Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to make a contribution to this debate today on the motion before us from the member for Groom. What an important issue it is. This is an opportunity for the Australian parliament to give serious consideration to how we might best address some of those community issues that people have raised with us time and time again around how best to tackle issues of family violence, unemployment, health and education.

What the contributions before me from both the member for Lingiari and the member for Barton really pointed to was that, rather than members opposite engaging in self-congratulation on the early results of the cashless debit card system, it was time for us to ask important questions, to make some observations of those early, initial results and to ask ourselves seriously: is this the best approach that the Australian parliament can offer? We know that the cashless debit card was designed, in the first instance, to try and deal with some of the very real issues that community members raised in terms of the impact of gambling, alcohol and drug abuse in some of the communities. Whilst promising signs are there—we heard members opposite refer to the downturn in the income generated by pokies in the town of Ceduna, which is a great thing—let us see more money being spent in town than put through the pokies for anybody. This is a scheme that was very explicitly applied to the whole of the community. I would be very interested to hear a little more from members opposite as to the scheme's impacts on and benefits for the non-Indigenous communities. I have not heard anything about how many non-Indigenous people have been caught up in the cashless debit card process. I would be very interested to hear some figures around those non-Indigenous people who are taking part in the program, what the results were for those people participating in the program, and, importantly, what their feedback and lived experience were of that program, because we know that there is not universal endorsement of these schemes.

Regrettably, members opposite who were interjecting throughout the member for Barton's speech earlier on very clearly demonstrated the problem with trying to silence dissenting voices on this issue. I think it is very short-sighted of government members not to want to take genuine critiques of the program seriously. If you are dead serious about wanting to ensure that this program is the best it can be, the first thing you would do is take that critique on board, see if you can adjust the program and see what needs to be modified. This is a trial. This is the perfect time in which all members of this parliament, and, indeed, the community, should be taking an opportunity to stand up and see what is working and what is not, and to take seriously those criticisms that have been made. It is not just the member for Barton raising this. We know there are members in your own community, Member for Groom, who have raised some concerns around the use and deployment of the cashless card in your community. It is no secret. It is a matter of public record.

We know that at least two-thirds of those on the cards in Ceduna are Indigenous people, so we know that it is going to have a disproportionate impact for Indigenous people. We know that a Ceduna resident and elder, Ms Sue Haseldine, said that those caught up in the trial who were not addicted to alcohol or drugs have been particularly frustrated with this system. She expressed grave concerns around the fact that there was a lot of depression for those people whose kids are going to school in Adelaide. When those kids need money you cannot send them a BasicsCard; you need some cash to be able to forward to your kids there, but those parents were absolutely deprived of that. And there are many other genuine concerns.

I think that this parliament would be better focused by taking on board those critiques, reminding ourselves: if we genuinely want to deal with violence, domestic violence and health issues, let's not cut our budgets; let's make some serious inroads into those issues. (Time expired)

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