Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023. As my colleague Senator Rice has already outlined, the Greens have some serious concerns about this bill, which essentially is bringing back the cashless debit card by another name: the SmartCard. I'd like to turn our minds back—as many others have mentioned here today and many times before—to before the election, when Labor made campaign promises to abolish the cashless debit card. I would strongly argue that this doesn't actually count as fulfilling an election promise when you introduce it by giving it a different name and a different colour.

So Labor is okay with breaking those promises but is too scared to touch things like stage 3 tax cuts—that was also an election promise. Guess what other promise the government has also broken? It was a promise that the new Prime Minister made on their election night—that no-one would be left behind. This is in fact a very sneaky and dangerous move by the government, who want you to believe that improving the technology is what they're up to. This bill will in fact expand the powers being given to the minister to roll out compulsory income management right across the country.

Income management has its place. However, it must be voluntary, and that's been said time and time again in numerous reports and media releases. But forcing people into such schemes doesn't actually help them build any financial independence. Senator Rice mentioned the Minister for Indigenous Australians when she spoke about how the fundamental principles of the BasicsCard and the cashless debit card should mean that they're issued on a voluntary basis. This government has said repeatedly that it would abolish the cashless debit card, so what's changed? Now we have more than 20,000 people trapped in compulsory income management, and we know that those schemes disproportionately impact First Nations people, which was also mentioned here today in this chamber. And the government knows this. Various levels of government have looked at this over the years, in organisations, on think tanks, in advocacy groups, in numerous inquiries before I came to this place and people like former senator Rachel Siewert were involved in some of those inquiries looking into the consequences and the harm of imposing compulsory income management.

This bill today was subject to an inquiry which only held one hearing, which Senator Rice was part of, and this inquiry heard from First Nations people who talked about how compulsory income management doesn't work for them. But, again, this government in this place, in this week when we have passed a bill on a voice to parliament, is ignoring First Nations voices on critical issues such as this. This bill is a continuation of failed policy, and there is a large body of evidence showing compulsory income management doesn't work. We had members of the government in the last round of speeches get up and say, 'Everything we implement will be evidence based.' Guess what? This is evidence based, and you're ignoring the evidence on it. You continue to go down this line, and the government are hell-bent and clearly intent on breaking their promise and ignoring First Nations people's voices and pursuing a policy that they know doesn't work.

We heard about the Aboriginal peak organisations in the Northern Territory in particular who made submissions on this. They asked: how many times do we have to ask government to listen to our voices? This has been going on since income management was introduced in 2007 as part of the Northern Territory intervention, which was when they first said no. It was the first time they said no to income management support. It's now a different card in a different colour, but it's all for the same purpose: to control their lives. That is what they told the government. 'We are not guinea pigs,' they told the government. Even the Central Land Council calls on the government to end all forms of compulsory income management, and I could go on and on and on in this debate about how many times First Nations people have told governments in this place to stop imposing these racist policies that are driven by removing our basic human rights in this country.

Income management doesn't help people. It doesn't do what you say it does. It is in fact a punishment. It is a punishment for being on welfare payments, which are the legacy of colonisation in this country. Welfare was the legacy piece of the 1967 referendum, and here we are again looking at another referendum with another government telling us that they're going to listen to our voices. I don't think so. Financial freedom is what is needed—empowerment, giving people the tools to learn about financial responsibility—not prohibiting people from being able to purchase the essential items they need, such as food, from places where they will actually save money, not places that are making money for the big corporations in this country, so going to markets and things like that. It doesn't restrict drugs and alcohol, as you've heard the Opposition suggest. It perpetuates harm and allows the black market in these communities to thrive. I'll give an example from my home state of Western Australia: $400 for a bottle of vodka, and they play cards for it for two days. You want to talk about how you manage black people's income. You're not stopping any of that. That's a farce that's in this bubble, unfortunately.

The Greens have an amendment to this bill that will introduce a sunset clause. It will restrict the ministerial power and enable those at risk of harm to exit this framework. This amendment will improve the worst elements of this bill but, let's be clear, we, over here at the Australian Greens, do not support compulsory income management. We implore this government to keep their promises to the Australian people, to First Nations people in this country, to make income management voluntary.