Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Dodson. I will take on notice exactly what we're intending to do at Warburton and get back to you; I don't actually have those details. But we are very sensitive to the fact that there are a number of cohorts in our population that are going to require both targeted and tailored assistance in providing them the information in relation to the change and also making sure that they have the support, particularly through that transition period, when they move from reporting as they currently do to reporting as we're asking them to do into the future. It's not just Indigenous Australians who are in remote areas; it could be culturally and linguistically diverse communities or people with low digital literacy. There are a number of Australians who will be affected by this change, and we need to make sure that we have specialist and targeted communications and services available to them: for example, making sure that our fact sheets are translated into appropriate languages—and I acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of first languages for Indigenous Australians—and making sure that the messaging is targeted by, for instance, using Indigenous radio, because I know that a lot of people in remote communities use digital radio or radio broadcasts as a way of getting their information.

We also understand that, in many communities, the best thing to do is to actually have remote servicing units go out to those communities and speak to them in person, one on one, about what those changes might mean. So we'd be using community engagement officers and making sure that we have financial service officers available to people but also making sure that we use the Indigenous support officers that exist within community to make sure that we are tailoring and targeting the information and assistance to transition. We understand that not every community is the same and that there will need to be a very tailored and targeted focus on particular communities.