Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020, and I move the amendment on sheet 1166 circulated in my name:

Omit all words after "That", substitute: ", the bill be withdrawn and the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) thirteen years after the Howard Government's so-called Intervention in the Northern Territory, there is no evidence that compulsory, broad-based income management works,

(ii) the Minister decided to make the Cashless Debit Card trial permanent before reading the independent review by the University of Adelaide, and

(iii) this proposal is racially discriminatory, as approximately 68 per cent of the people impacted are First Nations Australians; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) not roll out the Cashless Debit Card nationally, and

(ii) invest in evidence-based policies, job creation and services, rather than ideological policies like the Cashless Debit Card".

Labor opposes this bill, and its opposition is not based on ideology—the sort of warped ideology which drives this government. No, our opposition is based on evidence, and the overwhelming evidence is that the cashless welfare card, and income management generally, does not work. Yet, in the face of that evidence, the government remains determined to pursue the cashless debit card because it's determined to punish the poor and the marginalised in society. This is get-back: 'Get back to where you belong.' This is get-back to them. This is not snapback or comeback; it's, 'Get back to where you belong because you have no value and no worth in our society.' That's the message it sends.

The government is even refusing to release the University of Adelaide report which has examined the card's viability in the Goldfields region in my home state of Western Australia. That report cost $2.5 million, and we're having to consider this bill without being able to be informed about what it says. There can only be one reason for that, and that is that the government is withholding this evaluation report because it doesn't like what it has to say, because it's sure to be further evidence that this cashless debit card is not achieving the policy objectives and outcomes that the government has been touting.

This is typical of a government that refuses to have its policies directed by sound evidence, a government that prepares to uphold a discredited ideology so that it can adopt punitive policies—not that everyone on the government side is backing this legislation. Last week the Liberal member for Bass, for example, said:

There is just not enough evidence that supports the view that this program is a game-changer for these communities and the individuals placed on it to justify the associated harm that it causes.

That member dissented from the vote the other day. That's the government's own MP, and she's not alone. The Liberal member for Monash said that he too has problems with this bill. How many others in the government's ranks have that same sentiment but haven't got the gumption to stand up for this?

Let me remind you how this business of income management began. It was back in 2007, in the dying days of the Howard government. When he was Prime Minister, he had Minister Brough imposing the intervention on the Northern Territory. It was the most egregious example of bad policy in recent history, and with it came the BasicsCard, which quarantined 50 per cent of the wealth or income of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The BasicsCard was born out of state sponsored racism so the BasicsCard could target only Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Racial Discrimination Act had to be suspended. The BasicsCard was basically discriminatory, and so is the cashless debit card because it disproportionately impacts First Nations peoples.

Let me remind you how the cashless debit card came into being. Back in 2013, Prime Minister Tony Abbott commissioned Andrew Forrest to advise on Indigenous employment and training services. The terms of reference for Forrest's inquiry were quite specific, and there was definitely no reference to income management of welfare recipients. Yet Forrest in his report, called Creating parity, took it upon himself to devote a whole chapter on promoting what he called a healthy welfare card. How a billionaire mining magnate can assume expertise in welfare policy and be allowed to write his own agenda is beyond me. That a government can contract out fundamental social policy gives privatisation a whole new dimension and takes it to a dangerous level. Deputising a privileged rich-lister to design a program that limits the rights of people, poor and First Nations people in particular, to manage their own affairs is a perverse way for a government to do business.

Back in February, when the Prime Minister announced his new Closing the Gap targets, he said:

… to rob a person of their right to take responsibility for themselves, to strip them of responsibility and capability to direct their own futures, to make them dependent, is to deny them their liberty, and slowly that person will wither before your eyes.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

We must restore the right to take responsibility, the right to make decisions, the right to step up …

Well, the Prime Minister and his government are doing exactly the opposite. The government has now pressed the 'get back' button with this legislation.

Where's the principle that is meant to be underwriting the closing the gap agreement between the government and the coalition of First Nations peak organisations, an agreement announced with such fanfare only a few months ago? This bill flies in the face of the flowery rhetoric that followed when the National Agreement on Closing the Gap was signed back in July. The national agreement was meant to signal a turning point in the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples and the government. It was meant to be based on shared decision-making on policies and programs that impacted the lives of First Nations peoples. In the past, Labor have been prepared to support income management under certain circumstances. But now we're opposing the permanent imposition of the cashless debit card because of the evidence it isn't working and there being no choice for people.

Let me remind you of the national independent study into the expansion of income management, which was published in February. The study ran over three years and was funded by the Australian Research Council. The researchers came from three universities: Queensland, Monash and Griffith. The findings are damning. The majority of the survey's participants, 77 per cent of them, reported that they had no trouble at all in managing their money before being placed on income management, and 87 per cent of the participants reported that they did not have a problem with alcohol. Most cardholders felt that income management was forced on them, with minimal assistance and support to help them use it to their advantage.

Here's the real telling outcome of the study. People told the researchers that income management had not only failed to alleviate the challenges, which were largely non-existent anyway, but also caused financial or other problems that did not previously exist. Some of the main problems reported in that survey response were: not having enough cash for essential items—and that was the most frequent complaint—difficulties providing for children and other family members because respondents did not have access to sufficient cash; difficulties participating in the cash economy because of a lack of access to cash means many are unable to purchase second-hand goods, for example; and difficulties paying rent and other bills because of glitches with processing payments, particularly with the cashless debit card.

You'd think that with that evidence in hand the government wouldn't consider this intrusive and discriminatory legislation, but they say: 'No, let's crash on. Let's not worry about the impact of the legislation on the most vulnerable of our population. We've a restless support base to appease'—a support base that doggedly wants to punish the poor. That's where this government stands—punish the poor and the disadvantaged. There's no choice for these people.

The evidence against income management is even more distressing when you measure the social and emotional impacts. The ARC study identified from the survey data the strong theme that many of those forced onto income management experienced a significant decline in their mental health and wellbeing as a result of the challenges they faced navigating their lives on the card. Whether the survey interview was conducted at Playford, Shepparton, Ceduna, Bundaberg or Hervey Bay, the sense of shame and stigma was a constant point of discussion. Generally findings from the survey indicated that most respondents felt income management had been harmful rather than helpful. To me that is bad public policy, and we on this side are against it.

What has this government done to prepare the people of the Northern Territory for the serious changes they'll have to navigate? Late last year I received a delegation of First Nations people from Central Australia. They were upset at the lack of consultation about the introduction of the cashless debit card. These people are well aware that the use of the card depends on access to telecommunications and postal services, but in many remote communities in the Northern Territory those fundamental services, which we all take for granted here, are simply not available. No matter how often the government asserts that there has been widespread consultation about the imposition of the cashless debit card, the people who sat down in my office that day and whom I see on the streets of Broome every second day of the week, if not every day of the week, as a consequence of these policies, left my office with a very different story.

The 25,000 or so people in the Northern Territory on the BasicsCard—and more than 80 per cent of them are Aboriginal people—are to be moved arbitrarily onto the cashless debit card. There's no choice for these people. Don't anyone be distracted by the government's argument that the cashless debit card is technologically superior and cheaper to manage. Who's benefiting from the card? Certainly not the people who are on it. No matter how sophisticated or user-friendly the technology might be, it is still derived from a policy that is punitive and discriminatory. Try living the life of a person on this card.