Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Repeal of Cashless Debit Card and Other Measures) Bill 2022. What an interesting journey this bill has had, particularly in the Senate chamber. Obviously, the opposition was certainly not in agreement with the bill as it was initially introduced. We have now seen a series of amendments, which, as my colleague Senator McDonald was saying, do seem to be quite sensible in the circumstances. There are amendments which will allow some communities currently utilising the CDC to remain on it. I think that we in this place should be seriously scrutinising and questioning why we are now in a situation where these amendments are being made. In effect, the government are admitting to themselves that abolishing the CDC in its entirety would have devastating effects on remote and vulnerable communities. And why is this the case? What is the reason for this backflip?

I think we need to look very carefully at the origins of this bill. This bill is simply a political fix to try and justify the scare campaign which the now government ran during the federal election, a scare campaign which was repeatedly found to be false and misleading but which Labor persisted with again and again to try and scare Australian pensioners around the country. This is a Labor Party that spent an election campaign talking about integrity yet was happy to run a scare campaign about pensioners being forced onto the cashless debit card. Now, to try and justify all of that misinformation that they put out in an attempt to win votes, they are trying to abolish the CDC, causing major concerns for people in the communities where it is being used successfully. And, now, apparently having a moment of circumspection, where they realise that perhaps that wasn't the most sensible tactic, that perhaps there are communities in remote Australia that benefit from having the CDC, they are trying to backward reason their position, because it was effectively coming from a place of bad intentions.

If we look back at the way that Labor conducted themselves during the recent election campaign, as I said, the answer to why this legislation has been brought forward is very evident. In the lead-up to and throughout the federal election, Labor MPs were continually uttering false claims that the coalition government at the time was planning to put pensioners onto the cashless debit card. There was no credibility to this claim. It was rejected outright by the former coalition government on repeated occasions. But that didn't stop Labor MPs and Labor senators spreading this misinformation both online and through targeted media campaigns. This isn't just my view, and it's not just the view of the opposition. An AAP Factcheck dated 22 November 2021, months before the election, explored in detail Labor's claim that the former coalition government planned to force all age-pensioners onto cashless welfare cards. To quote the AAP Factcheck:

Our verdict: False. There is no evidence the government intends to put all age pensioners on cashless welfare cards, a measure not permitted under existing legislation.

Multiple Labor politicians have claimed the Morrison government wants to put all age pensioners onto cashless welfare cards that would allow the government to control the way they spend their money.

There is no evidence to support the claims.

'False,' 'no evidence,' but that didn't matter to the Labor Party. They seem to think that they can get away with not telling the truth to the Australian people during an election campaign, or even before then. In a media release from October last year, the then Minister for Social Services, my good colleague Senator Ruston, said:

Let me make it crystal clear—the Morrison Government will not force age pensioners onto the Cashless Debit Card. We were never going to, and never will.

'Crystal clear,' Senator Ruston said. You can't get much clearer than that.

This clear rejection followed a number of other occasions in which the minister refuted outright Labor's false claim concerning the CDC, including in a letter that the former minister wrote to the Council of the Ageing, in which the minister stated that the CDC was not aimed at retirees and never would be. That was on 28 October 2021. Again, the former coalition government's position could not be much clearer than that. But there was a reason that the Labor Party remained wilfully ignorant of the truth surrounding the CDC—blatant, misleading electioneering. We've seen Labor employ these kinds of tactics before, most notably in the 2019 campaign and the 2016 campaign. We all remember 'Mediscare'. Labor remembered it so well that they decided to redeploy the tactic in the lead-up to and during the 2022 election campaign.

But the new Labor government have backed themselves into a corner. While they promised to repeal the cashless debit card, they did not think of the resulting consequences for communities that rely on the card. Despite clear findings that the scare campaign was entirely fabricated by the Labor Party—that's not me saying that; that's the AAP Factcheck—there is a very long list of Labor MPs and candidates, including the Deputy Prime Minister, who were more than happy to repeat those false claims like 'they'—referring to the Coalition government at the time—'have a plan to force 80 per cent of people's pensions onto a cashless debit card so they can control and limit how pensioners spend their money.' Or this from the member for Gellibrand:

80% of your pension payment would be put on the privatised cashless card. It's not like an ordinary bank debit card—it can only be used at shops that are approved by the government.

They can limit and control where, when and how you spend your own money.

Imagine not being able to pay cash to buy cheap food at the local market, or a meal or a beer at the RSL.

This was all totally and utterly false, and it was called out as false by the AAP Factcheck as far back as November 2021, six months before the 2022 federal election. The Labor Party persisted with these falsehoods right up until election day. In Tasmania, the Labor member for Lyons posted:

I'm proud to be leading the fight in Tasmania to scrap the Morrison Liberal-Nationals Government's plan to expand the cashless welfare card to all Australian pensioners.

Unfortunately, we know from the facts that the Liberals and Nationals want to expand the cashless welfare card to include all pensioners. This means that 80% of your pension will be put on a card and the government can then control where you spend your own pension.

The facts—that's an interesting use of words, given what the AAP Factcheck found.

Similar messages were posted to websites and social media platforms of other Labor members. These claims were nothing but blatant and deliberate misinformation. And who is going to pay the price for Labor choosing to run an election campaign based on acknowledged falsehoods? The people in communities who have actually seen the positive difference that the card has made to their lives. We've heard these voices and these concerns throughout this debate, particularly from my colleagues, and the fears of alcohol induced violence against women and children. Yet the Labor government is determined to ignore these concerns from on the ground and push through this repeal based on a scare campaign they ran in electorates thousands of kilometres from anywhere the card was actually being used and supported.

The bill shows little care for the consequences for the communities which rely on this card to tackle social harm, particularly harm associated with drug and alcohol addiction, except as relevant to the amendments which we are now having presented to us in the Senate chamber because Labor have apparently realised that there was some error in their ways.

To add insult to injury, Labor have pushed for the abolishment of the cashless debit card with virtually zero consultation with key stakeholders. Again, I think that's why we are now hearing these amendments. Labor senators are sitting here in this place and listening to the contribution of opposition senators who have been consulting with key stakeholders and who have been providing that information to the Senate. These are stakeholders that should have been consulted from day one but were ignored by this government until the very last minute.

As late as 30 August, the so-called CDC engagement team sent the Goldfields a raft of draft engagement documents, seeking feedback. These busy shires were given until 12 noon on 2 September to provide their feedback—simply days. How is this meaningful consultation? How does this allow communities and key stakeholders the opportunity to have their say on legislation that will adversely impact their communities? A couple of days. How can that possibly be long enough?

Stakeholders have made their disappointment very clear, highlighting the severe lack of consultation on this bill. The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder stated:

The decision to abolish the CDC has been made without any consultation with the regional community and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder remains unconsulted on how the transition will impact CDC participants, social services providers, government agencies, and the community.

The Mayor of the District Council of Ceduna echoed these sentiments, stating:

We've had no consultation about it at all. The first we heard of it was in the PM's election promises, that he was going to do it. Prior to that, we had had no representation from any Labor politicians.

The Minderoo Foundation further highlights Labor's lack of meaningful consultation on the bill:

We are concerned the decision to abolish the CDC is being rushed through the Parliament without appropriate or meaningful community consultation. The removal of the CDC has the potential to exacerbate vulnerability, and this must be avoided at all costs.

So thank goodness that members of the government have been in this chamber and have clearly been listening very carefully to contributions from opposition senators who have done the job and have been doing the work of consulting with these communities and understanding the impact that the repeal of the CDC would have on them. I am very certain that that is why we are seeing the amendments that we will be debating here later on tonight.

The cashless debit card was introduced into communities as an important financial management tool to help improve the lives of vulnerable people in these communities, which were looking for solutions to entrenched alcohol and drug induced violence. Instead of listening to the voices of those people, particularly women and children, who are safer and more secure because of this card, Labor chose to make the CDC a source of political gain through a scare campaign based on falsehoods—a scare campaign that I have outlined here my contribution today. Labor pushed for the abolition of the cashless debit card with virtually zero consultation with key stakeholders who should been consulted from day one but were ignored by this government until the last minute. This bill must be seen for what it is: a political exercise by Labor to justify the falsehoods they used to scare the community for their own political gain.