Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to your comments around the amendment before the chair—the Northern Territory voluntary opportunity to move from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card—I want to be really clear. The amendment that is before the chair is for the opportunity for people in the Northern Territory who are currently on the BasicsCard to move to the CDC. It is nothing more and nothing less than that. In relation to the two-year time frame that we've put on the extension of the existing sites—or with all of the CDC technology, the four existing trial sites, as well as Cape York—I think there have been a lot of contributions in this place, where people have expressed extreme disappointment that there is not strong empirical data, that there's not quantitative data. Much of the data that we have is qualitative, and some of it is even anecdotal. That's why I spent the time going out and actually speaking to people in communities and asking them what they thought.