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

Senator McCarthy, the question that is currently before the chair, the amendment that I moved a while ago, actually seeks to make the option for people on the BasicsCard to move to the cashless debit card a voluntary action. In undertaking that voluntary action to seek to have the BasicsCard, the consent is ipso facto given by the person who is seeking to have the card. So it's not a matter of the card being posted to somebody who didn't know that it was arriving; the person actually has to actively engage in the process to seek to change from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card.

The amendment that is currently before us completely negates the issue that we were discussing today in question time. The issue we were discussing in question time was specifically about the means by which somebody would receive a financial instrument—which, as I've said, we were already intending to be able to respond to through the means by which we will be consulting with communities and offering the card up. But the fact that it is now a voluntary measure completely overrides the issue that we have been discussing today.