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

The Greens are also asking that the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 be voted on separately because we certainly will not be supporting this being rushed through this place. This is a continuation of a punitive, discriminatory approach on income management which was first foisted onto the Northern Territory and, to make matters worse, is a continuation of the intervention in 2007 through converting the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card and moving people onto the cashless debit card. It also entrenches the four so-called trial sites. Those of us that have opposed this from the beginning pointed out, when the government moved to establish these trials in the first place, that they were never intended as trials. I'm glad that senators on the opposition benches have finally realised that these were never meant to be trials—that these were always meant to be permanent—and are now opposing them.

We had less than half a day to consider this legislation that impacts on so many people in this country. We simply did not have time, in the short time that was made available for the inquiry, to hold a broader hearing. This has implications for thousands and thousands of Australians on the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory and in Cape York, and for those that are on the cashless welfare-debit card in the so-called trial sites around this country. This is about continuing this government's punitive, discriminatory approach to those that are on income support.

There's no evidence that the card works. There wasn't evidence, I might add, in the first five years after the intervention, when it was extended, and there's no evidence now. There was evidence that came out, very clearly, in fact, in 2014 that showed it met none of its objectives in the Northern Territory. That's the government's evidence. None of the other so-called evaluations have proved their point, because they are flawed. The government obviously think that the next evaluation they've paid for isn't going to demonstrate that it works. In fact the cat was let out of the bag yesterday in The Guardian, where it was shown that there is little support for extending the cashless debit card in the Goldfields. That snippet that we saw yesterday in The Guardian about the Goldfields trial showed that there isn't the support to continue the card as it operates now.

So it's very clear why the government isn't releasing the evaluation. This isn't based on evidence, on what works; it's based on ideology, pure and simple, which seeks to control the way people spend their money, because the government think they have the right to control people's income support. Controlling the way that people use their money does not achieve the objectives, because there are workarounds and all sorts of things. The card has not reduced, and it has not dealt with the underlying causes of, drug and alcohol addiction, which the government claim they are addressing. This is a flawed approach.

The government doesn't have evidence that the card works. It wants to rush the legislation through and make the card permanent. There are other people on those benches across from us who actually want to roll this out across the country. This is just a stepping stone to try and roll out the cashless debit card across the country. We know what the agenda is and we will vote against this card every single time, including when the government tries to exempt this punitive, discriminatory card from the cut-off and rush it through this place.