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

I hold serious concerns about this proposed legislation. The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 seeks to extend the cashless debit card to an area in Queensland that includes Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. It would also make changes that affect the cashless debit card scheme as a whole, including provisions to ensure that merchants are able to decline cashless debit card transactions where the cardholder tries to use the card for gambling, alcohol or gift cards and other cash-like products.

Let me remind you of the significant impacts of the existing CDC trial on many Australians. It works by quarantining 80 per cent of a recipient's welfare payments on a special debit card that cannot be used on alcohol or gambling, or to withdraw cash. This leaves only 20 per cent of benefits able to be used as cash. Participation is mandatory for all working-age payment recipients who live in the selected trial sites. Make no mistake: this card has a deeply profound impact on peoples' lives. Because of this, it must be rolled out using evidence meeting the most rigorous standards, and it should only be expanded beyond existing sites if the evidence shows that there have been some real and tangible social benefits to those who are forced to use it.

We've been told by Minister Dan Tehan that the implementation of the trial in the existing trial sites, Ceduna and the East Kimberley, has been a raging success, but he has scant evidence upon which to base this. An independent audit by the Australian National Audit Office, published on 17 July this year, shows it has some serious concerns. We were assured in this parliament, when the cashless debit card trial commenced, that there were plans for the most rigorous analysis, monitoring and evaluation of the cashless debit card trial, but the ANAO says that this simply has not happened. Those plans, including a cost-benefit analysis and post-implementation review, never eventuated. The department also failed to properly measure baseline data, making it difficult to know what impact the trial has had. The conclusion to the ANAO report stated:

… its—

the Department of Social Services'—

approach to 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.

It's extraordinary that the coalition government would now seek to extend this trial to a new site when the ANAO has been unable to conclude whether there has been a reduction in social harm in the existing sites. Have a think about that: this program is costing in the millions to run in these trial sites, and we cannot even evaluate whether it's working.

In addition to the ANAO report, the recently completed Senate inquiry raised more questions about the existing trial sites than it answered. It was made clear during the course of that inquiry that there had been insufficient consultation with the community of Bundaberg about the proposed expansion of the cashless debit card there. Leanne Donaldson, the then member for Bundaberg, told the committee that the consultation process has been selective and secretive. Representatives from the Gidarjil Development Corporation explained that Gidarjil is probably considered the largest Indigenous organisation in Bundaberg and that there hasn't been any approach from the federal minister with regard to this—or, in fact, anything. All of this is really concerning.

Further, the Senate inquiry revealed mixed evidence about the effectiveness of the trials. The inquiry heard evidence that the evaluations undertaken by the company ORIMA Research of the trial in the East Kimberley and in Ceduna were unreliable, and that no empirical judgements about the effectiveness of the trials can be made on the basis of the information collected. Dr Janet Hunt of the Australian National University expressed significant and serious concerns about the reliability of the ORIMA evaluations. She said:

My assessment, based on my extensive experience as a social scientist, is that the evaluation reports do not present adequate evidence of the trial leading to successful outcomes for participants.

This view by this eminent academic is shared by the ANAO.

I also note evidence to the inquiry that the cashless debit card is not effective alone in solving the social issues in the trial communities. What is needed is support and funding for existing and new services in those communities to help those in need. Ms Zell Dodd, the CEO of the Ceduna Koonibba Aboriginal Health Service Aboriginal Corporation, explained during the inquiry:

… regarding alcohol and other drug support services, which were funded as part of a cashless debit card trial in the Far West Coast region. It is not about the cashless debit card itself; it is about the support services and its consequences, such as little or no investment in social and emotional wellbeing services as part of the trial. Rather than reducing the need for alcohol and other drug support services, the view is that the trial is likely to increase the demand for alcohol and other drug services as well as social and emotional wellbeing services and, in fact, mental health services.

What is needed from government is a commitment on the delivery of wraparound services before any trials are extended. It is totally inappropriate to extend the cashless debit card to a new location when there are serious doubts about the benefits of the trial in the existing sites. The trials in East Kimberley and in Ceduna have not been going on long enough to properly ascertain whether they have been effective. There is mixed evidence about the effectiveness of the trials to date, and a far more rigorous evaluation of the trials should be carried out.

I'd also like to note the cost of implementing the cashless debit card. For the first 12 months of the cashless debit card trial in Ceduna and Kununurra, the estimated maximum cost of the trial was $18.9 million, approximately $10,000 per person. Have a think about that. It cost $18.9 million for a trial that hasn't been adequately evaluated and whose reports haven't been done. The department has failed and the minister is failing to adequately find out what is going on in these communities. $18.9 million—seriously? And we want to roll this out to another community? The cost of the scheme for the Goldfields has not been publicly released. There has been no independently verified costing released for the proposed new trial sites in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region in Queensland, so we are being asked to vote on the expansion of the trial in the complete absence of financial costings for that trial.

There are no costings of what this could be and what it could mean, yet we only have to look at what's going on already in WA and at the $18.9 million that is being spent in WA and South Australia. It is expected that around 6,700 people in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay would become trial participants. So if we base it on a similar number, the $10,000 per person in WA and South Australia, and say it's maybe 6,700 times $10,000 per person, that might give us a fair idea. But they're not the official costings from that site. Those opposite haven't given us anything. As of March 2018, in Hinkler there were 8,108 Newstart recipients, 764 parenting payment (partnered) recipients, 2,518 parenting payment (single) recipients and 1,501 youth allowance (other) recipients. I hold serious concerns about the large numbers of single parents who will be subjected to this scheme.

As with my previous speech on the expansion of the card, I do draw reference to Calla Wahlquist's piece in The Guardian in which she detailed the harrowing experience of a domestic violence survivor. The victim, who was from Ceduna, expressed the view that the cashless welfare card would have stopped her from being able to escape a violent and oppressive marriage. It is a story we heard too often in the Senate committee inquiry as we travelled listening to evidence in relation to this card.

I note that the Prime Minister has raised the question of possibly expanding the trials to remote communities in the Northern Territory. Well, hold up there, Prime Minister! Let me say stop to that. We've got some questions to ask. Many Indigenous welfare recipients in the Northern Territory, particularly those in regional and remote communities, are already subjected to income management systems through the BasicsCard, and I fear that the implementation of further welfare management systems will only further restrict their autonomy and individuality. There are issues with income management more broadly in its failure to meet some of its purported objectives. Again, the Australian National University's research paper released in 2016 highlighted the mixed, if not outright detrimental, effects of new income management in the Northern Territory. While the BasicsCard model applies across the board, in reality it is Indigenous Territorians who represent 91 per cent of people under the regime. Really? This counts for everyone? Yeah right!

Intergenerational poverty remains evident. What is the scenario if further compulsory income management is extended to a selected community like Tennant Creek, where the BasicsCard is already in force and where they are subjected to further deeply flawed programs, such as the Community Development Program? This approach to income management and the implementation of the cashless card 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, consideration of which would ultimately dismiss the need for such policies in the first place.

During the inquiry by the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee into the government's disastrous Community Development Program, Labor examined the true foundations for why people in regional and remote 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 said:

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 found that Indigenous Australians generally experience multiple barriers to economic participation, including lower levels of education; poorer health; and more difficulties with English, which in many cases, particularly in the Northern Territory, is not the first language of First Nations people. Other barriers include high rates of incarceration, inadequate housing and accommodation and lack of access to social networks that may help to facilitate employment, as well as practical challenges, such as needing to travel to buy groceries and attend medical appointments. Have a think about travelling to get groceries, buy fruit and vegies and attend medical services. Appointments are either too expensive or simply not available and are often not accommodated as part of CDP, let alone the implementation of the cashless welfare card. These are the challenges that communities in our regions across Australia face.

There are many people who are advocating for the cashless debit card, in particular around Tennant Creek, but what information has the community been given about the implementation of the card, the lack of evaluation of it, and the lack of any evidence to show results in those towns where it already exists? What information? How tied is the card to the much-talked-about but, again, short-on-detail regional deal proposed for Tennant Creek—proposed by, perhaps, the Prime Minister on his recent visit. If people in Tennant Creek want a cashless debit card, then they have a right to advocate for that, but they need to be fully informed of what the card involves, including the restrictions and some flow-on consequences that we have seen in other towns. Similarly, people in Hinkler need to be fully informed about the potential impacts of the cashless debit card, and this government just is not in a position to do that. I have heard from people in the East Kimberley who have said, 'It didn't do what I thought it was going to do, and I don't believe it has had the effect that I thought it would.' They've also gone on to say: 'I feel powerless right now. I'm seeing that there is more drinking. There's a lot of sly grogging. I'm seeing a lot of kids late at night when I go to the shopping centre.'

Throughout the committee process of examining this bill, it became very clear that there had been insufficient consultation with the very communities subjected to the expansion and very little consultation with the very people you want this to be imposed on. 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 that process as very lacklustre. I have real concerns that the cashless debit card isn't reaching the end goal in addressing poverty and disadvantage. If anything, people are feeling that they are staying exactly in that place of poverty and disadvantage. As the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation stated in its submission to the inquiry around the expansion of the CDC:

We also note that Aboriginal people are disproportionately affected by the trials and that they are in and proposed for locations where the majority participants are Aboriginal. Whilst it is not the stated intent of the trials, its impact is discriminatory.

The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation is saying, in effect, that it's discriminatory. When we see that a large proportion of those on the card are First Nations people, can we really say that we are trying to improve the lives of First Nations people? Can we really say in this parliament that we are about enabling people to rise above poverty and disadvantage and enabling people to take their place in this country with full rights and full access to the services that they require?

This government is intent on pushing and punishing welfare recipients. That's what it looks like. That's what it feels like for people—ignoring your own evidence or lack thereof. Seriously, $18 million on a trial that you have not been able to evaluate in the true sense of the word! There is a huge irresponsibility in all of that.

Labor supports community-driven initiatives to tackle drug and alcohol abuse. Labor does not believe in a blanket approach to income management. We will not support the extension of the cashless debit card in Bundaberg, Hervey Bay or any further trial sites unless the government establishes a formal framework for consultation, including establishing community consent for a trial and a sufficient evidence base demonstrating the success of the trials. The bill should be opposed.