Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Auditor-General's report No. 48 of 2023-24 and I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

As a senator for South Australia, I'm interested in this document and in what it says about transitional arrangements for the cashless debit card, not just in the transition for government departments, related entities and the organisations that received significant resources to deal with the fallout but in what has happened to the people—real people; the women, children and elders—who were protected from humbugging. That's harassment of the worst kind. It's menacing and co-opting family members to pile on when a person couldn't use the card, as they had done, as the excuse for having no money to give away. This Albanese government and its Australian Greens coalition partners have left people hurt, harmed and hungry.

But, if you listen to senior bureaucrats, it's all going swimmingly. There's nothing to see here. Apparently they have done consultations and locals are pretty pleased. Well, locals in Ceduna in South Australia are not saying that. When I travelled to Kalgoorlie, locals didn't say that either at a community meeting. They were just two communities that asked for the card to be trialled in their communities. Nearly every Ceduna business wrote to federal MPs earlier this year. All wanted the return of the cashless debit card. The chaos is something they live with every day. That's the evidence, they said. Maybe Minister Rishworth could visit unannounced. Ceduna residents say this costs them and it costs lives and livelihoods. There is no real evidence here to argue otherwise—none. Increasing alcohol and substance addiction, abuse, social unrest, family and domestic violence and crime in Ceduna and other former CDC sites have been the experience.

Do you know who's really benefited from the card's abolition? The Aboriginal service industry. It has grown since the card was abolished, and in fact locals also say those same services are now feeding a thriving dependence on those same programs. Couple that with the appallingly slow rollout of the so-called Real Jobs Program, which was promised in an election commitment but is yet to materialise. Indigenous affairs under this government is a fantastic ideological mess. There's no matching that rhetoric with the reality, and you won't hear that at the PM's favourite pilgrimage place at Garma.

This document, the Auditor-General's report, states on page 9:

Robust program monitoring and performance measurement to inform future policy design has not been implemented and no evaluation plan has been developed for the Enhanced Income Management program.

The lack of evaluation of their experiment is extraordinary. On page 10, it states:

No additional key performance indicators or performance measures have been established.

There are several mentions of no reporting, no documenting and no appropriate record-keeping practices. Success simply wasn't measured, and progress was ignored.

So where is the evidence from this so-called transparent, accountable, 'leave no-one behind' Albanese government? It doesn't exist, because they are not collecting it or they won't give it up. We know there are reports that do exist. We look forward to seeing them tabled in this place. Not only that, when the department did receive advice, it was ignored, according to the report, which states:

There is no evidence that the design of the Enhanced Income Management program was informed by ANAO audit recommendations, evaluations or lessons learned from the CDC program or other relevant programs.

So what on earth has informed this? Ideology has informed this. Failing to recognise the truth has informed this, and it continues to validate the mess that's been created by this. The locals tell the truth, though. This report backs up their concerns, and the people who live with the fallout every single day know just that. They don't sit here in Canberra. They don't sit in the big cities. They live it every single day.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my continued deep disappointment in the conduct of the Albanese government in serving our most marginalised Indigenous Australians in this country. When the CDC was removed from our most vulnerable community members, they were left behind and forgotten. The only real justification—it was not evidence based justification—was to appease the woke, paternalistic academic voters of the inner city, who are far removed from the circumstances of those living in remote Australia, where the highest rates of domestic violence, fuelled by alcohol and substance abuse, exist. This government has been completely and utterly asleep at the wheel. As the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, I have not seen any constructive, proactive, commonsense approaches towards improving the lives of our most marginalised Australians.

The CDC was ripped away from the vulnerable. It was ripped away because those with a louder voice and with better access to media—those who could belittle the voices of the vulnerable—were heard, and not the vulnerable. The concept of the Voice was to provide an opportunity for the voiceless to be heard. In contrast to the Minister for Indigenous Australians doing what the taxpayer pays her to do, getting out of her seat in Sydney and going into communities in remote Australia to understand the needs of our most marginalised, Senator Liddle and I live in these circumstances. While it was argued by Labor that the cashless debit card is a racist measure, a similar form of income management was still allowed to remain in the Northern Territory, where 25 per cent of the population is Indigenous. So it's okay for some Aboriginal people—but not those outside of the Northern Territory—to have the support of income management?

I have firsthand experience, going way back to 2007, of speaking to the very first recipients of income management, who told me their stories. A non-Indigenous woman was able to get her child back in her life. The child was taken from her because she was an addict. She managed to improve her life and get off her addiction, and her child was able to be returned to her care. Another woman, an Indigenous woman, said she could now feed her children; there was food in the fridge for the kids because family weren't taking that money from her. In traditional culture we have a demand-sharing economy: anything that you own your family has access to. When your family members are struggling with substance abuse and addiction, you are a target. They will badger you. It is not right in Warlpiri culture to say no to your family, and you're confronted with this behaviour. The cashless debit card was a protection, but, no, some academic in Sydney or Melbourne knows better than the Aboriginal person out bush living this culture—the culture that you all romanticise but that you're not subjected to.

This government cannot come up with a single policy to improve the lives of our most marginalised, because all its eggs were put in one basket: the failed Voice to Parliament. As Minister Burney said, if she had the Voice she would tell the Voice: 'Bring me ideas on this; bring me ideas on that.' She couldn't be bothered to go and find out herself from the people on the ground who are affected by policies such as removing the cashless debit card. Shame! I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.