Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about the income management card but, first, could I ask the minister to pass on my thanks to Minister Ludwig. He will be visiting my electorate at the end of July to open a new purpose-built Centrelink building. There are two of them there at the moment. They will be closing down and everyone will be relocating to the new Centrelink building.

In speaking today and asking some questions in relation to the income management card, I think we are all very well aware that this is being trialled in Western Australia and the Northern Territory at the moment. We know that the existing process is cumbersome; it is paper based and it is particularly hard on small business. We want to change that. Under the budget measures, we are looking at the income management card utilising the EFTPOS network in order to simplify the process for people on income management, and for small business and for Centrelink as well. So at the end of the day this will inevitably reduce red tape. My question to the minister is: could you give us some more detail in relation to this? As we know, this trial is quite significant. It is significant to those areas, but it may have flow-on effects to other areas. I am wondering whether the minister might be able to give me some more detail.

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