Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection, Senator Rice. The millions of dollars—we can support our communities, but the card supports the communities and stops the violence, stops the addictions and stops people standing over their spouses with their hand out, with a club in their other hand, to claim their welfare cash, because it's not there.

These last-minute changes we are now seeing from the government can surely only be an admission that Labor got it very wrong in the first place and that their election propaganda was based on little evidence and no consultation with those who have firsthand experience, those who attended the committee hearings that Senator Hughes attended, those that Senator Pocock heard from in his committee hearings. Had the government consulted properly they would have heard that abolishing the cashless debit card would give the green light to more alcohol, drug abuse and violence as per the quotes I read at the start of my contribution. And while the affected families and communities are the voices that absolutely should be front and centre of this debate, they are not alone in recognising the benefits of the CDC.

The government claims there is no evidence that a CDC works yet there have been more than a dozen evaluations of income management which have provided consistent evidence about welfare quarantining. The evaluations show decreases in drug and alcohol issues; decreases in crime, violence and antisocial behaviour; improvements in child health and wellbeing; improvements in financial management; and ongoing and even strengthened community support. One such evaluation by the University of Adelaide released in 2021 reported that the cashless debit card had helped recipients improve their lives and the lives of their families and other community members. That report, which obviously Senator Rice does not include as evidence, found that 25 per cent of people reported they were drinking less since being put on the CDC; 21 per cent of cashless debit card participants reported gambling less; evidence found cash previously used for gambling had been redirected to essentials such as food; and 45 per cent of the CDC participants reported the cashless debit card had improved things for themselves and their families. Do not believe the government's rhetoric and do not believe the claims of the Greens members, who are sitting in this chamber heckling away, who didn't attend the committee hearings, who were not there and who are ignoring the voices of the very people who they claim to represent and who they claim to want to help. Of the 17,000 people currently on the CDC, 4,398 of them in the Northern Territory are on it voluntarily. I'm also advised that most participants in Cape York are also on it voluntarily. If it didn't work, if they didn't see value in the card, why would they be volunteering to be on the program?

I urge the government to monitor more closely the impacts on those families who withdraw from the card. I urge the government to listen to the members and senators in this place who have firsthand experience of what families faced before the card was introduced and how those families' lives have changed since.

I know Labor really aren't interested in representing the vulnerable communities in South Australia or in the Goldfields in Western Australia, or the families in Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Cape York who benefited from the CDC. I know they're pandering to the progressives in the city, far removed from the problems they are blind to, who think they're doing the right thing by our vulnerable communities but who really aren't. I say drop the scales from your eyes and look at the hard truth of the issue. Listen to the Noel Pearsons of the world. Listen to the families and the women who are asking for the cashless debit card to remain in place.