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

As I was saying before the dinner break, I'm very disappointed that we didn't get broader support for the disallowance motion that I moved earlier, because the exact same reasons for supporting Senator Cameron's disallowance motion, which I indicated prior to the break the Greens would be supporting, apply to the disallowance motion relating to the trials in the East Kimberley and Ceduna—in fact, even more so, because those in the East Kimberley and Ceduna have been subject to the punitive approach of the cashless welfare card for a much longer period and so have suffered the consequences of that card for a much longer period. The Greens will be supporting this disallowance motion for exactly the reasons that I articulated during both my contributions in the debate on the disallowance motion that I moved.

One of the other things that I was talking about prior to the break was the negative impacts of the card that people are already reporting in the Kalgoorlie region. I'll briefly reiterate them. The negative impacts include the humiliation, stigma and despair people feel due to the impact the card has on their lives in trying to manage their resources and their money. Somebody made a really strong point at the public meeting that I held when I was in Kalgoorlie—that is, money is now like gold. You don't spend your cash, because you're so worried that you're going to need it. What people are saying is that they feel like they're short-changing their kids for their lunches and things like that because they don't know when they're going to need that cash to buy emergency provisions, the second-hand clothes that we talked about, and the second-hand furniture.

During the debate earlier on my disallowance motion, a lot of Senator Brockman's comments were directed at the Hinkler trial and the bill that we may get to tonight or tomorrow that will expand the trials in the Hinkler region. When we were at the hearing on the Hinkler trial, people spoke about buying good-quality fruit and vegetables from roadside stalls, which, of course, operate on a cash basis. You don't flip out your card at a roadside fruit stall and try and swipe your card somewhere. People talked about the card having taken away their independence.

The bill that we will be debating shortly would also limit the amount of money that can be spent on gift cards, and people are very concerned about that. In Kalgoorlie, people were very critical of the move by the government to restrict what they can spend out of the 80 per cent of their welfare payment that's on the debit card. They won't be allowed to buy gift cards and other such products. They were extremely critical of that, because they said that's one of the ways they can give their children some resources for when they go away to school, for example. Turning to the school issue, some families from the regions who send their kids to school in the city also complained very strongly about not being able to adequately support their kids when they go away to school.

We have received a lot of complaints in our office about the impact of the cashless welfare card in the three trial sites and in Kalgoorlie, and about people not being able to pay their bills. I've already articulated our concerns that people are unable to buy things over the internet. I asked this question during the inquiry into the proposed new trial in Hinkler, and while I was told that all people have to do is ring up and talk to Indue, and they'll organise it, people in Kalgoorlie had to go into the shopfront, for a start, and wait quite a long time. I'll say this again: that is not the normal operation of a credit or debit card. I don't have to visit anywhere to get permission to use my debit or credit card, which is not the situation in which people on the Indue card find themselves.

The Greens will be supporting this disallowance, because we think the cashless welfare card is an unfair, punitive, sledgehammer approach that assumes anybody on income support can't manage their resources. We support the Labor Party's motion for this disallowance as it applies to the Goldfields and wish that they had supported our broader motion that made sure this didn't apply in the East Kimberley and Ceduna, where we believe exactly the same issues apply.