Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That sections 7 to 9 of the Social Security (Administration) (Trial of Cashless Welfare Arrangements) Determination 2018, made under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, be disallowed [F2018L00245].

Today I move to disallow the provisions of this instrument which extend the trial of the cashless debit card to the Goldfields region of Western Australia. Labor's position on the cashless debit card has always been clear: we do not support a national rollout of the cashless debit card; we have never supported a national rollout of the cashless debit card.

When this matter was last before the Senate, we moved a number of amendments to confine the trial of the card to the two original trial sites—that is, Ceduna in South Australia and East Kimberley in Western Australia. Our amendments also sought to clarify the social supports that are available in trial communities, as well as how people in the communities could seek to have the amount of income that is quarantined changed.

There is insufficient evidence at this stage to show that the existing trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley are working. The Senate inquiry into the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 heard that the ORIMA evaluations of the trial are unreliable and that no empirical judgements can be made on the basis of the information collected. The Auditor-General recently issued a report completely undermining the government's claim that there is evidence that the existing trials are working. The report states:

… monitoring and evaluation was inadequate. As a consequence, it is difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare quarantining approach.

The government must fix this.

The trials are also of a significant cost. Labor understands there is a current accrued cost of around $24 million for the three sites to 15 March 2018. This is an extraordinary amount of money to continue to expand a trial, with no credible evidence that it is being effective. We also know that the government gave $1.6 million to ORIMA research in return for a substandard evaluation. The minister still won't reveal how much it will cost taxpayers to expand the rollout of the card to the Goldfields, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay areas. This is despite the fact that the trial has already begun in the Goldfields. Yet we are expected to blindly accept that these figures are still commercial-in-confidence. Labor must be sure that the cashless debit card can deliver its stated objectives to warrant significant spending.

There has been insufficient government consultation with these communities and there is no clear framework to establish whether the new locations consent to trials being established in their areas. Labor does not support the expansion of the cashless debit card in any location, unless the government has an agreed and formal process of consultation and a clear framework for establishing whether the communities consent to the trial. We are moving to disallow the provisions in this instrument so that the rollout of the card in the Goldfields stops.