Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today an important motion to disallow the income management regulation was voted down on the combined vote of Labor and the coalition. I congratulate Senator Rachel Siewert for bringing forward that disallowance motion. Once again we saw Labor and the coalition voting together on a failed policy. Income management is not just a failed policy; it is an expensive policy being implemented with no real justification. Income management is not the answer to meet the challenges many communities face. I have seen this in my state of New South Wales, where the government is moving ahead with a trial of income management. This is policy paternalism at its worst.

As I talk to communities that are trying to grapple with this very offensive policy that is being rolled out, I often think of the very moving day in 2008, Sorry Day, when the public came together under the leadership of the then Rudd government to apologise for an earlier abusive policy. I wonder whether we will face this in the future. If the income management policy is allowed to continue, I fear that future generations will also have to give a public apology for this abusive policy. It is worth remembering how we got to this point. We had income management in the Northern Territory and there was no proof that it was making a difference, and then the government came up with its plan to extend income management.

The potential benefit that it supposedly could bring to individuals and their families has not been proved. We were told that the benefits had to be evidence based before it would proceed, but that has not been forthcoming. It is worth remembering the words of the Minister Jenny Macklin. She stated:

… an unshakeable belief in the power of responsive, evidence-based policy to drive progressive reform at many different levels.

Again, the evidence based policy is not income management.

When you look at Parliamentary Library analysis of the available evidence from the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia you find very few studies available that have attempted to directly measure the impact of income management separately from other policy interventions. Evaluations, as have been attempted, need to be treated with great caution. What you see when you start to read them is that are a range of methodological problems with them. There is a lack of comparison or baseline data, there is a limited amount of quantitative data, there is a strong reliance on qualitative measures, and questions about the independence of some evaluations also jump out at you. There is insufficient evidence to support extending the government's controversial income management trial. That is how you would have to sum it up.

Also, we have evidence before us because there was a very important Senate inquiry into the Stronger Futures bill. That evidence is a reminder about why today's disallowance should have been passed. That inquiry received a number of submissions pointing to the lack of evidence that income management leads to better outcomes or improved ability for individuals to budget. What the evidence did point to is the fact that income management has not been discussed with the five trial sites. I have seen this very clearly at Bankstown. While the government says it has consulted with the local people, once you sit down and meet with those people you find they have not been informed about why their area has been picked or what the nature of the trial is. That is certainly a factor that causes concern and anguish to many of those people.

Clearly, income management is highly contentious and the way the government has pushed it out to states is quite troubling. One of the people that I have met with on a number of occasions at Bankstown is Margaret Goneis. She is Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Committee in Bankstown. Margaret has explained that many in her community are quite fearful about losing their independence if the income management scheme is continued. This was particularly troubling to the older members of the community. Many of them explained to me how they have worked hard over many years to manage their pension in a responsible way for them and their dependents and all of a sudden they are hearing that their life is about to change. When they go to shops, they may have to join another queue because they have to pay for some of the goods with the BasicsCard that goes with the income management scheme. Members of the Muslim Women's Association also raised their concerns. Many of them do not shop at the big shopping centres; they have a range of small shops along the shopping strip that characterises Bankstown. They were worried about where they would be able to use their BasicsCard. So many of these people spoke about feelings of implied racism and the humiliation they felt because they were being singled out—that when they went into a shop they would have to produce a BasicsCard and they felt that many people would look at them differently if they had to do that.

In my many visits to Bankstown and meeting with the different communities about this issue I have found that there is a robust, caring community in Bankstown. Yes, there is high unemployment, like in many areas—not just working-class areas like Bankstown—and there are social problems, but they felt that the government had no right to single them out and victimise them in this way. I was very pleased that Senator Rachel Siewert was able to join me at one of these meetings, which we found very informative as people pointed out to us why they were so disturbed by the way the income management trial was being imposed on them and why they specifically objected to being singled out and put onto a Centrelink scheme that would be micromanaging their budgets.

I understand that there are only 66 shops in Bankstown that are authorised to accept a Basics Card, and that leaves out markets and many smaller shops, particularly the halal Vietnamese stores, where many people on low incomes regularly shop. It was another reminder for me of just how divisive this policy is.

More than 50 groups in Bankstown have voiced their opposition to the income management policy, and they are certainly sending a strong message to all the politicians who meet with them that they do not believe that we should stop voicing our concerns about this. They are urging that this trial should not continue. It is not making a difference to people's lives, it is not helping them learn how to manage their incomes, it is not helping kids go to school or whatever other justifications the government has come up with. It is not helping to reduce family violence, but it is putting people under stress and adding to their concerns.

The strong message I am getting from the Bankstown community is that this trial should be ditched, and if the government has some money to put into these communities they should consult and work in a constructive way to assist people who are on different entitlements in any way in which they might be short of money. So many of those benefits, as Rachel Siewert has pointed out many times with Newstart, are just inadequate. There are many ways that the government can get this right if they consult properly.