke to, including the ministers responsible both previously and currently, understands that this is no silver bullet. People in these communities understand it is no silver bullet. What it is is a trial. It's a trial to see whether this approach can have a positive outcome on these communities, not in five minutes but over time. It is vital that all the current sites are allowed to run through to conclusion and that they're not disrupted by this disallowance motion or any future disallowance motion, as flagged by Senator Cameron. We need to allow these trials to operate, we need to evaluate them properly and then we need to make a decision about the way forward. Thank you.