Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly on this motion. I note that the government is seeking to exempt 20 bills from the cut-off, and the opposition is seeking to assist the government with what appears to be a mismanagement of its program, largely, so that we've got this last minute rush of bills coming before the chamber. I think you'll find our preparedness to cooperate is quite reasonable.

There is one bill on that list of 20 bills, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020, that the opposition does not support, and I'll go to the reasons why, because they are linked to this motion that the government has put. We do not believe this is in any way a good bill. We have opposed it in every forum possible. By having it as part of this list, we are not able to support it because, by doing so, we would be complicit in bringing on this bill in this chamber, where we know the government is desperate to get it passed and is placing pressure on the crossbench to support it. There is absolutely no reason why this bill needs to be rushed through. The government has another bill that has been in this place for 12 months—should it wish to extend the trial sites in the areas where the cashless debit card is currently operating—so we don't accept the government's view that it must be dealt with this week. There is another alternative for the government, one that is quite reasonable and wouldn't require this procedural motion to get it through.

I'll just make a couple of points about why we are so opposed to this. Firstly, in the 13 years since the Howard government's intervention in the Northern Territory, there is no evidence that compulsory broad-based income management works. Secondly, the minister decided to make the cashless debit card trial permanent before reading the independent review by Adelaide university that you commissioned, Minister Ruston, at great cost to the taxpayer: $2½ million. You made the decision before that. You've not published the Adelaide university study you commissioned, which makes us suspicious about what that report has actually found and why the government is insisting on dealing with this bill this week without the benefit of that information. Thirdly, the proposal is racially discriminatory, as has been widely understood through the various forums where this has been investigated. Approximately 68 per cent of the people impacted by this bill are First Nations Australians. The government has failed to adequately consult affected communities, especially First Nations communities. We are very concerned about this. It's a very heavy handed way of doing what has been passed off as a budget decision but will have such significant consequences for so many people.

The bill that the government is seeking to exempt is substantially the same as one that is already on the Notice Paper which would allow the continuation of the trial. The second reading debate on that bill was adjourned on 2 December 2019. Given that that bill has, effectively, sat on the Notice Paper for 12 months without being debated by the government, we see absolutely no reason why this bill needs to be rushed through the Senate this week and exempted from the usual procedural processes that would allow senators to properly review and scrutinise the legislation before it's, potentially, passed into law. We don't believe the motives of the government are fair. We think this is all about putting pressure on the crossbench. We do believe that the Adelaide university report should be released before the Senate is required to make such a massive decision as making the cashless debit card—which significantly affects First Nations communities—mandatory across those trial sites and into the Northern Territory.

I'll leave my comments there because I know that many of my colleagues will speak, should we not be successful with this motion and should we be in a position where this bill actually gets through. But I would urge those on the crossbench to consider supporting us when we ask that the question be separated so that we vote separately on that bill from the other 19 that we are prepared to exempt from the cut-off. There are many thousands of people around this country who rely on the Senate to do the right thing on this, and the right thing is to not allow this to be swept through in a last-minute rush before Christmas just because this government has taken a budget decision. Rather, it should allow the proper processes and the full evaluation of the trial sites to be provided to this chamber to consider before we're asked to cast our votes on it.