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

I move:

That the Social Security (Administration) (Trial Area) Amendment Determination 2017, made under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, be disallowed [F2017L00210].

This is about disallowing the extension of the trials into the cashless welfare card. These trials, as I am sure people are aware, are in Ceduna in South Australia and the East Kimberley in Western Australia. In the East Kimberley, the trial has basically focused on the towns of Kununurra and Wyndham. Despite the failure of the Northern Territory intervention and income management, which is clearly articulated in the final evaluation of the report which I have spoken about many times in this place, the government decided to proceed with a trial of the cashless welfare card, the cashless debit card, which quarantined 80 per cent of a person's income support. Not satisfied with trying to quarantine 50 per cent of a person's income support in the Northern Territory, they are now trying to quarantine 80 per cent. Recipients were told the trial would be for a year. They were not consulted about the trial going ahead in Ceduna or in the East Kimberley. As a slight sop to Senator Xenophon, a so-called public meeting was called in Ceduna after the event of the legislation going through, but recipients were not adequately consulted, and the government hand-picked people they called leaders in the community to give the okay to the trial.

Recipients were told that the trial would be for a year. On the day it was supposed to finish in Ceduna, the government announced that they would be extending the trial in Ceduna and in the Kimberley. They released an evaluation report, but up to that time people that were existing on the card in Ceduna had no idea of what their future was: were they going to be stuck on the card or were they coming off? I must say that, given that the government had not been talking about any transition approach, I was extremely suspicious that in fact the government was going to find some way of trying to extend the card, and of course we now have this regulation before us which I am seeking to disallow. The government, as I said, announced only on the day the trial was due to end in Ceduna that they would be extending it, and I have to say it was distressing news for many recipients who are trapped on the card and have expressed that concern to me.

The cashless welfare card restricts anyone on a working age income support payment to just 20 per cent cash and 80 per cent on the card. That is supposedly to stop spending on alcohol, drugs or gambling. As anticipated, the yearlong trial, supported by both the government and the opposition, has turned out to be a rubber stamp, spruiked with premature evidence, anecdotes and ideology for the entire year of the trial. Last year, journalists were sent bits and pieces from a so-called interim confidential report. When you followed it up straightaway, you could not get the report—strange, that! It was some sort of secret report. But, when I questioned the Department of Social Services in estimates, they were very clear at the time that no such report existed. I was fairly persistent about this. As people that know of my long-term engagement in this issue will know, I am persistently asking questions about income management and the cashless welfare card in estimates. No report existed.

Miraculously, a week and a half later, a report appeared that had very clearly been thrown together and that sought to justify the minister's and the government's claims that the trial was going really well. Unfortunately, there was not a proper analysis of the raw datasets that were thrown into the report. Those were not questioned. The sweeping statements and anecdotal feedback were treated by the government as if they were gospel. It was very clear that it was nothing more than a set of anecdotal comments that the minister and some departmental staff had been talking about.

The government is now justifying the trial continuation on the basis of the wave 1 interim evaluation report, which was done by Orima. It is the first part of the evaluation of the sites. Surprise, surprise! The government is saying how successful the trial is and extending the trial beyond the initial period. I have to say I am really not surprised, because that is what we thought would happen all the time. That is what we warned the opposition about, and that is exactly what has come to pass.

The government are claiming this is proof of concept. It is so far from it that it is unbelievable, but they are still claiming it is proof of concept and that it justifies them extending the trial when half—I should be correct here: 49 per cent, or half, basically—of the participants on the card are saying they are worse off on the card. The KPIs that the Orima report talks about are not even the same as the aims of the legislation. So we are measuring these KPIs, and they are not actually about the aims that are contained in the legislation and that the government said they are aiming for. But just look at a couple of them; I am not going to reel off the whole of the report. Look at 'Output KPIs—performance rated fully effective/KPI target achieved'. Tell me how anybody that is actually reading this without rose-tinted glasses on could take that from this. It says:

The Wave 1 survey—

I will come back to the dubious survey process in a minute—

found that (on average across the two Trial sites)—

so here we are averaging the information—

25% of CDCT—

cashless debit card trial—

participants and 13% of their family members reported drinking alcohol less frequently since the Trial commenced …

Twenty-five per cent—oh, good! I can see that KPI is met! They are saying 25 per cent is successful when half of the participants are saying they are worse off. They ignore that but say 25 per cent say they have drunk less.

Let's come to the survey. The survey is basically push-polling. We saw this in some of the dubious evaluations that were carried out on the Northern Territory intervention, where they did the same sort of thing. They asked participants, 'Are you gambling less?' Well, of course they are going to say they are gambling less if they are going to try to get off the BasicsCard up there. 'Are you looking after your children?' They know it is a government backed survey. Will they say, 'Oh, no, I'm not looking my children and I'm not feeding them'? They will say, 'Of course I'm feeding them better.' That is not a proper evaluation of the success or otherwise of the card.

The report goes on about other particular issues. It says:

The Wave 1 survey found that (on average across the two Trial sites), around a quarter of CDCT participants who reported using illegal drugs before the Trial commenced indicated that they had been using illegal drugs less often …

Again, wouldn't you expect people to be saying, 'Yes, we're using drugs less often?' Only a quarter of those, by the way, said they were using drugs less often, yet this trial is supposedly a proof of concept and an outstanding success. No, it is not.

Then let's look at an example of the outstanding qualitative evidence they are supposed to have.

The following positive impacts of the CDCT on drug use were identified by the qualitative research:

o   A CDCT participant who had previously been addicted to methamphetamines (ice) but had stopped using ice due to limited access to cash …

That's a great evidence base, isn't it?

o   A family who was now consuming less marijuana due which had allowed them to spend more money on clothes and food …

o   A few stakeholders felt—

they just felt—

that the frequency of marijuana usage had reduced due to limited access to cash.

They felt it? Come on, what sensible, thinking person who actually looks at scientific rigorous evaluation thinks this is an adequate evaluation and proof of concept? You are push-polling people who are, of course, going to say they are drinking less alcohol, when they are asked by a survey mob they know is reporting to government. Of course you are going to get a biased sample saying, 'Yes, we drink less. Yes, we're looking after our kids better. Yes, we're not gambling so much.'

The evaluation report, in fact, reports against just one of the government's supposed four aims of the trial, specifically the aim to reduce the amount of certain restricted payments available to be spent on alcoholic beverages, gambling and illegal drugs. This aim is not proved. I have just read out to you that only 25 per cent of the participants say that.

First, they are connecting the two trials, which means you cannot get an effective clear picture of East Kimberley and Ceduna independent of each other. Second, alcohol restrictions make it virtually impossible to make any clear analysis of the impact of the card. The report largely ignores the alcohol restrictions in Kununurra—in fact, a report has just come out on that. I know the community up there is very concerned, because I have had contact from them that the report is ignoring the work that has been happening around alcohol restrictions. It needs to look at that. They cannot draw the conclusion that it has been successful in relation to alcohol, because they simply do not have the proper data. Third, there is poor analysis of how recipients are getting around the card. The police still think there is a problem with alcohol. The report says that it is not reporting on how people get around the cards. I will come back to that in a minute.

Aim 2, to determine whether there was a reduction or decrease in violence or harm in the trial area, was not properly examined. The increase in domestic violence is, strategically, not reported—neither are the rates of suicide, self-harm, anxiety or depression. As well as this, the key up-to-date statistics from the South Australian and WA police have been left out of the report. In the South Australian trial site and the areas surrounding that, they have seen a large jump in robbery and related offences, up 111 per cent. Aggravated robbery is up 120 per cent, non-aggravated robbery is up 400 per cent and serious crime trespass is up 20 per cent. Where is that in the evaluation report? How is that proof of concept?

Aim 3, to determine whether such arrangements are more effective when community bodies are involved, is not examined. In this regard, the failure of the panel and the collective community action against the card has been omitted from the report. There has been no assessment of the involvement of the leadership groups and the panel process. People do not know who are on the community panels—they do not know their faces. The department admitted that in estimates. The department said, 'We are not releasing the names of the panel.' These people are being judged by their neighbours and by their peers, but they do not know who is judging them when they try and get either an exemption or a reduction from, say, 80 per cent to 50 per cent of their money quarantined.

Similarly, there has been a lot of concern expressed, and that is why community groups, individuals and participants are concerned about the card. You have to question the amount of money that is being given out—and I will come to that quickly on Ceduna—in relation to this trial and how it has impacted on community groups. You have to wonder whether they are more supportive of the card because they think that they will not get the additional funding that has been going into communities. The fact that the communities do not know who is judging them is deeply concerning. Lastly, aim 4 is to encourage socially responsible behaviour. That aim is not examined either.

People are getting around the card, for example, by shopping. I have visited the Kununurra trial site and I have spoken to people who have supported the card, to people who have opposed the card, to participants and to some of the leaders up there. It is fair to say that the community is very divided over the card. You do not have to be up there long to find out some of the ways they are getting around the card. One of those is through shopping. One of the things that the proponents of the card and people who were supportive in the community—non-participants—were saying about the card was, 'Oh, you see a lot more Aboriginal people in the supermarket.' Do you know what is happening? Card holders are going to people that have cash, are doing their shopping for them and are then keeping the cash while putting the shopping on their card. One person said to me, 'They're walking around the supermarket with a list.' That is because they are buying food for somebody else. That is just one way that they are getting around the card.

For the reasons outlined above, it has simply not been demonstrated, and there is simply no clear evidence to show, that the trials meet the four aims or provide proof of concept. Other concerns raised with me include the extremely poor research in the report and the inclusion of views of non-participants in the report. The difference is very clear when you look at participants and non-participants. Non-participants have a higher rate of thinking that the card has been successful and people's lives are better. People are looking at other people and saying, 'Your life's better because you are on the card.' Whereas, the people on the card are saying, 'No, it's not.'

As I said, it has divided the community. There was a complete lack of consultation. Claiming that there has been any improvement as a result of the card—just the card, not the services—is ridiculous, particularly when you look at the extent and the breadth of the funding that has gone into the services in Ceduna. I am not for one minute arguing against the fact that we should be putting money into these communities to improve services. I strongly argue that we should be, and that communities are disadvantaged to the extent that they are because these resources have not been going in. Why is there no adequate discussion of this in the report? They write it off by saying, 'A lot of people didn't know about the services, so they obviously haven't used them, so they obviously haven't had an impact.' I do not think that is a fair conclusion to draw.

There is no mention in the report of cost; no attempt has been made to calculate the net benefit. Given the government's ongoing narrative about budget stress and the need for budget savings, wouldn't you think they would be looking at it if this is in fact a cost-effective way of addressing disadvantage? I argue very strongly that this needs to be addressed. I do not disagree with the government on that point at all.

Eva Cox has been doing some analysis of the report, and has done a paper on that. She says: 'The lack of serious scrutiny of the data on outcomes of the trial to date is deeply concerning. This program is flaunted as being aimed at fixing the supposed problems of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is also a wider experiment in income support reform. The inadequate scrutiny of the program could well be linked to racialised assumptions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are somehow less capable of managing their money and should have their affairs controlled, regardless of whether they drink or have other behavioural issues. Some assumptions are then extended to others receiving working age payments and eventually may extend even further. In the report, recipients are in fact blamed for the majority of cases where the card was declined at stores, in fact I spoke to a number of people who were in the situation where their card was declined, and I would suggest the people I spoke to would make valiant attempts to use the card.'

It goes on to say, 'There should be more education to assist participants to be more confident'—in other words, putting the blame back on the participant. The minister's claim that the report provided him with 'strong, independent evaluation results' is disturbing, and is in fact a myth. There is no clear proof of concept, because there is no independent data confirming validity of any of the claims or anecdotal evidence put forward in the preliminary report.

This is flawed research and flawed evaluation for the government, but when you think about it the government always wanted to extend this trial. We have already had numerous people out there saying they want to extend it to young people, they want to extend it nationally or to the regions. This trial is based on the government's ideology, not on evidence. We know that from the Northern Territory intervention. That is indisputable. This approach should be abandoned. The trial should finish and the government should invest the money that they are spending on this on better services and better ways of achieving outcomes we all so desperately want. I urge the chamber to support the disallowance.