Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Repeal of Cashless Debit Card and Other Measures) Bill 2022. Today we are about to see another embarrassing backflip by the Albanese Labor government, as it appears they are about to move amendments that will extend the cashless debit card in Australia. The Labor government have misled the Australian public with promises during the election campaign and, embarrassingly, are now having to admit it was a thoughtless grab for votes.

The amendments we are about to see allow Cape York, the cashless debit card trial sites and those people in the Northern Territory who have voluntarily transitioned from the BasicsCard onto the cashless debit card to remain on the cashless debit card. This is an admission they messed up this ill-conceived election commitment.

The amendments put forward by the government confirm even they have had to admit that abolishing the cashless debit card is a really stupid idea. They have now provisioned for $50 million to support drug and alcohol support services because they themselves understand the social harm likely to result from the removal of this card from the vulnerable communities and the vulnerable people that so heavily rely on it. Shame on the Labor government for doing what they've done. They left great uncertainty for vulnerable Australians, and, at the eleventh hour, have had to admit to the fact they got it wrong in the first place.

This bill, as I said, seeks to repeal the cashless debit card. In effect, it no longer will because of the amendments. This card was put into communities as an important financial management tool, developed with advanced technology to help improve the lives of some of Australia's most vulnerable people. It's an innovative program designed to tackle social harm, particularly harm associated with drug and alcohol addiction, in communities where there are high rates of long-term welfare dependency.

The coalition have very serious concerns, and have always held very serious concerns, about any legislation that impacts on repealing the cashless debit card, because we understand the impact it's going to have on the communities it's in and on the people in those communities. There are particular concerns about the way this legislation effectively sends vulnerable people back to a restrictive technology like the BasicsCard—but, clearly, the government have worked that out at the eleventh hour.

Really devastatingly, the election commitment to abolish the cashless debit card was made with no consultation. Those opposite will come in here and say the minister has been widely consulting. Consultation occurs before you make the decision, not after you've made the decision. Anybody who thinks what the minister is doing at the moment is consultation needs to get the dictionary out and have a look at what 'consultation' really is.

Firstly, it's important to understand the cashless debit card is one of two methods of delivery of income management in Australia. It's designed to limit spending on harmful things like alcohol, gambling and illicit drugs. Income management has been in place in Australia since 2007. Until the cashless debit card was developed, the only way people were able to undertake an EFTPOS transaction was by using the BasicsCard. The BasicsCard is a standalone technology that can only be used in about 15½ thousand places. These outlets are designated and have to be approved by government. The limited number of outlets that accept the card makes its use highly restrictive for the participants who rely on it.

In recognition of this, the cashless debit card was developed as a new, approved, advanced technology for the delivery of income management, operating using existing banking infrastructure. CDC cardholders are able to use their card at around a million places across the country that have an EFTPOS facility as well as online and internationally. The program is supported with an overall suite of measures implemented to improve community safety, stabilise people's lives and help them to become job ready. This includes a $30 job fund and job-ready initiative and $50 million for drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation facilities.

Significantly, the development of the CDC program was a direct response to calls from community leaders. In South Australia, my home state, the South Australian coroner handed down an absolutely devastating and heartbreaking report called Sleeping rough, on the deaths of six people on the far west coast of South Australia. The study found that unsuccessful efforts to curb alcohol abuse were having devastating impacts on individuals, their families and the community. Indigenous community leaders approached the government for support and worked with the government to establish and design a program to assist communities to address the social-harm implications of alcohol and substance addiction and long-term welfare dependency.

The continuation of the CDC program in 2020 was also as a direct response to calls from these community leaders, who told us that the card was working in their community. The continuation of the cashless debit card was passed to enable income management recipients in the Northern Territory to voluntarily transition onto the cashless debit card. Nearly 4½ thousand people in the Northern Territory have made their own decision to move to the cashless debit card. That's why it is so concerning that this legislation seeks to repeal the cashless debit card in the communities who directly rely on its support. Evidence given during the hearings showed that the bill confirmed that the government's intention to extend income management via the BasicsCard and through existing instruments was fundamentally flawed.

We are yet to see whether this government is intending to extend those instruments, which expire at midnight on Friday night. That in effect means they will be extending income management in the Northern Territory while at the same time trying to abolish income management in other places around Australia. They need to answer the question of why people in the Northern Territory are being treated differently from people in the other trial sites around the country.

The other thing is that we know the cashless debit card is a really advanced piece of technology. As I said, it works in just about every outlet in Australia, online and internationally, as opposed to the BasicsCard. The BasicsCard is also associated with a massive degree of stigmatisation, because the individual needs to be identified by the cashier. The cashless debit card does not identify the individual—unless, of course, that individual seeks to buy a product that has been banned. Despite this, the Albanese Labor government has sought to tick and flick an election commitment with no regard whatsoever for the impact on vulnerable people and vulnerable communities.

But, as I said, the most disappointing aspect of this bill is that it does not have the support of community elders where the CDC program operates. These communities support the program. They supported the extension of the program back in 2020 and they continue to support the program in their communities. The community inquiry into the bill highlighted that the government has clearly failed to consult with these communities, particularly the Indigenous communities in which it operates. The evidence given by Indigenous Australian Noel Pearson, the founder and director of the strategy for the Cape York Partnership, was very compelling, when he emotively said at the inquiry, 'I think this legislation will wipe out 20 years of my work.' He said:

in the absence of a solution that had the same functionality as the cashless debit card, our Family Responsibilities Commission and the welfare reform work that we've done via that over the last 20 years will collapse, and that would be a very bad thing. We'd just have to give up. We would come to the point of just giving up on the idea that we can change anything for the future of these communities. You guys will repeal this thing and then you'll walk away. You will repeal the card and then you will walk away and leave us to the violence, leave us to the hunger, leave us to the neglected children. It's very easy to forget about remote communities.

Well, at least we have seen that this government has listened to Mr Pearson, because they have extended the cashless debit card for the Cape York community. What we have seen today and what we will see when the amendments come into this place is that the government is, in effect, going to keep the cashless debit card. They probably will change its name, because they want to con the Australian public into believing that somehow they have done what they said at the election. They haven't. They are lying to the Australian public. They have no intention of getting rid of the technology—it is the cashless debit card—because they have already agreed with Mr Pearson and the Family Responsibilities Commission that they will continue to use the cashless debit card until some new technology that they are designing comes into effect, which I will bet will be the cashless debit card by another name.

We've seen numerous comments from other people where the card works. As an example, Mayor Perry Will from the District Council of Ceduna noted, 'We have had no consultation about it at all. The first we heard of it was the Prime Minister's election promise that he was going to do it. Prior to that we had had no representation from any Labor politicians.' Likewise, the mayor of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, John Bowler, said that he was disappointed the decision to scrap the card was made before the Assistant Minister For Social Services, Justine Elliott, had visited the Goldfields in August 2022. He told the hearing:

It almost seems they are putting the cart before the horse. I would have liked for them to come here, consult with us, consult with the community, and then make a decision.

It has become clear that Labor is intent on taking a backward step on income management in Australia just to play politics. However, they were called out for what they were doing and they have now had to make an embarrassing backflip.

I would say to those senators opposite: be honest with the Australian public. Be honest with this chamber about what you're intending to do, because the cashless debit card was designed with absolutely only the best intentions and the best outcomes at heart for those communities that sought for the cashless debit card to be part of the tools that were available in their community to help vulnerable people, particularly those who were dealing with serious addictions to drugs and alcohol, to make sure they could stabilise their life so that they could put food on the table for their children, so their children went to school and they were supported on their journey away from addiction.

The government's absolutely reckless decision to scrap the cashless debit card has created immense uncertainty in these communities. Right now we only have a, 'Trust us. We will fix it later,' approach from this government. Apparently they're going to change the income management legislation to enable an advanced technology to deliver income management. That suggests to me that they're going to use the cashless debit card under the income management legislation, which in a sense just goes to show that this government is not genuine. They are not honest. They are happy to mislead for an election commitment.

It's clear in the evidence that the government supports the continuation of compulsory income management. We know that it is very likely that this week they will extend the instruments to make sure that compulsory income management is continued in the Northern Territory. We know that they are likely to move amendments in this place this afternoon or tomorrow to extend the use of the cashless debit card.

We would hope that they wouldn't waste the massive investment that has already gone into the cashless debit card platform, a platform that allows the universal network of the Australian banking infrastructure to be able to deliver a seamless product for those people who we are trying to get support to stabilise their lives. We know that the CDC is an effective mechanism. The government must stop playing politics. Stop pretending that you are doing something that you're not and actually be honest with the Australian public about the importance of supporting vulnerable Australians on their journey to recovery.

The opposition condemns the government for this bill. We condemn the government for the way they have gone about putting this bill into this place. We condemn the government because of their lack of consultation—in fact, there was no consultation before they made a decision to rip a very valuable support mechanism out of vulnerable communities.

We hope that the government is transparent and comes clean with their intentions going forward. I would hope that they provide more information as they make their contributions on this bill about what their intentions are for compulsory income management going forward, for voluntary income management going forward. I would hope that they are honest about the technology platform that they intend to deliver income management on going forward.

The opposition are moving a second reading amendment. I move:

Omit all words after "that", substitute "further consideration of the bill be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting after the Senate passes a resolution that it is of the opinion that both of the following conditions have been met:

(a) thorough and appropriate consultation has occurred with all relevant stakeholders and communities about the changes proposed by the bill; and

(b) a bill providing a permanent alternative to income management has been introduced into the Parliament".

The amendment, in effect, seeks for the third reading of this bill not to proceed until such time as the government lays on the table, clearly and distinctly, what its intentions are for income management going forward; and that that legislation has the opportunity to have the appropriate scrutiny of this place and the other place before we move to this reckless interim step that is going to damage lives, create greater uncertainty and deliver absolutely nothing to support the lives of the most vulnerable in our community, which is what the cashless debit card has sought to do for the last six years. The opposition will not be supporting this bill.