Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I also take note of answers to questions today asked by Senator McCarthy and Senator Dodson. I've listened very closely to the debate that we've had regarding the cashless debit card over the last couple of days and I'm more convinced than ever that the government's trying to roll out the cashless debit card on a more permanent basis is the wrong move for the individuals concerned and for the regions in which the cashless debit card will be entrenched if the government gets its way.

What Senator McCarthy was highlighting in her question today is that there is serious doubt over the government's capacity to even roll out the cashless debit card, even if it were to get its legislation through this chamber. What the letter from ASIC shows, very clearly, is that the government has previously been given dispensation by ASIC to roll out the cashless debit card and to send it to people in a way that would ordinarily breach legislation because, quite rightly, banks and other credit providers are ordinarily prevented from rolling out credit cards willy-nilly to people.

The government has previously been given dispensation to dispatch the cashless debt card in a way that would not normally be permitted but that was done on a trial basis only. We on this side don't dispute the fact the government previously had power to send cashless debit cards to individuals in those trial regions. What we dispute is that it continues to have the power to do so on a more permanent basis, because we've seen no evidence whatsoever that the government has received a similar dispensation from ASIC for what it seeks to do into the future. So if the government doesn't have the power to send the cashless debit cards to new participants in the scheme in the regions that are affected, then how does it actually expect this is going to work?

Some of the areas in which the cashless debit card has been operating so far and the government wants it to continue on a more permanent basis are some of the most remote places in this country. There aren't shops that people can walk into and there aren't courier services that drop things off. In a big city, you get something dropped off if you order it on eBay. I've spent a bit of time in Cape York and I know a little bit about Cape York. This may be news to you, but courier drivers are not in the habit of rolling up to the doors of people in Cape York to drop off a cashless debit card or something ordered on eBay or anything else, so there is real doubt over the government's ability to roll out these debit cards, even if it actually manages to get this legislation through. So I'd ask some of the more sensible voices in this government to have a look at the legislation and quickly work out whether they can even do what they want to do.

That leaves aside the issues of whether the cashless debit card is a good idea at all, and I will have a bit more to say about that in the debate on this bill later today. But the fundamental point to be made—and a number of my colleagues have done this in the debate—is there is no evidence whatsoever that backs up what the government is seeking to do. This is an ideologically driven exercise from the government, which wants to take away from unemployed people, particularly First Nations people, the capacity to make their own decisions about how they spend their money and, instead, impose the heavy hand of government in what people can do, which is a very surprising thing for a government that claims to be all about small government to actually want to do. The practical effect of the cashless debit card is that it is racially discriminatory because it overwhelmingly applies to First Nations people. It is flawed and without evidence. The so-called research the government has provided to back up its arguments doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever, and there is a plethora of research which has been published by academic and other experts to show the cashless debit card does not work. It's not too late for the government to retreat. It should reconsider what it's doing, it should drop this legislation and it should drop the cashless debit card altogether.