James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Chair of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Askew, I present additional information received by the committee on its inquiry into the provisions of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020.

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to take note of the committee's report. The cashless welfare card—and I don't think there is another issue that so clearly demonstrates this government's agenda to demonise, penalise and brutalise people who find themselves relying on our social safety nets. It is a terrible policy, a devastating policy and one that has through numerous inquiries seen no evidence to suggest that this is the direction our country should continue to go. For the people of the Northern Territory, whom I represent here in the Senate, there has been overwhelming evidence that they certainly do not wish to be a part of the cashless debit card trials or permanent situation.

The people of the Northern Territory had the 2007 intervention put upon them, which brought the BasicsCard and forced compulsory income management on every single family who lived in over 70 communities that were identified by the Commonwealth as areas that they should intervene in. Those families, their children and, for some, their grandchildren have grown up under this system over the last 13 years of income management.

We have heard some comments around whether there is extra food on the table, but can I just remind the Senate that we have had a COVID-19 pandemic which has seen the increase of funds to families across Australia. And guess what? That too puts food on the table. The real issue here though goes far deeper. The real issue here is the focus on a particular race here in the Northern Territory. I cannot stand more passionately against such racist intervention, such a deliberate attempt to continue to disempower some of the most vulnerable families without encouraging them to empower themselves to rise above their particular situation.

It is not good enough to say that the family over there who lives in a remote or regional part of Australia should have their money and their choices determined by this parliament in such a way where they feel they have no chance to rise above their own situations and to grow, just as any other Australians do in determining their own futures, their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their children. The Australian government is considering the best possible ways to support people, families and communities in places where high levels of welfare dependence coexist with high levels of social harm. The cashless debit card is testing whether reducing the amount of cash available in a community will reduce the overall harm caused by welfare-fuelled alcohol, gambling and drug misuse. It is pretty clear the CDC has failed that test; by any measure it is exacerbating harm and hardship. The efficacy of the cashless debit card and income management more generally has been the subject of several inquiries, as I have mentioned, and these investigations have not found evidence of the effectiveness of these policies. In fact, significant harm has been associated with compulsory, broad based income management.

An independent analysis of the cashless card in Ceduna conducted by the University of South Australia concluded:

We have shown the CDC policy to have had no substantive effect on the available measures for the targeted behaviours of gambling or intoxicant abuse.

Isn't it incumbent on us as political leaders to listen to this and, in particular, on this government to listen to its own reviews of its own policies? Yet on this particular occasion a mere $2.5 million review of the evaluation of four trial sites across three jurisdictions, with two trial sites in one, was not even read by this minister. Not even the department that she is responsible for could tell us of the certainty of that report. However, all of that aside, the minister still introduced this piece of legislation in order to continue to permanency those four trial sites across Australia and, even worse than that, include 23,000 Territorians and families in Cape York without even having read her own evaluation report. It is absolutely disgraceful.

Then we saw in the House of Representatives last night the member for Bass, Bridget Archer, stand up and argue that numerous inquiries have failed to find any evidence that the cashless debit card scheme is of any benefit to at-risk communities. She is a Liberal member of the Morrison government who says it fails to address systemic issues of disadvantage among vulnerable Australians. Mrs Archer was telling her team this is a policy that is not working and she does not want to see it in Tasmania. Unfortunately, Mrs Archer did not go far enough and vote against the cashless debit card.

But then we see today another Liberal MP has come out and said, 'This just does not work.' Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent said his expectation is that the government would drop the legislation, which also transitions another 46,000 people in the Northern Territory, in Cape York, onto the card. According to Mr Broadbent:

No one wants to rock the boat over this issue but I don't believe it has broad support in the party room.

Mr Broadbent told The Australian:

People should have the freedom to deal in cash if they want to.

Well, there you go. I wonder if we have courageous senators of the coalition government who will not only speak their truth, similar to their colleagues in the lower house, but stand up and vote against this horrendous policy that disempowers, brutalises and keeps people in poverty and gives them no hope of breaking through their incredible disadvantage, which they do not need thrown in their faces, because they experience it so deeply.

I have had the wonderful pleasure of being able to invite senators to the Northern Territory and to ask them to listen to the people of the Northern Territory. I thank Senator Rex Patrick and Senator Jacqui Lambie for doing exactly that. This particular piece of legislation is going to have a profound impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of families of the Northern Territory who have had enough. I want senators in here to speak from the heart, to bring back the voices that they listen to up north. I also thank Centre Alliance. Rebekha Sharkie and her staff came up to the Northern Territory. I know that that was shared with Senator Griff.

Senators, I dearly hope that you will do some solid reflection on this piece of legislation. This is the time when our parliament can be enormously courageous and get rid of the cashless debit card and get rid of the falsehood of what it espouses to do for the people of Australia, when in reality what it does is disempower, disengage and give hopelessness to Australian families who need far more from us as politicians and who need far more from us as a country that should be working with all families to rise above all of those issues and empower them to be the people that they are here to be, just as we are standing here in this parliament.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make comments on the additional information presented to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. My views on the cashless debit card and income management are well known in this place. From day one the Greens have said, 'This is not good policy; this is not the way to treat people.' Compulsory income management has been in this country, in the Northern Territory, for nearly 13½ years.

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I heard that intervention. For those that didn't hear it, they mentioned Jenny Macklin. And, yes, Labor did make a mistake. I have said that many times in this place. But they have now looked at the evidence and seen it doesn't work. So I give them an enormous amount of credit for that. Certain Labor senators have been opposed to this all along. They knew it wasn't going to work. They've looked at the evidence—or should I say lack of evidence? That is, in itself, evidence, I suppose you'd say. It doesn't work. The final evaluation of the Northern Territory Intervention clearly showed that. It met none of its objectives.

The government keeps changing what the objectives of the trials are. The Intervention was originally supposedly about ending child abuse and putting food on the table, and then the trials morphed into addressing alcohol and drug abuse and gambling. And now they seem to be morphing back into being about putting food on the table. This is flawed ideology about the way that you achieve change. Do you know the way you achieve change? You address the underlying causes of the disadvantage that exists in First Nations communities. You address the social determinants of health. You address the fact that this is still stolen land. We have never, ever acknowledged that as a nation. You address the intergenerational trauma. You address the fact that children are still being inappropriately taken from their families. You address the fact that there's not sufficient housing. You acknowledge the intergenerational trauma and finally address that.

Instead, what do the government do? They take an ideological approach. That's the only conclusion you can draw. Despite the fact that there's no evidence, they still proceed and they send in the warriors to argue that this is the way to go. A certain billionaire puts up the idea that income management is the way to go, despite the fact that the final evaluation of the Northern Territory Intervention showed that it did not meet any of its objectives. This is the time where we knock this failed, flawed, ideological, punitive approach, this racist, discriminatory approach, on the head.

When this comes up for a vote next week, this chamber has the opportunity to say no permanently and end this abusive card which for 13 years has been in place in this country. Knock it off. I beg crossbench senators to knock this off finally. Say no. Don't let them do this permanently, and don't negotiate any form of extension, which is what has happened in the past; they've said: 'Oh, let's just extend this a little bit longer'. No. We don't need any more extensions. It's flawed. It's failed. The government haven't produced their evaluation. They've had it for quite some time now—it makes you wonder what's going on with it. Perhaps it doesn't say the things they want it to say, just like the ORIMA evaluation didn't say the things they wanted it to say, and just like the Auditor-General's report. The ANAO's report found that there was actually no evidence to show that they could claim there was a reduction in social harm. Knock this legislation off, and let's focus the resources, the time and energy, that are wasted on this flawed approach on something that works. Let's genuinely commit to walk with First Nations peoples—in fact, to walk behind them. We need to have First Nations-led decision making here. The government runs the line: 'We did talk to First Nations peoples.' Well, they didn't talk to communities. Let's walk the talk of the new Closing the Gap agreement with First Nations peoples. The cashless debit card is not walking the talk. Knock it off for good—permanently—when this comes to a vote next week.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak briefly to this matter but more to correct the record. Senator McCarthy quoted Mr Broadbent from the other place. My understanding is Mr Broadbent has corrected the record and those comments were actually to do with another piece of legislation. I just think it is important that the chamber knows that. Perhaps Senator O'Sullivan may be wanting to expand on that if he is making a contribution.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the additional information in relation to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. I share the anger and the angst of others on this side of the chamber in relation to the government's pursuit of this legislation. Among this additional information that's been presented to the chamber this afternoon, I note in particular that Senator Siewert asked for information about the departmental costs to date associated with the CDC for the department and any other government department associated with the trials. And it was a rather eye-watering amount: the cost from 2015-16 to 2019-20 was some $33.632 million—for the hotline, the card, merchant management, administration, processing and support, blah, blah, blah. I have to say, when this government is looking at putting people into mandatory cashless debit card income management and they also want to reduce the payments for the same people who are on payments like JobSeeker to just $40 a day—what is it they really think they're doing in spending that astronomical amount of money on micromanaging people's finances? What's the point of micromanaging the finances of people who simply don't have enough to live on anyway?

I note that one of the objectives of the so-called cashless debit card is to address alcohol and drug abuse. I have to say that if you are managing to buy alcohol on those low payments—looking at Labor's dissenting report, we know the research into the cashless debit card showed that some 87 per cent of people on the card simply didn't have a problem with alcohol. Eighty-seven per cent of participants reported they did not have a problem with alcohol. Now, if you take the 76 senators in this place and 76 people who might be on JobSeeker payments in the Northern Territory and who have been placed on this cashless debit card—76 senators verses 76 people on the cashless debit card who get JobSeeker payments in the Northern Territory—who do you think spends more on alcohol each month, each fortnight? Hands down, I'm sure the money spent in here would be tenfold the money spent by anyone on a cashless debit card, so if you want to invite people to look in your pocket, to look at your drug habits, at your alcohol consumption, then go right ahead.

This punitive micromanagement that does nothing to build the capacity and resilience of people is absolutely galling, and I find the focus on making the cashless debit card compulsory in the Northern Territory implicitly and overtly racist. It is overtly racist, just like other examples in Australian history. We had a debate this week about saving a seat in the Northern Territory. In 1911 the Northern Territory was split from South Australia to become a territory, and effectively had its Senate voting rights at that time removed. It had its democratic House of Representatives voting rights removed. South Australia got its 12 senators, and the people of the Northern Territory lost their right to vote for senators. Would we have done that to the population of the Northern Territory back then, in 1911, had the population of the Northern Territory been all white? The answer is obvious. It's intrinsically obvious. The answer is, of course, no. I think in the future when people look back on this debate about the cashless debit card, when they reflect on this debate, they will know that the Northern Territory is being singled out because the majority of people who live there are First Nations people.

So when it comes to these debates, we must, as others have said, leave the cultural authority and leadership around finding things that work for community in the hands of those communities. We are too far and too remote. It's not them; it's not those in the communities of the Northern Territory that are remote. It's we that are remote from them. We have to talk about the issues in their communities in a way in which they have the voice in it, not us as representatives in this place, with all the privileges and income that come with that.

I implore the Senate to reflect morally on what it is to single out the Northern Territory and the other trial sites, essentially and in a large part for their Indigeneity. The government will say, 'This now applies to everyone in the Northern Territory.' But I take you back to the principle. Is the government about to apply this to Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia—to everybody? There are 1.4 million people on JobSeeker payments in our nation. What gives this place the right to start interfering with their budgeting and with their freedom within our society?

These impacts are very real. We leave stupid bureaucratic systems in charge of the fundamental details of people's lives. A person gave evidence to the committee who was a student, a hospitality worker, paying their own rent and earning their own income. Once they finished their study and went onto a JobSeeker payment, they were, of course, also moved onto a cashless debit card. And what did that young person who'd finished their education tell us? They told us that they had lost count of the number of times Indue blocked the payment of their rent. The simple fact is that the cashless debit card is a big bureaucracy that doesn't meet people's needs, that is, their needs to exchange money with family members, to participate in a cash economy, to do basic things like pay their rent. So this afternoon, in this debate, I call on senators to reflect morally on this issue. (Time expired)

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I look forward to a more fulsome debate on this subject when the bill eventually does come before the Senate, but I do want to place a few things on the record and deal with some of the issues that have been raised by those opposite.

I really do respect the contribution of senators in this place. I don't in any way want to take away or diminish their sincerity and their commitment to the substantive issues that are dealt with when talking about this subject. But, for me and for this government, we certainly believe that every child has the right to feel safe, receive a good education and have high hopes for the future. Yet, through the work that I've done over many years across Australia, particularly in Indigenous communities, I've seen firsthand that not every Australian is afforded those opportunities, sadly. Alcohol and drug fuelled harm, enabled by unaccountable welfare provided to parents or guardians, has robbed far too many children of these rights. But, in those communities where the cashless debit card exists and based on the testimony of people living in those communities, we are thankfully seeing improvements. This is through the trial of a more responsible delivery of welfare, the cashless debit card.

The CDC is a user-friendly, sophisticated bank card that offers participants access to payWave, BPAY, online shopping, recurring deductions and the ability to transfer funds between program accounts. Rent can be paid through it. We've heard testimony here from other senators who said that rent couldn't be paid. That's simply not true. There might have been a situation where there wasn't enough funds in the account and that's why the payment wasn't made.

But there's no technical limitation on a person's ability to pay rent and pay for essential services for their families. When a payment is loaded onto the card, 80 per cent of it is quarantined for bills, groceries and living and school expenses—anything except alcohol, gambling or cash, which could then be used to purchase drugs. The other 20 per cent can be used to purchase any items that don't fall into these categories. I've been on the ground in the trial site communities, speaking to local community leaders and meeting with organisations directly involved in the delivery of the scheme and the wraparound services which support it. Their feedback, along with the evidence, has been very clear: participants have reported consistently that they are drinking less. That doesn't mean every single one of them has been able to deal with their issues. Of course not. No-one has said the cashless debit card is a silver bullet. No-one has said the cashless debit card is going to be the solution to the issues that are there.

I have been in those communities. I am not some academic at a desktop in Canberra, Melbourne or Sydney. I have been to these places and spoken to people on the ground. What they tell me is that it has become a circuit-breaker, particularly if they are providing social services to the community—counselling services, drug and alcohol services, and support to the community—they are telling me it is a circuit-breaker so they can help connect with people.

Just last week, a group got together from various parts of the country. It was organised by the Minderoo Foundation. I used to work for the Minderoo Foundation. I was part of the development of the cashless debit card when it was first put to government. The Minderoo Foundation brought together people from the communities in which the cashless debit card operates, including a few other places where they operate the BasicsCard. This legislation before the Senate will replace the BasicsCard, which is a very rudimentary technology. There are only 16,000 merchants across the country who will accept the BasicsCard, whereas there are 900,000 merchants who will accept the cashless debit card, which is essentially just a Mastercard. It can be used at EFTPOS machines right around the country, whereas the BasicsCard is very limited in where it can be used. There were individuals representing themselves at that forum and, in many cases, representing organisations. They were from the Northern Territory and from Cape York in Queensland, where the BasicsCard is in operation. There were Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in the room when I was there. There were about 50 people who had gathered together. Sadly, because of the border restrictions, the people from Ceduna weren't able to come; but they participated online through Zoom or one of those mediums.

At the end of that forum they wrote a communique, which has just been released. I want to quote one section of it. It says: 'We support the continuation of the cashless debit card as an ongoing income management program to make the existing CDC trial sites permanent and to transition income management in the Northern Territory and Cape York region from the BasicsCard to the CDC.' So this assertion that the communities where the cashless debit card is operating now don't want it, or that it is not supported in the community, is simply not true. If any of us went to a community we would of course find people who don't support it. But the overwhelming sense that you get from people when you speak to them on the ground is that they do support the CDC—the mothers and the grandmothers in particular. They care deeply about their children and they're sick of the humbug, where others come and hassle them for money. If you sit down on the grass with them and listen to them, they'll tell you—when there's not the threat of being ostracised or maybe being abused for speaking out openly, like they did last week when they came to Perth—that they support the extension of this program.

One of the great parts of this legislation—just to give comfort to those who are listening—which was dealt with through the committee process is that it removes the power of the minister, through regulation, to expand it into other communities. Therefore it would require further legislation to come to this place in order to take it anywhere else. At that time, we'd be able to have a debate about the future of it and where it would go.

This legislation primarily deals with the fact that the BasicsCard needs to be replaced with a better solution so that when someone runs out of fuel, or is running low on fuel, and drives past a service station which doesn't accept the BasicsCard then they don't run the risk of running out of fuel in driving further down the road where a service station sells fuel by using the BasicsCard. The cashless debit card will be able to be used wherever an EFTPOS machine is. It makes it seamless and frictionless for the participant, and they won't have the hassle that they currently would have with the BasicsCard.

This is going to help communities across the Northern Territory and across Cape York. Those communities which have the cashless debit card already want the certainty of it going forward, rather than just 12 month, to 12 month to 12 month extensions, so they can continue to build on and deal with the issues that they so desperately want to deal with and to get on top. That's what this bill is about and, ultimately, that's what this report has demonstrated.

Question agreed to.