Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Ruston, for your question. You are right. We did extensive consultation after the election. I outlined that in very considerable detail in one of my earlier answers. I still think you don't quite get this concept. We took the abolition of the cashless debit card to the Australian people. Why did we do that? Because people like Senator McCarthy went around the Northern Territory for days, for weeks, for months, for years in advance of the last election. What was she being told by the people who were on this scheme, these people who were compulsorily forced to go on this scheme? She was being told, 'We don't want the scheme.' I couldn't tell you how many people Senator McCarthy spoke to but it was a damn a lot of people. For days, for weeks, for months, for years she went around the Northern Territory, and the rest of our MPs and our candidates did the same. Shadow minister Burney did heaps of that. Marion Scrymgour traipsed up and down Lingiari talking with people about this.

Luke Gosling, who got a 10 per cent swing to him at the last election, went up and down the seat of Solomon talking to people. Our candidates in other states, wherever the cashless debit card might apply, did the same thing. We talked to people around the country. What did they tell us? They said, 'We don't want the cashless debit card.' We took that to the Australian people. You might not like it but we took that to the Australian people, and what did they do at that election? They elected a Labor government. And what are we doing here tonight? Well, we're implementing the policy that we took to the last election. You might not like it, and you might not accept that the Australian people have made a decision about this, but they did. They did make a decision about it, and it's time for you to accept it.

Look, the coalition will never move on if you don't accept that the Australian people made a decision at the last election to reject your government, which had forced upon them the cashless debit card, and elect a government that was going to take that cashless debit card away—and that's us. Minister Rishworth has brought to this place—it's already passed the lower house, and tonight or tomorrow morning, sometime, it's going to pass the Senate—this legislation. And you've got to get over the fact that the Australian people rejected you at the last election. They elected a Labor government and what they want us to do is what we told them we were going to do, and that is abolish the cashless debit card.