Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Barton with respect to this legislation. This is important legislation because it directly and significantly impacts the lives of the people impacted by the cashless welfare card. As we have heard, most of those people are First Nations people, with figures ranging from somewhere between 68 per cent and 80 per cent of those affected being First Nations people.

After 232 years of white settlement in this country, there is no doubt that Indigenous Australians continue to face discrimination and that, in turn, raises issues of human rights, natural justice, dignity, self-respect and equality. Indeed, only today, a report was released from The inclusive Australia social inclusion index for 2019-20, which said, 'It paints a sobering picture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the group facing the most discrimination in Australia and the group hardest hit by intersectional discrimination.' That report was only released today and highlights that Indigenous Australians continue to be the group most discriminated against in this country, and no amount of platitudes or patronising by the Morrison government will wash away that discrimination.

This legislation, in my view, has parallels with the child protection act of about a hundred years ago, which resulted in the stolen generation. That action also was carried out at the time in the misguided belief that children were being protected and that taking children from their families was being done for their own good. Likewise, it is now being claimed that the cashless welfare card is being imposed on those people for their own good.

This legislation is like so much of the legislation that has been brought into this parliament by the Morrison government. It is brought in without proper consultation and without sufficient support from those that are going to be directly affected. And I say to the minister and members opposite, who quite often talk about the communication with the people affected: communication is not consultation. Communication from this government, most of the time, is simply telling people what is going to happen to them.

Australia is a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which, as the Jesuit Social Services submission to the Senate standing committee states:

States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.

Again I say to the government and its members opposite: was that done in respect of this proposal and was it done with all those people who are going to be affected by it? I very much doubt it. And certainly that is not the case that I understand from the many people who have contacted me, over several years now, about the cashless welfare card.

I say to the previous speaker, the member for Bowman—who talked about Labor members coming into this place as though we have no understanding and no experience in such matters—that many of the members on this side of the parliament represent electorates where there is a significant Indigenous population and they would be very well placed to make decisions about what they're going to support and what they're not. I don't know of any of those members who have come into this place from outside of parliament who will be supporting this legislation.

At a time when Indigenous Australians are crying out to be heard, seeking a voice to this parliament and have laid out a pathway for better recognition through the Uluru statement, this legislation flies directly in the face of years of efforts by successive governments to end the inequality and the shameful treatment of Indigenous Australians. There is now considerable evidence that welfare management simply does not work and does not result in the outcomes claimed to justify this legislation.

There would be few sectors of society that are in a better position to make assessments about this legislation and similar matters than the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, UnitingCare, Anglicare and others who each and every day work within these communities. And what do they have to say about income management? In their submission to the Senate community affairs inquiry into the cashless welfare card, they all made submissions opposing the legislation. I will quote from some of them. The Jesuits Social Services had this to say:

The Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research found that it was not clear whether a perceived reduction in alcohol use identified by the ORIMA research could be definitively linked to the trial or was the result of alcohol restrictions implemented separately in each trial location.

The chief executive of the South Australian Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council said that there had been no decrease in people accessing the Stepping Stones Drug and Alcohol Day Centre in Ceduna with figures showing that the number of client contacts increased from 2015-16 to 2018-19. They also said:

A national study into compulsory income management in Australia found that 87 per cent of the people surveyed who are on income management did not see any benefits from the scheme. The research found that in contrast to policy discourses about income management being used to strengthen and benefit recipients independence, build responsibility and help transition individuals away from welfare dependency and into work, we found that income management appears to weaken the financial position and capabilities of those subjected to it.

What did UnitingCare have to say about it? They said:

While there is little evidence of effectiveness, there is evidence that compulsory income quarantining has led to a range of adverse consequences, including an increase in social exclusion, stigma, difficulty providing for family needs, and the erosion of individual autonomy.

They went on to say:

Ultimately, we believe that the CDC is a paternalistic and punitive measure, driven by ideology rather than evidence.

What did St Vincent de Paul have to say? In their submission to the Senate committee, they said:

The ORIMA evaluation has been widely criticised for its paucity of evidence and lack of robust methodology, including by the Auditor-General.

They go on to say:

… a comparison of 2014 evaluation findings using contemporary data on child health and wellbeing, education, crime and alcohol consumption was recently completed for the Northern Territory, where income management has been in place for over one third of the Indigenous population for a decade. It found that:

I want to quote from the Salvation Army's submission. They say:

None of the evaluations regarding the CDC—

cashless debit card—

trial show conclusive evidence that the objectives have been met. At present, there is no credible evidence that restricting people's access to cash reduces the incidence of addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling.

Their submission goes on to say:

In a report completed in 2018, the Australian National Audit Office noted that:

"the approach to monitoring and evaluation was inadequate … making it difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare quarantining approach".

Lastly, I quote from the submission of one of the organisations that directly deal with people who are going to be most affected by this card, and that is one of the Aboriginal groups, the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation. They say:

YMAC takes this opportunity to reaffirm its strong opposition … to the Commonwealth Government's continued imposition of income management and cashless welfare measures, specifically its "Cashless Debit Card".

…   …   …

Despite ongoing lack of conclusive, accepted empirical data or evidence to support the government's conclusions that these initiatives are solving the issues claimed to be associated with welfare dependence, it continues to progress this paternalistic agenda.

Again, that is an organisation that would have a better understanding of the very people that are mostly going to be affected by this card than most of us in this chamber would.

There are, of course, other very serious concerns about this proposal. I find it absolutely extraordinary that the government would commission a $2½ million study from Adelaide university and then, before the study has even been released or read by the minister, prepare and introduce legislation in this place to continue this card across the country. Why would you spend public money on research if you're not going to listen to the findings of the research that the money was spent on? It's an insult to the researchers and, quite frankly, it's an insult to the Australian taxpayers who paid for it in the first place.

I also say to members on the government side who come in here and continually rely on statistics that show that maybe things are working that it reminds me very much of the issue of homelessness in the Adelaide CBD. When measures were put in to try to address that issue, all they did was simply push the problem out into the suburbs. Yes, the CBD became a place where homelessness wasn't as visible as it had been previously, and the people who were previously there were no longer there. But the problem had not been resolved at all; it had simply been moved to other communities. And I suspect that that's exactly what would happen with respect to this legislation, once people were put onto the card.

I say this as well—and I've had this submission put to me by several people who have been working within the communities where the card already exists. What the card does is limit what people can buy and it limits where they can buy things from, and that in turn has a detrimental effect on their spending ability because, if they're outside of the community or if they're in a place that does not accept the card, they can't buy any bargains that might exist from time to time, as most people shopping in all other places would be able to do. So the card limits their ability to survive, given that they are already welfare dependent and therefore need to make the most of every dollar that is given to them.

Lastly, I say to the member for Bowman, who tried to compare this card with the cashless society that we live in and suggest that it is little different to a credit card, this card is very different to a credit card. A credit card can be used in any retail facility where they wish to buy a product. This card can't be. What this card says to the people who are issued with it is: 'You are very different to the rest of society. You will be treated very differently, and you can't hide from that, because every time you walk into a store or you talk to your colleagues about what you can do they'll know that you are being treated very differently to someone else.' It comes back to the issue not only of discrimination but of the dignity of the people who are affected by it.

The government should listen to the people who know best and the people who have made submissions to the Senate inquiry. The government should listen to the people who have now been subjected to the card not for a few months but for years. It should properly analyse what results the card has had in those communities and then come back to the parliament with the kind of legislation that addresses the causes of the problems, rather than simply trying to control how people can spend their money. I say to members opposite that I do accept that, for many of you, this proposal is well intended, but I also say to government members that, although it may be well intended, as one of your own members, the member for Bass, pointed out in this chamber, it is the wrong way to go about trying to address serious problems in our communities.

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