Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have opposed the punitive and discriminatory cashless debit card since its inception. We welcome this legislation to end its compulsory use in the four cashless debit card trial sites.

Today is a big day for the more than 17,000 people who were forced onto the cashless debit card over the last six years. Anyone living in Ceduna in South Australia, in the Goldfields or East Kimberley regions in WA or in the Bundaberg-Hervey Bay region in Queensland who has been on the cashless debit card will finally be able to control their own finances again. They will be able to buy clothes for their kids at second-hand stores, able to pay cash for fruit and veg at street markets and able to buy stuff on eBay, rather than having most of their income quarantined on a debit card. I am celebrating with them and for them today.

The evidence provided to our Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee's inquiry into the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Repeal of Cashless Debit Card and Other Measures) Bill 2022 was stark. Two stories collected by the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children exemplify the appalling impacts of the cashless debit card on people. One person said:

I survive on cash, everything I own is from garage sales or op shops. Most of my food comes from the farmers market or roadside stalls. I cannot afford to buy new things from shops, nor can I afford a lot of store-bought items. I'm not alone it's the only way single mothers can afford to live and feed their children on what is the lowest paid yet most important job.

Another person said:

In the 3 years I've been subjected to this lunacy, the CDC has 1) attempted to prevent me from accessing a private speech therapist in my community. 2) prevented me from using my tax return to buy my son a bedroom suite. 3) put a bunch of people with no mental health, disability, or domestic violence skills in charge of my financial situation in an arbitrary manner. When my ex-husband treated me this way, the family court called it financial control.

Compulsory income management has consistently failed to benefit those who it has been imposed upon and has instead had a demonstrably harmful impact. Abolishing this card is an important step towards social equity and racial justice. We thank all the groups who campaigned and fought against this punitive and horrific measure and called for it to end, and we thank the many people who were vulnerable and brave enough to share their stories of what it meant to be on this card and the damaging impact this card has had on them. They did it in evidence to the inquiry and in their advocacy both before and after the election.

To all of the advocates and activists who are watching as the cashless debit card is abolished in the trial sites with this bill: for your courage, your commitment and your advocacy, thank you. But we must not forget the many people who will continue to be subject to compulsory income management, such as the BasicsCard, once the cashless debit card ends. We must remember the people in the Northern Territory who are on the cashless debit card, who are going to be forced back onto the BasicsCard, albeit an enhanced version of it.

At the Senate inquiry into the cashless debit card, the committee heard of the disproportionate impact of the card on First Nations individuals and communities and its contribution to the ongoing injustices of colonisation and persistent economic inequality experienced by First Nations peoples. This stark division in how we treat First Nations peoples compared to non-Indigenous peoples in Australia will be even more acute if compulsory income management in the Northern Territory continues after the repeal of the cashless debit card. This is why the Greens are calling to an end to all forms of compulsory income management in this country.

In the final four months of the Howard government, Australia was one of only four countries that voted against the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As the United Nations described it, the declaration establishes a universal framework of minimum standards and elaborates on existing human rights standards and fundamental freedoms. Article 19 of the declaration specifies:

States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.

Although we are glad the Australian government subsequently reversed its position and supported the declaration, there are multiple examples of legislation that has passed through this place that consistently fails to meet the standards outlined in this declaration. Of particular relevance to the bill for us today, Australia's history of colonisation and racism extends into how income management has been designed and deployed in ways that disempower First Nations peoples and that run directly counter to the principles of free, prior and informed consent.

We know this because First Nations peoples have told governments so, over and over again. Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory provided evidence to the committee into this bill on exactly this point. They said:

Compulsory income management is a vehicle for disempowerment and perpetuates stigmatisation of Aboriginal people. Rather than building capacity and independence, for many the program has acted to make people more dependent on welfare.

Change the Record outlined:

Colonisation and the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from Country has taken many forms—including theft of land and resources, exploitation of labour, and theft and quarantining of wages and welfare payments. These injustices have caused First Nations peoples to experience persistent economic inequality to this day, and their legacy continues to shape Australia's welfare and social security system.

Compulsory income management is a stark example of the type of discriminatory, coercive and top-down decision-making that has caused very real harm to First Nations individuals and communities.

The Central Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Unit told our inquiry:

Compulsory income management undermines self-determination for our people. It is a mechanism by which Aboriginal people and communities are further disempowered, particularly given the ongoing impacts of the Northern Territory Intervention.

Dr John Paterson, CEO of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliances Northern Territory, shared with our committee the harm associated with the punitive approaches inflicted as part of the intervention and the racist accusations used to justify them. In a really heartfelt contribution to the inquiry, he said:

This is what happened as a result of the intervention in the Northern Territory all those years ago. . . It causes trauma and stress on us. When you're trying to lead organisations and you're leading your mob, and you've got people out there just casting all these aspersions on you, and labelling you, and you have politicians making all these crazy comments that they can't support with evidence, and you've got to try and live and work with that—I struggle with that.

Fundamentally, this is something we have to talk about with regard to compulsory income management. It is a racist policy that has been imposed by government primarily and predominately on First Nations peoples, and it must end. We know from the evidence that compulsory income management doesn't work. To all those who are arguing for the continuation of compulsory income management as a measure to address social problems, I implore you: listen to the evidence; it doesn't work. We've heard it from the Australian National Audit Office, who said in the second report on the CDC that the Department of Social Security had 'not demonstrated that the CDC program is meeting its intended objectives'. Similarly, the Australian Council of Social Service told our inquiry:

There is no credible or conclusive evidence that these policies have delivered better outcomes for individuals or their communities. Instead, cashless debit and income management are paternalistic policies that restrict basic human rights.

The St Vincent de Paul Society told us:

… the card should be scrapped because it is discriminatory, punitive, costly and ineffective. It has not produced significant, long-term reductions in the use of habitual alcohol, gambling or illicit drugs or improvements in participants' budgeting strategies or socially responsible behaviour.

In fact, rather than simply failing to develop the benefits some of the paternalistic advocates claim, it can actually cause harm. Dr Elise Klein summarised in her evidence:

… research published by the ARC Centre of Excellence; the Life Course Centre, examined compulsory income management in the Northern Territory, and showed a correlation with negative impacts on children, including a reduction in birth weight and school attendance. The research implications are significant and draws attention to several possible explanations for the reduction of birth weight, including how income management increased stress on mothers, disrupted existing financial arrangements within the household, and created confusion as to how to access funds.

So the Greens will support the passage of this bill. However, we strongly oppose the provisions in the legislation that will enable the minister to move people from the cashless debit card onto other forms of compulsory income management like the BasicsCard or the new, enhanced BasicsCard. I want to be very clear that we will be moving an amendment to reflect that and to reflect our fundamental commitment that compulsory income management should not be imposed on anyone. Rather than being a genuine abolition of compulsory income management, the legislation as currently written will simply shift thousands of people, largely First Nations peoples, from one form of compulsory income management onto another with the same failings and the same punitive impacts. The Greens support an opt-in voluntary option for income management for those who want it. We welcome the announcement from the government that they will be moving towards ending all compulsory income management at some stage. But we think it can and should happen sooner. Compulsory income management is a failed punitive policy that can and should be removed as soon as possible.

Beyond removing compulsory income management, we need to be funding the services and the supports for communities that are needed across Australia. It's simply not enough to remove the harsh punitive conditions that have been in place; we actively need to provide the support and the services that are needed in communities across the country. We've had a decade of Liberal government cutting key programs across Australia, and now a Labor government is arguing that because of the decisions a Liberal government made they can't fund the services that we need. People who are struggling in communities across the country deserve better. That's why at the last election we Greens took a platform of providing a billion dollars extra a year in funding for essential social services so that services like drug and alcohol services, family and domestic violence services, and the community services that are so urgently needed can be funded. That's what needs to be put in place. As we get rid of compulsory income management as soon as possible, we need to be putting in place the funding for those support services that will genuinely allow people to be living their best lives.

I foreshadow that we will have a second reading amendment to address this issue and we will call for cross-party support for the basic principle that, regardless of your position on the cashless debit card, we must ensure that services are provided for people in the community. As well as repealing and abolishing all forms of compulsory income management, there is much more that must be done. We need to be funding services and, critically, we need to be ensuring that anybody in Australia has got the income they need to survive. Anybody in Australia should be able to get a guaranteed livable income.

As part of that guaranteed livable income, there are two key things. One is to end the punitive conditionality that permeates so much of our income support system, which the cashless debit card and compulsory income management absolutely exemplify—the mutual obligations, the income management, and the other programs that make it hard for people to access income support. The second thing we need to be doing is raising the rate of all of our income support payments to ensure that all payment rates are above the poverty line. So let's be clear: we are abolishing the cashless debit card in the four trial sites today but more needs to be done because poverty is a political choice, and we cannot end poverty in Australia if we punish those who are suffering without enough to live on. It is cruel, it is often racist and it must stop.