Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to follow Senator Cash and her comments on this. I'm glad we're having this conversation about the future of the government welfare. It takes many forms and there are many Australian people who receive it. There's doubt many Australians truly need it. There's also no doubt that many Australians who receive it do not truly need it. There are many more Australians who pay for it. It's costing taxpayers almost $200 billion—that's billion, not million—a year. There are almost as many opinions about whether it is too much or too little, and whether it really does any good.

However, there is one opinion which strongly prevails among the Australians who fund this welfare: those who receive it should be accountable for it. This is reflected in some of the conditions and obligations placed on recipients such as education, training and job seeking. Australians who fund welfare with their taxes understandably have an expectation that money is not squandered by those receiving it. They don't like it when recipients spend all their time on the couch instead of actively looking for work, or at least being in training for work. They don't like it when they see recipients spending welfare money on things like alcohol, drugs and pokies. Most recipients don't do this, but it begs the question: why do we have over 900,000 people on unemployment benefits yet jobs aplenty are waiting to be filled? Are these people incompetent, illiterate or just plain lazy, believing everyone else owes them a living, not just a helping hand in a time of need.

When there are others depending on them, like children, there can be big problems. This is especially the case in communities with higher levels of long-term welfare dependency. I won't beat around the bush. Many of these communities are predominantly Aboriginal. It was these problems—children going hungry and without education, alcohol and drug related violence, family and domestic violence, poor health outcomes, widespread crime and social unrest—that the cashless debit card was aimed at addressing. It did this by limiting the spending of up to 80 per cent of a person's welfare income to essential items like food, clothes and rent. The basic idea was to ensure the people on welfare experiencing difficulties with prioritising the essentials themselves no longer had to.

The trials were limited to a few areas, some of them with high levels of long-term dependency and a history of related social problems, particularly alcohol fuelled violence and neglect: the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region in Queensland; Doomadgee in remote north-west Queensland; Cape York in Queensland; parts of the Northern Territory; the Goldfields region around Kalgoorlie and Esperance in Western Australia; the East Kimberley region in Western Australia; and the Ceduna area in South Australia.

The introduction of the cashless debit card was not without controversy or teething problems, some of which persist. It has not been entirely successful in completely quarantining welfare income for spending only on essentials. People have found ways around the restrictions—for example, buying someone else's groceries with the card in exchange for cash, which is then spent on things that cannot be bought with the card. There has also been frustration at its limited utility, especially in online transactions, and also because some shops in the trial communities did not or could not accept the card. However, these problems have been outweighed by some very good outcomes. Violence related to alcohol and drug use has declined significantly in some of these trial regions. More kids are going to school, and more of them are being better fed. Quite a few people on the card have reported that it helps them manage their household expenses much better than before.

I went to the Goldfields region in Western Australia and saw this for myself. I spoke to Indigenous elders, local government leaders, local public servants and others in these communities. I spoke to many who were literally pleading for the cashless debit card to be rolled out much more widely. I heard how, before the card, older family members would force younger ones to hand over all their welfare money. It's a cultural thing for Aborigines to hand over money to other family members. Some who refuse face the risk of being bashed. One employer told me that a young Aboriginal man who worked for him quit his full-time job because his family forced him to hand over his pay. Working provided no future for him. The card prevented a lot of this sort of thing from happening.

One Nation supports the cashless debit card and income management being imposed on people and communities that clearly need it. I'm convinced that it does little harm and does much good, and I want to see the concept extended. To those who say that it unfairly targets Indigenous communities, I say: you're wrong, and you need to get out into those communities like I have. You need to be honest with yourselves and the Australian people and admit that problems like domestic violence, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol dependency, and unemployment are highly prevalent in Indigenous communities.

But wait—there's more, isn't there? 'The Voice will end all that, won't it/' We're going to have the Voice and it's going to fix all these problems! You need to witness and experience the unrest, the violence and the poverty for yourself and understand how income management makes a positive difference. Those supporting this legislation must explain to these communities and the Australian people what you're going to do about the fallout. What are you going to do about the return of the alcohol related violence, the increasing social unrest and the children who will again go hungry when the card is gone? How are you going to ensure that Indigenous children have the same education as non-Indigenous children? You can't—and won't, until you enforce the same laws that require every child to attend school, regardless of race.

Aboriginal parents can be reluctant to send their children to school for fear of them being better educated than themselves. In many cases, it is the parents holding back future generations. Yet the activists and self-interest groups blame white Australia for poor education outcomes and lack of opportunities for Indigenous Australia. Education is the key for Indigenous Australians to pull themselves out of the quagmire of welfare dependency and into a better lifestyle. People in these communities are furious about the government's plan to make income management strictly voluntary for all but a few. They fear that the vacuum from the loss of the card will be filled with more problems, more unrest, more violence and more crime. They fear the return of the chaos and dysfunction that the card was helping to stop.

I note that the government is tacking more money onto this legislation. They've plucked another $65 million to throw at alcohol and drug services, to fix the problems that neither major party has been able to solve for decades. There are people in these communities who are paying over $100 or $150 for what's called a 'pillow'—a five-litre cask of wine. And in some areas they're paying $200 to $300 for a bottle of rum. So, we're going to put in more health services, like dialysis machines, and that's going to solve the problem? Whereas if you restrict the money that they have, so that they're not spending it on this alcohol and drug abuse that is happening—and with the young ones—that might be a good start. It's been proven that it has worked and that it has helped. I'm reasonably confident this won't substitute for the good outcome produced by the cashless debit card. I know it won't. So another $65 million will be thrown at it. I'm sure the Australian people are going to be happy about that one.

This government must prioritise investment in the skilled, homegrown Australian workforce to fill Australian jobs instead of outsourcing them to overseas workers. Higher immigration is not the solution. It's about getting Australians into jobs.

I fully support this cashless debit card. I've been to the meetings and I've actually spoken to the people on the ground. I've been to Doomadgee. I've seen the problems that these communities have.