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

I thank Senator McCarthy for her follow-up question. As Senator McCarthy would be well aware, what we are proposing to do with the rollout of the cashless debit card into the Northern Territory and Cape York is—I suppose this is the best description of it—to give the people who are currently on the BasicsCard a technology upgrade. At the moment we believe that there are probably around 16,000 places where the BasicsCard is able to be operated in Australia. The cashless debit card works in nearly one million outlets and basically is able to be operated in any premise that has an EFTPOS machine. The inference of your question is completely misplaced in the sense that the only thing this legislation seeks to do is to provide people who are currently on the BasicsCard the added utility and functionality of being able to use a card that is universally recognised.