Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Late last year, with a cross-party delegation, I visited Kenya in Africa, looking at the famine there. Four failed rainy seasons have caused such heartache, such hardship. Indeed, it has resulted in the worst drought in 40 years, and 942,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. The delegation, which included Liberal members—Labor too—visited a refugee camp near Kakuma. Earlier, Deputy County Commissioner Mwachaunga Chaunga told us of the difficulty of the balancing act that the community and the leadership in that community faced when coping with the refugees, many of whom have been residing there for three decades—30 years. Many of those refugees are from war-torn neighbouring countries or other nearby countries experiencing famine and hardship, and have never known anything other than the confines of that refugee camp.

Progress is being made to integrate outsiders, albeit slowly, Mr Chaunga said—those people from Somalia and other nations—and to allow them work permits. But while I was at that camp, I spoke to somebody who said to me that there was one thing that was working—in fact, a provision which was having some success. Food rations for refugees in the camp had been reduced when we were there to 80 per cent of the recommended amount, and recipients were receiving half their monthly handout as food and the remainder as a targeted debit allowance. We cannot make this stuff up: I said to him, 'What do you call it?' and he said, 'We call it a cashless welfare debit card.' Go figure! We had just abandoned that as a policy to help our most vulnerable here in this country, and yet it was working in Kenya. When I told this person that we had such a policy in our country but that we had wound it back, he just shook his head. He didn't need to say anything, he just shook his head.

Ceduna has a population of 3½ thousand. It was established in 1898, so it's not a new town—not a fly-by-night community by any stretch of the imagination. It has been there since the late 19th century. We heard the member for Gray earlier talking passionately and powerfully about the benefit of the cashless debit card in Ceduna. There was an article in the Australian on 10 February by Ellen Whinnett, who, coincidentally, was with us on that trip to Kenya. The article talked about how residents of the remote town of Ceduna held a crisis meeting following the abolition of Australia's first cashless debit card program, amidst fears that it had contributed to a rise, to a spike, in alcohol abuse; regretfully, to child neglect; and, as was described, to absolute bedlam.

The mayor, Ken Maynard, was there. We should listen to our mayors when they speak, because they're at the forefront of communities. They're the first level of government in this country, and when they talk about issues affecting their communities we should listen very much; we should meet with them as much as we can. I don't think that's happening all that often at the moment. I think that ministers should go out of their way to make sure that they don't talk at but that they listen to people such as Mayor Maynard. He said that he believed the abolition of the card had caused, in his words, 'some negative impacts'. His predecessor, Perry Will, said that the decision had led to problems on the streets, including drunken fights, vomiting, defecation and people accosting tourists for money. The former mayor said that he had run the visitor information centre for more than a dozen years but that he had retired, and he was just glad to be out of it. He was the one who used the word 'bedlam'; he said:

By bedlam, I mean vomiting, urinating, defecating in the streets—

It's awful stuff—

around the business areas and on the lawns and on the seafront, fighting in the streets, smashing bottles and littering all over the town with alcohol and takeaway food containers.

I'm not standing here and suggesting that the cashless debit card is going to solve all these problems: I am not. But, indeed, what they've seen in the community, and they would know—they live there and it's their lived experience—is that those problems, those very worrying and disturbing incidents, lessened when the cashless debit card was in place. I'll quote Perry Will:

People begging, accosting tourists for money to buy alcohol. All this behaviour was at a minimum when we limited the amount of cash available and people still had money so that they could buy food and clothes, in particular for the children of dysfunctional families.

That's what former mayor Perry Will had to say. Ellen Whinnett's article continues:

Four business owners who spoke to The Weekend Australian but were too fearful of repercussions to be named publicly, said there had been an obvious increase in public drunkenness and anti-social behaviour in the town centre—

in the central business district, since the cashless debit card had been withdrawn.

One business owner said they had locked themselves in their shop and called police after a brawl outside saw locals throwing rocks at each other.

You have to feel for the police; you really do. Their job is to obviously keep law and order, but when law and order unfortunately goes awry because of stupid policies, you have to feel for them, you have to feel for the communities, you have to feel for the families and you have to feel for the mums who are potentially facing greater risk of domestic violence. They want the best for their children; they do. They want to see their kids go to school in good, clean, new uniforms. They want them to go to school with breakfast in their bellies and with lunch in their schoolbags. If the money is being spent on things other than that, then what a shame that is. If the money is being spent on gambling or grog, what a terrible shame that is. This article by Ms Whinnett says:

While the Labor Left had always despised the card—

we know they did; my words, not the journalist's—

some Labor figures have privately expressed nervousness about its abolition following the government's backflip to reintroduce alcohol bans in response to an explosion of crime and violence in Alice Springs.

We know the cashless debit card worked because we've heard from the lived experience of the members for Parkes, for Hinkler and for Grey, but perhaps even more powerfully we've heard from the mayors, we've heard from the mums and we've heard from ordinary everyday Australians for whom the cashless debit card had made such a difference. It's not just the Australian; this is an article from the ABC, an interview:

Once a Kimberley stockman, Kenneth Paul Green now lives on a disability pension—the product of a chronic back injury—

life as a stockman can be tough; it's a hard life—

in a home on Kununurra's fringe.

…   …   …

For Mr Green, he said he eventually appreciated the card, as it helped make sure he always had rent money, and—

this is the critical part of this paragraph in the story in the ABC from 25 September last year—

enough funds to see his kids through school—

enough funds to see his children get an education—

"To me it was a lifesaver … it controls my spending," he said.

The article also quotes:

Miriwoong woman Majella Roberts said the card helped her save money for her six children.

"On pay day you save it for a couple of days … without people asking for it," she said.

"Use it in the shops, clothing shops, even for cabs as well."

Then it goes on to talk about:

NT man Malati Yunupingu—a resident of Gunyangara community in East Arnhem Land—went on the basics card after cancer made him too sick to work.

The Gumatj clan elder said the card helped him save money for food, and fears if it was ever removed—

what must he be thinking now—

completely, vulnerable children in his community would go hungry—

would go without food—

"It would make Yolngu people starve," Mr Yunupingu said.

He also added:

We are living in a different world now. Mother and father are playing cards, on drugs, instead of thinking about the kids. That's the saddest part of it.

He was right; that is the saddest part of it.

We would do well as a parliament sometimes to stop playing the ideology card, to stop playing the partisan card and to listen more closely to those people who come to this place in good faith and tell us of their lived experience in their communities. Canberra is a rather insular place. It's a wonderful place—it's the capital of this nation—but it's rather insular. When people from these remote communities take the time, the trouble, the effort and the expense to come here and tell us their stories, we should at least listen to them—not talk at them, not let them just talk to our advisers, but as ministers and shadow ministers listen to their wise words and heed what they say.

Today we had representatives from Western Australia's northern Goldfields. They travelled to Canberra to have a roundtable discussion on what could only be described as the disastrous decision to abolish the cashless debit card. Patrick Hill, who is the President of the Shire of Laverton, and Peter Craig, who's the President of the Shire or Leonora, representatives with lived experience on the ground, provided real, passionate, experienced accounts of what we've seen as the impact since Labor removed compulsory income management. They attributed the card's removal to the chaos which is unfolding in their communities.

They're very good communities. I've been to many of these communities in remote Australia. As the member for Hinkler said, it's not just remote Australia; it's his wonderful Queensland community as well. They are good communities and they are good people. Yes, they need help. They were getting it. The representatives unsuccessfully sought a meeting with the Prime Minister. I appreciate that the Prime Minister had former US president Barack Obama in Sydney, and that's important, but is it more important than the people who have taken the time and trouble to come across the country to see their Prime Minister? They're just as important, I would argue—perhaps even more so.

Now, I know the Leader of the Opposition visited the regions in February. He heard firsthand accounts of the changes that were occurring in those communities because of the removal of the income management system. Labor was repeatedly warned that abolishing the Cashless Debit Card would lead to drug and alcohol fuelled violence, and you know what? It is happening. Now, we are calling on Labor in good faith. We are asking the government, having listened to the lived experience, having seen what is happening around this great country in those wonderful remote communities, to reinstate the compulsory cashless debit card, because it will not just save people's livelihoods; it will save their lives.

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