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

I wish to take note of the committee's report. The cashless welfare card—and I don't think there is another issue that so clearly demonstrates this government's agenda to demonise, penalise and brutalise people who find themselves relying on our social safety nets. It is a terrible policy, a devastating policy and one that has through numerous inquiries seen no evidence to suggest that this is the direction our country should continue to go. For the people of the Northern Territory, whom I represent here in the Senate, there has been overwhelming evidence that they certainly do not wish to be a part of the cashless debit card trials or permanent situation.

The people of the Northern Territory had the 2007 intervention put upon them, which brought the BasicsCard and forced compulsory income management on every single family who lived in over 70 communities that were identified by the Commonwealth as areas that they should intervene in. Those families, their children and, for some, their grandchildren have grown up under this system over the last 13 years of income management.

We have heard some comments around whether there is extra food on the table, but can I just remind the Senate that we have had a COVID-19 pandemic which has seen the increase of funds to families across Australia. And guess what? That too puts food on the table. The real issue here though goes far deeper. The real issue here is the focus on a particular race here in the Northern Territory. I cannot stand more passionately against such racist intervention, such a deliberate attempt to continue to disempower some of the most vulnerable families without encouraging them to empower themselves to rise above their particular situation.

It is not good enough to say that the family over there who lives in a remote or regional part of Australia should have their money and their choices determined by this parliament in such a way where they feel they have no chance to rise above their own situations and to grow, just as any other Australians do in determining their own futures, their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their children. The Australian government is considering the best possible ways to support people, families and communities in places where high levels of welfare dependence coexist with high levels of social harm. The cashless debit card is testing whether reducing the amount of cash available in a community will reduce the overall harm caused by welfare-fuelled alcohol, gambling and drug misuse. It is pretty clear the CDC has failed that test; by any measure it is exacerbating harm and hardship. The efficacy of the cashless debit card and income management more generally has been the subject of several inquiries, as I have mentioned, and these investigations have not found evidence of the effectiveness of these policies. In fact, significant harm has been associated with compulsory, broad based income management.

An independent analysis of the cashless card in Ceduna conducted by the University of South Australia concluded:

We have shown the CDC policy to have had no substantive effect on the available measures for the targeted behaviours of gambling or intoxicant abuse.

Isn't it incumbent on us as political leaders to listen to this and, in particular, on this government to listen to its own reviews of its own policies? Yet on this particular occasion a mere $2.5 million review of the evaluation of four trial sites across three jurisdictions, with two trial sites in one, was not even read by this minister. Not even the department that she is responsible for could tell us of the certainty of that report. However, all of that aside, the minister still introduced this piece of legislation in order to continue to permanency those four trial sites across Australia and, even worse than that, include 23,000 Territorians and families in Cape York without even having read her own evaluation report. It is absolutely disgraceful.

Then we saw in the House of Representatives last night the member for Bass, Bridget Archer, stand up and argue that numerous inquiries have failed to find any evidence that the cashless debit card scheme is of any benefit to at-risk communities. She is a Liberal member of the Morrison government who says it fails to address systemic issues of disadvantage among vulnerable Australians. Mrs Archer was telling her team this is a policy that is not working and she does not want to see it in Tasmania. Unfortunately, Mrs Archer did not go far enough and vote against the cashless debit card.

But then we see today another Liberal MP has come out and said, 'This just does not work.' Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent said his expectation is that the government would drop the legislation, which also transitions another 46,000 people in the Northern Territory, in Cape York, onto the card. According to Mr Broadbent:

No one wants to rock the boat over this issue but I don't believe it has broad support in the party room.

Mr Broadbent told The Australian:

People should have the freedom to deal in cash if they want to.

Well, there you go. I wonder if we have courageous senators of the coalition government who will not only speak their truth, similar to their colleagues in the lower house, but stand up and vote against this horrendous policy that disempowers, brutalises and keeps people in poverty and gives them no hope of breaking through their incredible disadvantage, which they do not need thrown in their faces, because they experience it so deeply.

I have had the wonderful pleasure of being able to invite senators to the Northern Territory and to ask them to listen to the people of the Northern Territory. I thank Senator Rex Patrick and Senator Jacqui Lambie for doing exactly that. This particular piece of legislation is going to have a profound impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of families of the Northern Territory who have had enough. I want senators in here to speak from the heart, to bring back the voices that they listen to up north. I also thank Centre Alliance. Rebekha Sharkie and her staff came up to the Northern Territory. I know that that was shared with Senator Griff.

Senators, I dearly hope that you will do some solid reflection on this piece of legislation. This is the time when our parliament can be enormously courageous and get rid of the cashless debit card and get rid of the falsehood of what it espouses to do for the people of Australia, when in reality what it does is disempower, disengage and give hopelessness to Australian families who need far more from us as politicians and who need far more from us as a country that should be working with all families to rise above all of those issues and empower them to be the people that they are here to be, just as we are standing here in this parliament.