Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we debate today the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill, I want to say at the outset that Labor's approach to this is to look to community-driven initiatives to tackle chronic alcohol abuse. The key word here should be 'community', not engaging in top-down approaches. Labor has significant concerns with regard to the existing rollout, notwithstanding the fact that we have agreed for the trials to continue.

As we heard this morning at the Close the Gap breakfast, what we need to do to be successful in engaging with the prevention of alcohol abuse and other forms of community disadvantage is to listen directly to affected communities. We have to empower them and resource their own solutions, particularly through Indigenous-controlled organisations. We should not be engaging in approaches that take the power away from local communities. We in this place mustn't fool ourselves into believing that income management is in and of itself the solution to entrenched disadvantage, and, most importantly, we mustn't forget that the vast majority of people on income support are perfectly capable of managing their own finances. I can't help but also reflect on the fact that, for many people on income support, their finances are manifestly inadequate, which is a significant driver behind poverty, not poor financial management or alcohol or drug abuse.

Labor is not supporting this bill in its current form. I want to take issue with some of the allegations put by the government in this debate yesterday—that somehow Labor had done a backflip because of the Batman by-election. Nothing could be further from the truth. Labor was very clear in its position last year, while parliament was still sitting—long before we looked to a by-election in Batman.

We support the continuation of the existing cashless debit card trial in both Ceduna and the Kimberley, and that's not without reservation. But we do understand that the existing trials need to be properly evaluated, so we've looked to amendments to extend the dates of the trial to ensure that proper evaluation can take place to judge the success or otherwise of the trial. On that note, we don't support the further rollout of the card to new sites in Bundaberg and the Goldfields. We certainly don't support the nationwide rollout of a cashless debit card. We also believe that it is of the utmost importance that wraparound services are in place to ensure that families receive the much needed support when participating in this trial. And, as highlighted already in this debate, these frankly are services that these communities should have a right to expect, irrespective of the existence of the card.

Our commitment in Labor is to consult with local communities about programs like this. We are committed to listening when they raise concerns. We're not interested in a top-down approach. We can see in the recommendations of the Senate inquiry, and indeed from our own consultations with local communities, that we simply cannot support the bill before us as it stands.

The recent Senate inquiry heard that there are huge gaps in the consultation process. For example, witnesses in Kalgoorlie expressed deep concern and dissatisfaction with the consultation process. I was very alarmed to see that consultation seemed to have taken place with local government only and not with people who work with those affected or people who are affected by this card. I was particularly alarmed during the course of the hearings in Kalgoorlie that first nations people were not adequately consulted in this process at all. Equally concerning was the feedback in Bundaberg. What we heard in Bundaberg was that the process was selective and secretive. It was difficult to access and not representative of the community.

It's not surprising to me that it was hard for people affected by this card to come forward and participate because, in many of the consultations, people felt stigmatised and unable to express their very real concerns about its rollout. My very dear friend and Labor colleague in the state parliament, Josie Farrer MP, the member for the Kimberley, has raised significant concerns about the trial based on the experience of her community. She has called for proper dialogue with her communities around implementation of the trial. I've spoken to Josie firsthand about how residents in her community have been adversely affected, particularly in the East Kimberley, and I've spoken to some of those residents myself.

It isn't worth the cost—some $25.5 million—nor is it worth the potential harm to the community to continue the rollout without being sure that it is delivering meaningful results. The best way to do this is, of course, to have a rigorous evaluation so we can be sure that, before proceeding with further rollouts, it is working. And I have to say, I have been very unsatisfied with the existing evaluations that have taken place. For one, the trials haven't been going long enough to enable a rigorous evaluation, and indeed they highlight the fact that the government is absolutely, doggedly, pursuing the implementation of this, irrespective of the outcomes for communities.

There is no evidence base to support their further rollout. The ORIMA evaluation, conducted in both Ceduna and East Kimberley, was flawed and inconclusive, and I support the concerns of the WA Council of Social Services, who raised significant concerns about the representativeness of the evaluations. In their submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, they point out that the extension of the trial has ignored the findings in wave 1 and wave 2 of the reports that the majority of participants indicated that their lives are worse since the implementation of the trials.

If the government wants to continue with these trials, it needs to amend and change what's going on within them, because the simple fact is that many people have reported increased hardship as a result of being on the card. We know that 52 per cent reported running out of money to buy food and 26 per cent reported doing so fortnightly. Despite claims that crime has reduced, independent research by Monash shows the opposite. The Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia also said:

Since the introduction of the cashless card in Kununurra there has been an increase in crime, an increase around elder abuse, an increase around soliciting and black market trades happening with service providers that can trade off the card for cash. So it hasn't dealt with the contentious issues that were identified; it has actually caused a major influx around other issues.

So, I am deeply concerned about the effectiveness of the existing trials and am increasingly concerned about the impact they are having in my home communities in Western Australia. We've seen problem after problem and criticism after criticism, which the government has simply glossed over.

Only last week we saw residents of the Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin left without power for five days due to storms. This meant residents reliant on the cashless debit card were unable to pay for basics like food and fuel, and were left with no access to buy essential goods. This kind of situation is inevitable when you restrict access to cash. I could see on the television the obvious distress that people on the Tiwi Islands were feeling from not being able to feed their families or buy fuel and other essential items. And what was really apparent—and even worse, when you've restricted people's access to cash in this way—was that the minister and the department couldn't even agree on what to do about it at the time.

The simple fact is cash is what gives communities and individuals flexibility. If you look out to the Goldfields, where you want to roll this trial out, you have to look at the microeconomies inside remote locations in places like the Ngaanyatjarra lands, where they have their own internal economies. I admit that I've seen gambling out there, but people also trade and use their cash for other essential items, be that bush tucker or anything else. The rollout is going to have a grave, grave impact on those economies that are very internal and inward-looking and have their own trade that goes on for the community's wellbeing. What we can see is terrible mismanagement, a lack of rigorous evaluation and a lack of understanding of the real situation of these communities from the current Liberal government.

I have to say there are significant concerns about the impact of the cashless debit card on family violence. Police data in the East Kimberley shows that, far from being prevented, family and domestic violence rates have risen since the introduction of the debit card trial. There is similar data from Ceduna. This is police data from the state jurisdictions on the increase in domestic violence rates in those locations. Ideologically, the government might like to assume that this card is going to bring domestic violence rates down, but what we know is that financial control is used as a tool by perpetrators of domestic violence. We know that extra financial stress can lead to problems in the home and we know that women are most often the victims of domestic and family violence. We must be sure that no government contributes to this.

I'm very concerned that the social and economic harm of the debit card has not been given the consideration that it should have been. The trials have an impact on children. We know that some of our most vulnerable children are growing up in these regional and remote communities. Poverty and disadvantage make life far more challenging for children. I certainly know of situations where women with children were in danger of being evicted from their housing because of difficulties with the cashless debit card. Josie Farrer MLA spoke to me about those concerns.

We have a situation here where income support should be about ensuring that everyone, especially children, are able to live life with the basics that we all take for granted. All children, all people, have the right to food, shelter, medical care and education. We're not helping vulnerable families by simply giving them a card and taking away control of their finances. We don't fix disadvantage by stigmatising people who are on welfare. We know factors that contribute to disadvantage are complex. They are often intergenerational, deep and entrenched, so our approach should be about helping and supporting families, not about stigmatising them. It should be one of understanding, empowerment and building resilience in communities, such as we heard in the Closing the Gap approach this morning.

We want to see wraparound services and support for people on the trial, but currently they are inadequate to truly address the challenges that the people in these communities are feeling. The government must look to funding for rehabilitation and mental health services and support to accompany its agenda of rolling out this card further, but I sincerely hope that we can stop that from happening. I want to say that, if we are successful in stopping that from happening, the government should put its money where its mouth is and roll out those wraparound services anyway.

In addition, I want to see the government be more forward thinking in their approach to these trials. The government should find ways to transition people off using the cashless debit card. They should work with them proactively to lower the proportion of their payments that are on the card, rather than people having to apply to committees. We know that at the core of this we want financial literacy and independence. There should be a plan for people within these communities right now to transition off the trials.

There is a long and seemingly ever-growing list of concerns with the cashless debit card. Until these concerns are addressed, we cannot be sure that this very expensive trial is seeing results. We cannot solve entrenched social issues without taking a holistic approach to helping families, and that is manifestly missing from the government's approach.

We're moving amendments in the Senate to address some of these concerns. We want to create a new trial end date of 30 June 2019, limit it to two discrete trial areas and guarantee funding for the services in the trial sites. I call on the government and the crossbench to support these amendments. We will consider the introduction of new trials only if the government can demonstrate, in formal consultation with communities, robust and credible evaluation, and sound wraparound services to address the many factors that contribute to disadvantage. It's simply not possible for us to support the expansion of a program without the evidence that it works, and there has not been adequate evidence to show that. You talk about your support from communities but the simple fact is: this is selective; it is coming only from some voices within communities, and you need—

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The elected leaders of the community in Ceduna!

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you rejecting Josie Farrer as a leader of her community?

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She doesn't live in Ceduna.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Scullion, order! Interjections are disorderly.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take that interjection. Josie Farrer has many members of her own community and, indeed, her own family who have been affected by this trial. She lives in Halls Creek, very near the East Kimberley. She has children who live in the Kimberley and it is a day-to-day issue for her and her community. I've spoken to people who've been affected by the trial and I've seen examples of elder abuse that have taken place because of it.

It is inconceivable that this government would introduce further trials that could increase violence in remote communities, that could increase family and domestic violence, but currently that is what the evidence is showing. We must ensure that evaluation of these trials is robust enough— (Time expired)

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make very clear right from the start my absolute, total opposition to this piece of legislation and the opposition of the Australian Greens party as a whole. I think it is abhorrent, I think it is atrocious, I think it is demonising and I think it is very clear that it will not work. I accept that some, at least, who are promoting this are doing so with good intentions. I think it is very clear that some who are promoting it are doing so with the worst of intentions, to yet again put in place measures to try to blame people who are poor, to blame people who are carers, to blame people who are disabled, to blame people who are sole parents, to blame people who are unemployed, to try to make their lives even more difficult and to build political points around doing so. We can't pretend there is not a very long history of doing that in Australian politics and in this parliament. I am not saying that is the motivation of everybody that is putting this forward, but it is clearly part of what is happening here.

I know it's a very wise piece of advice, in regard to articles online in the Murdoch media outrage-generation machine, when people say, 'Don't read the comments,' but these things are specifically generated to create comment and to create outrage, and occasionally it is necessary to read the comments to see what is out there. And you don't need to spend very much time to see, whenever measures like this are put forward, the stream of abuse that comes forward from people vilifying people who are poor, who are receiving income support, who are on welfare—basically revelling in the idea of making life harder for them, of punishing them, of saying they deserve it.

If somehow or other we think it's a good measure, for anybody who might have issues to do with money management or issues to do with substance abuse or addiction, to compulsorily quarantine the vast majority of their income, continually, then let's do it to ourselves. Let's see how we like it, even with our oversized salaries, to have 80 per cent of them, 70 per cent of them or even 50 per cent of them quarantined and to be told, 'You can only spend this with a card that will identify you at these particular stores who've got the special contract that's making them lots of profit through the people who own the card, and you don't have discretion.' See how you like it. See how it would make you feel. For those of us who might have issues with money management, substance abuse or addiction: do you think that would actually help? Of course it wouldn't.

We've got the evidence. We've got the so-called experiment. We've seen, as my colleague Senator Siewert said. I don't need to have been here for the last 10 years to know she has been going on for the last 10 years about how this does not work and about how it causes more harm than good. Of course it assists some people to have their income managed. Of course it assists some people, whether it's their salary, social security payments or Centrelink payments—whatever it might be. Of course it can help some people. You provide that assistance where it's needed, where they want it, where they ask for it and where they've got support around them.

As some might know—I don't know which of you here would—once upon a time many years ago, I was a social worker in what was then called the Department of Social Security. The mechanism to be able to quarantine some aspects of people's unemployment payment or pension so that their rents were paid and so that other things were paid has always been there, and it's done with support specific to the individual on a case-by-case basis. To compulsorily put it across an entire community or, as is attempted through this bill most particularly, across the entire country—and that's where this will end up; let's not kid ourselves—and everybody who receives income support, with the very strong underlying implication that they can't be trusted with their money, or that it's not really their money, that it's somehow or other somebody else's money and they shouldn't really have a say in what happens with this money, because it's provided through government payments?

We all get paid through government payments. There's no shame in that. It's something people are entitled to. People are legally entitled to income support payments, whether it's sole parents; whether it's people with disability pensions; whether it's carers; whether it's people with family payments, some of which won't apply in this case but many others will. That's a legal entitlement. It's a lawful entitlement, something our community and parliament have agreed that people should get and for very good reasons. This inference sometimes very explicitly stated—'Well, it comes from a government payment; therefore, people shouldn't have a say on what they spend it on'—is appallingly authoritarian. We had a very eloquent speech from now ex-Senator Brandis—rather long, but eloquent—late yesterday noting the appalling shift towards authoritarianism on the Right. He was misrepresenting it on the Left, I might say, but nonetheless we will take that as a debating point. But what could be more authoritarian than a government saying: 'We're going to tell you how you can spend your money. We're going to tell you where you can spend your money'? This is extremely dangerous in all sorts of ways, but it's particularly dangerous right now for the individuals it will affect.

This is particularly relevant to my own state of Queensland because the next places that are being targeted for this include the communities of Hervey Bay and Bundaberg. I would like to really pay tribute to the many people in those communities in my state who are on income support themselves—people who by definition are already struggling; people, some of whom I have met, who in many cases are long-term carers or are on disability payments for the long term. If they couldn't manage their money, they would not be alive. They can manage their money way better, I would suggest, than pretty much any of us. I would like to see any of us in this place try to cope and survive on the amount of income those folks have for more than a month or two.

Of course there are individuals who can't do that, and they need support, but, if you want a group of people in the country who are good money managers, go to people who are on long-term income support payments, people who are carers, people who have disabilities. They'll tell you how to do it far better than a government can—particularly this government.

I went to Hervey Bay, probably about six months ago, before I was back in this place, with Senator Siewert. I'd like to thank her for her commitment to going to regional Queensland—it's a long way from Western Australia—to hear from the people directly in the community. These people from Hervey Bay and also from Bundaberg—I pay particular tribute to Anne Jackson and others; sorry if I've missed out other names—organised a group of people on a bus to travel all the way down from Bundaberg through Gin Gin to a public meeting in Hervey Bay about this very issue. These were all people directly affected. These were community campaigns by people who, by definition, are battlers, who organised and campaigned because they could see not only how it would affect them but the extreme dangers this measure would have, the damage it would do, the harm it would cause because of its compulsory nature. Let me reaffirm that: it's the compulsory nature of this.

It can work for some people in some circumstances with support and with proper analysis of each individual. But to just do this blanket authoritarian control, this delegitimisation of people's control over their own lives on such a monumental scale, honestly, how could anybody think that is actually going to help the majority of people? I would like to thank those people in Hervey Bay and Jenny Cameron, who drove Senator Siewert and me around that day, and Katherine Wilks—I know there are many other names I don't have. I can't remember the numbers, but it would have easily been over 100 people at that public meeting. You've just got to hear their stories of what it would mean, hear what their lives are like, what impacts this would have. People are already copping the crap of being abused, singled out, vilified, misrepresented, stereotyped and demonised because they're a carer, because they're on income support or they're unemployed. There's plenty of unemployment and underemployment in those regions, as we all know. The last thing they need is another volley of vitriol from the shock jocks, the corporate media and everybody else wanting to reinforce some myth that somehow they're a piece of crap when they're actually more resourceful than many.

To use another example, the City of Logan, just to the south of Brisbane, as those from South East Queensland would know, is a city and a region that's often unfairly stereotyped as being a high-welfare area and there's all the negativity that goes with that. I would like to mention an event that happened just a few weeks ago on 20 January. A group called the Anti-Poverty Network in collaboration with the 'say no to the cashless welfare card' team organised a day of support for people in the local community. This group has been sitting outside the local Centrelink offices in Logan once a week for many months now, just giving information. They're not handing out party-political information; they're giving information to people about their rights and how to engage with Centrelink. If this government wanted to properly help people who are on income support payments, how about it fix up the outrageous disgrace, the unbelievable disgrace, of the non-existent service for people trying to make a phone call through to Centrelink? And that's not a slur on the hardworking staff in Centrelink, who have to deal with very difficult circumstances, but come on. I've already mentioned this since coming back to this place. But 10 years ago I was in this place asking questions about how outrageous it was—the waiting times, the inability for people to get through. These are people who are already battlers on low incomes, and they can't get through to get information about their own income. I'd like to see any of us anytime we have a problem with our travel allowance, a flight or our salary payments or whatever, sit on the phone for an hour before somebody would talk to us. Let's see how long it would take before we decided to fix that. But, in 10 years, this problem has got a hundred times worse.

According to evidence from ACOSS provided to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry, this mechanism, this compulsory income management trial, costs about $10,000 per person for a 12-month period. The actual cost to the program over the forward estimates is unknown, because it's commercial-in-confidence. Let's not forget that—there's a bit of a commercial deal happening here as well. There's a valid line of inquiry on that, but I'll leave that because I want to talk about and focus on the people who are directly affected—the battlers, the powerless, who are being hit by this. So it's $10,000 per person per year. Newstart for a whole year is $14,000. Yet this government says we can't afford to increase that. It's been disgracefully declining in value for years. Maybe they don't want to put that $10,000 into increasing Newstart. How about putting it into providing proper, tailored support for people?

This information day, the community day in Logan on 20 January that I mentioned, simply provided opportunities for people from the community to get support. The event brought people experiencing hardship together with a whole lot of services in the area. There were agencies such as Multilink, whose key focus is on settlement of new people into the community; language support; help for aged and disability sectors; support for children, young people and families; and programs focusing on healthy lifestyles for people. Metro South HHS provided free dental checks to over 20 children and advice to adults and information about oral health. A number of people received professional legal advice. Social workers helped people who needed guidance relating to homelessness and housing. An Auslan interpreter assisted with interviews and general translation. The Life Without Barriers group discussed their foster care program. The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union was available to talk to anyone experiencing workplace difficulties—an area that many people who are underemployed or on casual work and who are on and off income support payments have to engage with. These services were complemented by the Anti-Poverty Network Qld booth, which was run off its feet for most of the day by people needing guidance relating to Centrelink and Job Network agency issues.

All of this was done by volunteers, most of them on income support payments themselves. If you've got people in a community like Logan, who are on income support payments themselves, who can organise all of these things in the community for people for free, and the best this government can do is come up with this punitive, controlling mechanism to take away people's control over their own lives and what they spend their money on compulsorily—no way off it—how about you put that money into providing services? Clearly, the need is there. It's left up to the people on welfare to organise it and provide it themselves, because it's not being provided by this government. If you want to try and get it from this government, you spend two hours on the phone to Centrelink, and then your call drops out and you've got to call again. That's about the best this lot can do.

This is the same tired old script: pick on the powerless, bash the battlers. We had lots of media coverage about a vehicle called the 'Battler Bus' driving through regional Queensland at the last state election. I'd like to see the folks who travelled on that bus. It will be interesting to see how they vote on this legislation, because it's the battlers in regional Queensland who are going to cop it from these measures.

This is a clear test. Do people actually care about the lived experience of the battlers, or is this going to be another huge, monumental Big Brother: 'we know what's best for you'? Even with the best will in the world—let's forget about what is pretty obvious political pointscoring being done here by some in the government. The old pick-on-the-stereotype-of-the-dole-bludger mechanism has been tried and true for many years. Let's put that to one side. Will you actually support the battlers in their community by helping them as individuals, rather than this monumental Big Brother sledgehammer dropping down over an entire region saying, 'This is what we're going to do to all of you?' If you don't support it, it means there's something wrong with you. It means you're part of the problem. Let's see how the crucial people on the crossbenches vote with regard to this.

Now, it is important to look at the evidence. I appreciate that some from the government, with good intentions, have pointed to people in individual communities who are supporting this measure. I can understand, on the surface, why people would think: 'Well, this might work. Other things aren't working; let's try this.' But the big thing is it's compulsory. It doesn't work. I'd hate to turn into an old social worker 30 years down the track, but the evidence for so long—so long—has been that, if you do this, it does not work; it does more harm than good.

We've got the evidence from the Northern Territory intervention, as Senator Siewert mentioned. You could call that an experiment, which, as usual, was inflicted on Aboriginal people. It didn't work. I'm sure there were some individuals it helped—I'm not disputing that—but, overall, community wise, it did not work. And it cost a fortune. It worked for some of the people who got paid big salaries, coming in from outside. It worked for them; it did not work for those communities as a whole.

Talking about listening to the evidence, I will remind this chamber—and I will never forget this—in the period just before I finished in this chamber last time around, of the tabling of the Little children are sacred report and how, suddenly, overnight, we had to have this massive intervention on Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. We had to beg and kick to just get a Senate inquiry on the Friday before the legislation was heard the following week, debated and passed in this chamber.

The Senate committee that I was part of—I think Senator Siewert was part of it as well—asked to hear from the authors of the Little children are sacred report, the report that was meant to be the trigger for all this, and the committee wouldn't allow us to hear from them. It blocked us hearing from the people who wrote that report. We had to have a special phone hook-up at lunchtime, outside of the committee, so that we could hear from them directly, and they told us all the things that were wrong with this approach. Sadly, they were proven right. Let's not repeat that mistake again.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to this very important debate. Before I get to the substance of the government's program and the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017, I want to take the time to respond to two things that Senator Bartlett said in his contribution to this debate. The first I'll deal with very briefly, because I'm sure, and I hope, it was just a throwaway political line designed to appeal to the conspiracy theorists among the Greens membership.

Senator Bartlett, while acknowledging there was some goodwill and some good reasons why people would support a policy like this, also said that he suspected that there was another reason why the government was proposing a policy like this—that it was because of the online comments on News Limited websites. It's a fairly extraordinary thing for a senator in this chamber to suggest that the federal government has a major policy for addressing disadvantage, substance abuse, domestic violence and other problems that is motivated or inspired by online comments on news websites. That is, seriously, just gutter politics. This serious issue requires a much greater and more serious engagement than that.

But, moving to the more substantive, philosophical issues that Senator Bartlett raised, I noted with interest that, while Senator Bartlett was speaking, Senator Leyonhjelm was in the chair. I assume that Senator Leyonhjelm has just gone to his office to get a membership form to deliver to Senator Bartlett, because many of the sentiments expressed by Senator Bartlett in his speech were very libertarian in nature. He used phrases like 'Big Brother' and 'authoritarian'. He said that it is better for people, rather than government, to have control over their own lives and that people know how to spend their own money better than the government does. These are the kinds of things you expect to hear at a Liberal Democratic Party preselection or branch meeting, not usually from a Greens senator.

Of course, the challenge would be to see whether Senator Bartlett holds these views consistently and whether he'd apply them to other areas of policy. If Senator Bartlett really does believe that people know how to spend their money better than the government does, why does he, and his party, advocate higher taxes—taking more money from people so that the government can spend it on their behalf? Why wouldn't he instead argue that the government should cut taxes and return money to people and allow them to spend it in their own best interests, as he says they're better able to do?

If he really believed that people are better at controlling their own lives than government is and that they should be allowed to run their own lives then why would he and his party support so many nanny-state, interventionist initiatives in the public health space? Whether it comes to smoking, drinking or eating fatty or sugary foods, the Greens party is a consistent source of more ideas to control people's lives more minutely. It seems the only area—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Paterson, we have reached 11:45. You will be in continuation when debate on this bill resumes.