Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor opposes this bill and Labor rejects the statements made by Senator Hanson in this chamber today. So many people from around the country have contacted me to let me know that they oppose this bill too. 'I want dignity and respect, not the cashless debit card.' These are the words of Hannah from Nunawading in Victoria, and this sentiment is repeated time after time in letter after letter and email after email that my office has received on this scheme. People do not want this card.

Hannah knows, as do all the people who have contacted my office, that this bill, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020, lays the foundation for punitive and compulsory income management to be rolled out across the country. This is yet another government scheme that proves clearly that this government's policy towards low-income people is to disrespect them, to disempower them and to demonise them. That is the reason the government are still pursuing the compulsory rollout of this card. First Nations don't want it. Australians don't want it. Every test, every review, every piece of research has told us that this card does not achieve its stated aims. It doesn't work. This bill, and this scheme, is straight out of the Liberal Party's bottom drawer; it's straight out of their old, tired, nasty playbook. It is designed to drive people down, not to lift them up.

The bill is a stalking horse for a national rollout of the cashless welfare scheme. The bill will make the card permanent in the existing trial sites of Ceduna, the East Kimberley, the Goldfields and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay. In the Northern Territory it will permanently replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card, and in Cape York too it will replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card. Across these sites, the bill will lead to over 34,700 people being on the cashless debit card permanently, without any choice: compulsory income management. We also know that government ministers have previously backed a national rollout of this scheme. We know that the government continues to invest in the back-of-house technology that would allow it to conduct that national rollout. We know that this government has an ideological obsession with income management, regardless of the facts and the evidence. This bill is a step towards the national rollout that this government so desperately wants. A national rollout would impact over 1.6 million Australians on unemployment payments, many of whom have just lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government argue that the cashless debit card scheme for social security recipients reduces hardship and deprivation, helps with budgeting strategies and reduces the time recipients spend on welfare and out of the workforce. They hope to achieve this by forcing recipients to use a cashless card, which quarantines 80 per cent of their social security payments, but we know that it isn't working. The cashless debit card and compulsory income management have been the subjects of multiple inquiries—multiple inquiries that this government has chosen to ignore. It's pretty clear that this scheme is causing harm and hardship. It's making budgeting more difficult and penalising people who are already doing it tough. A recent independent study using data from the Ceduna trial site was the latest to prove just how ineffective this scheme is. It found no impact on the outcomes the government says it is trying to achieve—no impact. In a trial site where this government wants to make the scheme permanent, it was found to have had no impact. Dr Luke Greenacre, from the University of South Australia, one of the researchers on this study, summed up the scheme by saying:

… the card offers very little, if no return on investment … the cost of implementing and administering the card isn't producing substantial community benefits …

Another study, from earlier this year, wrote about how the scheme was causing more harm than good; that it was causing feelings of stigma, shame and frustration amongst participants. Professor Greg Marston, from the University of Queensland, said of participants interviewed for the study:

… they would be visibly upset, recalling incidents where they've been called out for being on the cards and the way in which they hide the cards when they're making transactions in shops.

He went on to say that most participants never had issues with managing their budgets or spending but that their biggest problem was that they just didn't have enough money for essential items. The study concluded that the case for continuing the scheme was weak.

Last year Dr Elise Klein, from the University of Melbourne, told the Senate's Community Affairs Legislation Committee:

If we … are serious about evidence based policymaking, we must stop the ongoing operations of the cashless debit card … or … make them entirely voluntary.

Again: if we are serious about evidence based policymaking, we must abolish the card or make it entirely voluntary. It is clear, many years after the first mandatory income management scheme was introduced, five years since the cashless debit card was introduced, that it does not work. It is clear that this card, this scheme, is having an overwhelmingly negative impact on people's lives.

Emilie, from Bundaberg, is already on the card. She says that hearing that the scheme would become permanent was hard to take. When asked how it made her feel, she said:

I guess hopelessness is the best way to describe it.

Those on social security elsewhere in the country are terrified that the card will be rolled out nationally. Hannah, from Nunawading, who I mentioned earlier, says:

… being forced onto the Cashless Debit Card will … further disempower me.

Lesley, from Katoomba, says:

I resent the fact the Government believes that responsible people like myself are unable to manage our own finances. [This card] … takes away our rights, our independence and more.

People who have the card don't want it. People who might have to have the card in the future don't want it. We know that all the evidence that has been collected points towards the card not working and not achieving the government's stated aims.

But it gets worse. This scheme and this card are clearly racially discriminatory. Of the 34,700 people this bill would put on the card permanently, with no choice, 68 per cent are First Nations people. First Nations people, organisations and representatives say the policy is yet another government imposition. Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy have spoken in this chamber and described how this card takes away the autonomy of First Nations people and their self-determination. This is just another policy imposed on First Nations people without adequate consultation, without adequate consent from the community. Compulsory income management is racially discriminatory.

All Australians want a government that delivers practical solutions for their lives, not tired old ideological positions like this one. But what they have is a government whose only plan for their future is to take away their ability to empower themselves, to make their own decisions, to find their own solutions to the problems they face. But the government just doesn't seem to care about that. This bill is just another example of how its approach to low-income Australians is demonisation. This government thinks that if you fall on hard times it's your fault. According to the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Ruston, in her own words:

Giving [people] more money would do absolutely nothing … probably all it would do is give drug dealers more money and give pubs more money.

As we all know, according to the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, 'if you have a go, you'll get a go', 'the harder you work, the better you do' and 'if you're good at your job, you'll get a job'. These are his own words, and we all know what they're really saying: if you're poor, it's your fault; if you fall on hard times, it's your fault; if you're poor, you can't be trusted with your own money. This is the kind of thinking that drives their old, tired, nasty policy positions—policy positions that are straight out of their playbook; policy positions that have nothing to do with evidence, facts or what is actually proven to work; policy positions that end up causing pain, despair and disempowerment.

The cashless debit card is not the first program to cause this level of hurt to vulnerable and low-income Australians. We have just seen the government forced into repaying over a billion dollars to the victims of robodebt—a scheme that hounded and harassed people, a scheme that caused people anxiety and stress, a scheme that derailed lives, a scheme that destroyed lives, a scheme that targeted vulnerable, low-income Australians. Robodebt was deeply flawed. It was illegal. The government knew it for years, but they insisted that that scheme go on anyway.

Based on the evidence and the research, based on the stories and concerns of those already on the cashless debit card, we can see that this scheme is really no different to robodebt, because the government actually knows that it doesn't work. It knows it has a negative impact on vulnerable Australians, but it's going to push it forward anyway. Why? Because this is a government that goes after poor people. This is a government that hounds poor people. This is a government that harasses them. It attacks their dignity. It invades their privacy. This is a government that relentlessly pursues poor people and drives them into the ground. That tells you everything that you need to know about this government.

The cashless debit card takes this approach so far that even some of the government's own MPs have cold feet about this bill. The member for Bass, Bridget Archer, was damning in her assessment of the scheme. She said the scheme is punitive. She said that there is just not enough evidence that supports this program to justify the associated harm that it causes. The member for Bass summed it up pretty well when she said:

Whenever you approach a human program by inciting shame and guilt, you have already lost those that you are seeking to help.

The member for Monash, Russell Broadbent, also admits concerns about the cashless debit card scheme, so the government are not only ignoring the experts on this bill and on this program, not just ignoring the communities that this is going to impact so negatively, but also now ignoring their own backbench. Just as they ignored the warnings about robodebt, they're ignoring the warnings about the cashless debit card.

This scheme, as we know, is straight from the Liberal Party's bottom drawer, straight from the bottom drawer of their nasty, tired, old, ideologically driven playbook. This bill is the government's priority right now for this country. This is the bill the government want to pass this week. This is the bill that they want to focus on when they should be lifting up people, not driving them into the ground. This is the bill that they want to pass this week, when they should be focused on a big, bold, inclusive plan for Australia's recovery, not a plan that is discriminatory. They should be focused on a plan that is inclusive and that lifts up everyone. They should be focused on a plan which empowers people to find work; a plan that creates good, secure jobs; and a plan with real heart.

That's what Australians are looking for from this government this week, in the last sitting week of this parliamentary year. They're looking for a plan with real heart, not a plan that demonises people and not a plan that drives them to absolute despair. Australians are looking to this government for a plan that gives them hope for a better future, but instead what we have in this last sitting week of parliament for this year is this bill, which we know is racially discriminatory. They're focused on this bill, a bill which takes away autonomy and choice for First Nations people and for all people who are pushed onto this card. They're focused on a bill which has alarmed social security recipients. They're alarmed that the card is going to be imposed on them too. This is a bill that lacks basic evidence. It's a bill that lacks support around the country. It's a bill with damaging consequences, and I urge the Senate to reject it. (Time expired)