House debates

Wednesday, 2 December 2020

Bills

Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020; Second Reading

5:32 pm

Photo of Peta MurphyPeta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Today in this parliament, in the legislation on the extension of the coronavirus supplement that we debated before question time, during question time and just before I rose to speak, we saw this government reveal its true, heartless colours. We saw this government once and for all put paid to its marketing slogan that it's leaving no Australians behind. If those opposite ever again try to stand up and say that they're the ones who are making sure that Australians can get through this time of COVID and the recession, they will have egg all over their faces.

Today we saw the government strip from its own minister the power to increase Newstart from March next year. We saw the government say: 'Sorry, everyone that we've been telling how great our initiatives are and how wonderful we are because we've helped people live above the poverty line during COVID, because we're going to just stop doing that in March. We don't care that the Reserve Bank governor has said that it's going to be a lumpy and bumpy recovery. We don't care that Victorians are still struggling.' They don't care that in communities like my community of Dunkley unemployment has doubled this year, that there are more than 10,000 people getting JobSeeker and that more than a thousand young people getting youth allowance. This government today said: 'We don't care about any of you. We don't care that the prospects of getting a job between now and the end of March are pretty slim. It's okay, though, because we've got a slogan called JobMaker.'

The worst thing about all of this today, and the votes that we've just had, is that we know there are members of the government who voted against what they believe in. We know that there are members of the government who have said publicly that they think that Newstart has to be above the base rate of $40 a day. We know that there are Nationals that go home to their electorates and say: 'We're the ones that represent the poorest people in Australia. We're the ones that stand up for the unemployed.' But today they voted for those people who don't have a job to go back to an unemployment benefit at a base rate of $40 a day. They stand up and say: 'Oh, it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong to say $40 a day. You're all lying, all you Labor people, because there are all these extra supplements.' Go and talk to an unemployed person about what it's like to try to live on the base rate of $40 a day, on unemployment benefits which are below the poverty line.

So we saw that happen. We also had one of the most unedifying spectacles in question time that anyone could imagine. I was ashamed to be sitting in this chamber today watching the Minister for Government Services not answering questions about robodebt and showing utter contempt for this parliament, for the rulings of the Speaker and, most importantly, for the people of Australia. There was no sense of taking responsibility and no remorse for the people whose lives have been damaged and have ended because of an unlawful scheme of averaging income to issue debt notices to people, which they had to prove were wrong and which were sometimes seven or more years in the past.

We know that people have taken their lives. And we had to sit here in question time today and hear a minister refuse to answer questions and try to say, 'Oh, well, you know, there's this press release from 25 years ago that means: if someone said they were going to do something similar in the past, don't blame me for doing it now.' Surely everyone was told by their mum, 'When you're caught doing something wrong, don't say, "But they did it first!"' Seriously! We're not children; we're elected representatives to the federal parliament, entrusted with the privilege of looking after people who need our help. And that's what we got in question time today. The minister should be ashamed of himself, anyone who supports his behaviour should be ashamed of themselves and all of those ministers in the government that were part of implementing robodebt and telling Australians that if they didn't pay back an unlawful debt they would go to jail should be ashamed of themselves. In any other government, in any other Westminster system around the world, ministers would take responsibility and governments would fall over that. But not this government. They want to strip away supplements and put people back on $40 a day at a time when they need supplements the most. They won't take responsibility for robodebt. Apparently it's okay to spend $1.2 billion worth of taxpayers' money on something that you didn't do and you're not responsible for.

On this legislation that I'm speaking on today: the government want to introduce a mandated, racist scheme on Australia's First Nations people. Today in this parliament we have witnessed the true colours of this government, the ideological nastiness upon which they are based and the cowardliness of those who don't agree with it in not crossing the floor and voting against it. This legislation is racist legislation. It will impact 34,000 people in Australia, 23,000 of whom are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. More than 18,000 are in the Northern Territory. Sixty-eight per cent of people who will be forced—and that's an important word, 'forced'—onto the cashless debit card are First Nations Australians. Reasonable people would think: 'Well, it must be because this will work. It must be because the government has seen what's happened with the pilots, with the trial, and has said: "This scheme is something that is making people's lives better. This scheme is something that is helping people to get into employment, that is helping people to deal with mental health or alcohol or drug issues that they have. This scheme is helping people, and the people are grateful for the help."'

That's what you would expect would happen before such a drastic and draconian policy telling people that they can't spend cash and they can't choose how to live their lives would be implemented. That's what you would think. That's what I would think. But that's not the case. It's the opposite. The Auditor-General's report from 2018 demonstrated that the government had failed to show that broad-based compulsory income management works. This government asked the University of Adelaide to engage in an evaluation of the trial sites following a botched trial in 2018. This evaluation cost $2½ million—$2½ million which would have made a big difference in a lot of electorates, including mine. You'd also expect the government to pay some attention to that evaluation that they paid $2½ million for. Again, no. It's the opposite.

This legislation was introduced into this parliament before that report was finished, before the minister read the evaluation. At estimates, the minister revealed she still hadn't read the report, and the Minister for Indigenous Australians said he did not need to see the report to support making the trials permanent. I guess he doesn't need to listen to the evidence that has been given by Indigenous people, by First Nations organisations for those who have lived with the cashless welfare card to make the decision. If he had and if they had read the report, we wouldn't be standing here today trying to stop this government from implementing a racist policy. They're implementing it on First Nations people, not with First Nations people, not at the request of First Nations people from Ceduna, Goldfields, East Kimberley, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, the whole of the Northern Territory; they're implementing it on them and to them regardless of what they say.

We know that this sort of program can work; income management can work. It needs the community to be part of it. It doesn't work when you force it on people. In some situations where child protection is involved, it can work. In communities that have said, 'We want to do this and we want to work with it,' it can work. But that's not how this government is approaching this issue. They are saying, 'You will do this because we know better.' That's what this government is saying to First Nations people across Australia. To the 68 per cent of people who will be subjected to the cashless welfare card under this legislation and who are First Nations people, they are saying, 'We will tell you how to live your lives because we know better than you do.'

On 12 February this year, the Prime Minister introduced his new Closing the Gap targets. People will recall that. It was a big moment. He talked about it quite a lot in the media. There was a lot of attention on it. This is what the Prime Minister told this parliament, this chamber, when he introduced the targets:

What I know is that to rob a person of their right to take responsibility for themselves, to strip them of responsibility and capability to direct their own futures, to make them dependent, is to deny them their liberty, and slowly that person will wither before your eyes. That's what we did to our First Nations peoples, and, mostly, we didn't even know we were doing it. We thought we were helping when we replaced independence with welfare. This must change. We must restore the right to take responsibility, the right to make decisions …

That's what the Prime Minister told this chamber in February of this year, and now with this legislation the Prime Minister and his government are doing the exact opposite. What is the definition of 'hypocrisy'?

What is the definition of 'hubris'? What is the definition of 'knowing better than everyone else'? How can the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Australians come into this parliament and say that they will, for the first time ever in the history of Australia, take an attitude of working with Indigenous Australians, with First Nations Australians, and not do things to them, and then bring in this legislation in NAIDOC Week, no less—last week—which does things to First Nations people? It's breathtaking! But it's just the third thing this government has done today to say to vulnerable Australians, to Australians that look to the government for support and assistance, 'We know better than you.' And they don't.

We shouldn't, in this country, have people who are living in poverty. We shouldn't, in this country, have First Nations people whose living standards are a shame and a blight on our country. We are, as everyone says, a generous people. We are a prosperous country. We have people in this parliament who are good people, on both sides of the chamber, who want to be part of First Nations people designing and implementing programs that assist their future, yet we are being asked to talk to and vote on legislation that takes away autonomy and goes right back to saying, 'We know better than you do.' And worse than that, it says: 'Thanks so much for telling us about your experience. Thanks so much for telling us that this doesn't work. Thanks so much for coming, giving us your time and your experience and your wisdom about what it is you want for your communities, but shut up now, because we know better.' I won't be part of it, and I tell you what: I won't be part of this legislation being the stalking horse for a cashless welfare card going across the country applying to everyone, and neither will my colleagues on this side of the chamber.

5:47 pm

Photo of Bridget ArcherBridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I'm rising today to speak on this legislation to outline my concerns surrounding the program and the potential implications of making it permanent. I welcome this opportunity to detail why I think it is not the best way forward. To be clear, I'm not at all seeking to condemn those who want this program in their communities. They are not in any way without empathy or care, and indeed I know them to be good and decent and caring people, and I do believe that they want the very best for their communities and to see individuals thrive. There are also community leaders who do support this program for the same reasons. But I note, from the recent research, that there are others over the years since the rollout who have backed away.

Whilst I can see there are measures in this bill which are an attempt to address the stigma that surrounds individuals in this program, these measures miss the point. Stigma is not just external or how our society perceives someone. In all the conversations that surround stigma, we fail to recognise the internal or felt stigma that people experience, making them feel other and less than due to their circumstance. Despite the proposed changes, so much damage has already been done, with many recipients reporting separate lines in supermarkets or an inability to shop at some stores at all, as referenced in the recent Senate report. If that doesn't make you uncomfortable, it should.

There are countless reasons why someone may need government assistance. Certainly, after such a tumultuous and difficult year, many Australians are sadly experiencing for the first time what it means to be without work. Our government has responded accordingly, with appropriate measures that are temporary, targeted and scalable. This program could and should have the same approach, perhaps utilising the card as a temporary tool, targeted towards people who have demonstrated that they need assistance on a fixed time basis with the appropriate support to transition. Applying a broad brush to all recipients in the current sites, no matter their circumstances, is harmful and unhelpful.

There's a high level of anxiety that exists elsewhere in the country beyond the three trial sites. In the northern Tasmanian community that I proudly represent, I've had distressed people, including pensioners, ask me if they will end up having their income managed. And with the amount of time and money spent in addressing the current challenges of this program, it is difficult to believe that this program will end with these current sites. No matter your circumstance, relying on government assistance is difficult not only financially but mentally and emotionally. I have been a recipient of government assistance at different times in my life and I can understand the distress that so many forced on to this card would feel. This system of income management strips away autonomy and a sense of pride, no matter how well intentioned. Government imposing control in this way is not a fix to the myriad of issues driving disadvantage and at best it is a bandaid. Whenever you approach a human problem by inciting shame and guilt, you have already lost those that you are seeking to help. The rhetoric that surrounds social security and systems like income management plays in to the very worst of human nature; we're essentially inviting people to look at their fellow Australians as something 'other' or 'less than'. That's not the Australia I want to live in. I'm standing here as I believe in an egalitarian society and equality of opportunity, and dividing our society into us and them is not the Australia we should aspire to.

I also have a fundamental problem with how this program and this legislation aligns with my own principles. As a Liberal, I believe in personal and individual responsibility. It's the very foundation of our core principles. We work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives. Forcing the cashless debit card program on to people unless, or until, they can prove to the government that they can manage their own finances is antithetical to these principles. Do these principles only apply if you're not poor? I believe we're better than that. It should be pointed out mutual obligation measures are already in place for those needing government assistance and it's appreciated that a range of such measures is expected. However, the level of intrusion imposed upon recipients of this program is overreaching.

The cashless debit card program is a punitive measure enacted on the presumption all welfare recipients within the trial areas are incapable of managing their finances and require the government's assistance. I acknowledge that some communities are more likely to experience generational disadvantage and have generally poorer outcomes in a number of areas. These are all good reasons for the government to provide assistance to address these problems. However, it is not clear to me that the cashless debit card program is the best solution or even a good solution to address some of these systemic issues. Of course we should be looking to address the substantial challenges of intergenerational disadvantage and we shouldn't shy away from that, but I don't believe that this is the way.

One mother of two in Hervey Bay told the media she understood what the government was trying to do. She said:

I understand where they're coming from, growing up in a high drug and alcohol area as a child and having been a victim of parents not doing the right thing.

But they don't need to punish everyone. The fundamentals don't work and it's not targeting the right people. When I have to call these people—

to complain about her transactions being declined—

and I have anxiety, it's quite upsetting and it’s stressful.

Just doing stuff to our communities is not the same as helping. You will always get better results when you empower people to do things for themselves. If we truly want to move the dial on intergenerational disadvantage, we need to address complex issues like trauma and put in place a range of effective, evidence based programs that work to address the issues that keep communities in poverty. It's claimed the cashless debit card program is delivering significant benefits in the communities in which the trial has operated. The Cashless debit card trial evaluation: final evaluation report indicates that those benefits are limited in nature and scope and do not demonstrate an overall improvement in the conditions which the program is intending to address. I do acknowledge that the report found some reductions in the consumption of alcohol, illegal drug use and participation in gambling by program participants, but it's not clear whether the program delivers meaningful change in the long term or just controls behaviour in the immediate sense. There is just not enough evidence that supports the view that this program is a game-changer for these communities and the individuals placed on it to justify the associated harm that it causes.

The program has also been presented as a solution to many issues. However, it casts a wide net that, in my view, punishes recipients as a collective rather than having regard for individual circumstances. It places the burden of demonstrating the ability to manage your finances on the individual, thereby making the default assumption that recipients are incapable of managing their finances. This only serves to stigmatise and marginalise recipients and doesn't fundamentally address the wider issues. In doing so, it also drives assumptions that addiction, gambling and domestic violence only occur in disadvantaged communities. We know this is untrue.

The cost of trialling the cashless welfare program has amounted to more than $80 million since 2015. It's somewhat ironic to me that you can essentially have an income management assessment trial for half a decade that can't show conclusive results and yet there are a number of evidence based programs that cost far less and that have demonstrably worked—programs like Healthy George Town, which was rolled out in my home town, an area recognised for high rates of disadvantage and where I served as mayor. Together with Lucy and Penny from Healthy Tasmania, we fought for a minute amount of funding—$150,000 for 10 years. I was thrilled when the federal government funded the program last year. In less than 12 months, this program has delivered over 1,000 hours of healthy lifestyle activities to hundreds of locals.

The Healthy Tasmania team has also rolled out the Healthy Quit program to eight participants, with three quitting smoking entirely and all significantly reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day. In just seven weeks, participants saved over $2,000. The same group has also rolled out Healthy Shed initiatives at a local men's shed, with a focus on improving the overall health of participants. Of those participants, 100 per cent said the program made them more confident to manage their own health and 50 per cent said that by the end of the program they were feeling less depressed as a result of their involvement. Of course these programs are not a magic fix to the systemic issues that exist in areas where there's significant disadvantage, but it is evidence based programs like these that play a critical role in addressing the issues that can keep individuals from being active participants in their own lives. Implementing a range of programs and initiatives to support communities where disadvantage exists can make a difference and probably at a fraction of the cost.

I find it extremely disappointing and frustrating that we would look to support income-management systems like this while not addressing the reprehensible practices of payday lenders. We are seeking to manage people's income on the one hand while, on the other hand, allowing highly predatory payday lenders direct access to our most vulnerable. This is a complete contradiction and a damaging one at that.

We must move to investing in long-term solutions that create sustainable and meaningful change. The very concept of this type of control of our communities is anathema to me. The immediate challenge that we have is: what's the alternative for these trial communities right now? With just a few weeks of the year left, there is a great deal of uncertainty for those who have been on this program for a very long time. There are not alternative payment structures in place, so to just stop it in its tracks will potentially cause further disadvantage. After such a long trial phase, it would require some work to transition away from it again. I will continue to advocate for that to occur, and it's the only reason I'm not voting against this bill today.

In my first speech, I stated that I want to be a genuine, authentic representative for my northern Tasmanian community and that I would fight for better outcomes for every single person I represent. This type of program will never be accepted in my community, and I want to make it unequivocally clear today that any proposed future expansion of this scheme will not have my support.

5:59 pm

Photo of Joanne RyanJoanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

As the member for Bass leaves, I want her to take with her the feeling in this chamber as we listened to that incredibly measured, considered, informed speech on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. We're all standing here, one after the other today, as we have done repeatedly, speaking about the cashless debit card in various forms of legislation across the last few years as it has gone from a supposed trial, where communities have been consulted and have agreed to be part of it, to something much, much more draconian. And we are always individually trying to capture, I think it's fair to say, what the member for Bass just captured so beautifully.

Like the member for Bass, I have been a recipient of the support systems in this country. As a single mother with three children who worked part-time for a period of six years, I was a single mother in receipt of support from the Commonwealth. I completely understand the comments that she made about the shame, about the stigma, about how it feels to stand in a Centrelink queue and about how it feels to have people look at you as if you are somehow or other different than others. I would put on the record something that I think sums up that feeling. I think it's legitimate here, although we have to contextualise that. We live in a large country, and we southerners have not had a cashless debit card placed on us.

Photo of Julian HillJulian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Yet!

Photo of Joanne RyanJoanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Exactly—yet, as the member for Bruce says. But, on this side of the chamber—and so refreshingly from Tasmania—the member for Bass joins us in seeing what is happening in the north and questioning its validity and, most importantly, questioning the stigmatising aspects it has on the populations that it is put upon.

My story goes like this. As a single mother, paying a mortgage, working part-time, with three kids, teaching 0.6 and doing my load across four days—because I really wanted to teach year 12; I didn't want to work three, because that would have precluded me—I was a recipient of welfare. I distinctly remember that I was going to paint the inside of my house. A kindly neighbour who is a great friend said to me: 'I'll help you do that, Jo. I'll help you paint the house.' And he relayed to me that, in another conversation, another friend of a friend had said to him: 'Why are you helping Joanne paint the house? It's not her house. She's a single mum.' And when I spoke to that person and pushed him, he said, 'I think it's a bit rich that you're getting taxpayer dollars and you're paying a mortgage.'

Take it in, folks. The things we say in this place and the rhetoric we use has impacts in the suburbs and in our communities in terms of the assumptions and the things that we suggest about people. And this legislation is one of the worst examples of that that I have seen, not just in my seven years in this parliament but in my time on this planet. It makes me ashamed to be Australian that we're even discussing this—that we are prepared to have a discriminatory piece of legislation that discriminates in geography and discriminates in race. And there is no way around this. The communities where this is targeted know that. The rest of Australia knows it. You only need to talk to a pensioner who hears about the government's working group to understand that they know what it means, because they say to me, 'So we're going to be discriminated against, too.' They know who's being discriminated against, and they know what it means. So I stand here today thrilled that the member for Bass has the courage through her convictions and her life experience to stand up for her community and, in doing so, to stand up for every community across this nation to say that supporting someone and helping someone is not about taking their choices away.

We've all read the reports, we've all read the reviews and we've all read the assessment from the University of Adelaide. We know that this system is completely and utterly flawed. We know that it's rolled out with one hand to control someone's spending under the guise of saying, 'You shouldn't be spending money on alcohol, you shouldn't be spending money on cigarettes and you shouldn't be spending money on illicit drugs.'

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

There are laws to stop people spending money on illicit drugs, and the member just said 'Hear, hear!' Sorry, I drink, and so do most Australians. It's not illegal in this country. I'm sorry; I come from a community with lots of low-socioeconomic people who drink and smoke, perhaps too much. We in this place are not in a position to hold ourselves above the people we represent, and that's exactly what this piece of legislation does. It says, 'We are better than you.' It says: 'It's legal to drink alcohol and it's legal to smoke cigarettes, but not if you live in certain parts of the country and not if you're of a certain ethnicity. Then it's the wrong thing for you to do.'

I also want to say that what the member for Bass had to say was so refreshing, because I've been here for seven years in which I've listened to those opposite on speak on bills related to the cashless debit card on more than one occasion and have left this chamber disgusted. An absolute fundamental understanding of poverty and what it's like to live in chaos is lacking over there. We've got teachers all over this country. We are trained in this. It's a really simple thing. We go into classrooms to work with kids who may have come from a chaotic home that morning, and, right now, with the recession, some of those homes that have been stable will be, at this point in time, chaotic. People will put bills on top of the fridge hoping they'll fall down the back so they don't have to think about paying them and wonder about how they're going to pay to get the hole in the roof fixed. Sound familiar? Where does this come from? Where's the worst case for housing in this country? That'd be in remote communities. Where do we know that these things are happening intensely? In remote communities.

If you do not understand this lived experience of living in poverty, if you do not understand what it's like to not know where next week's income is going to come from and if you think that putting something in place to control someone's spending is going to fix that then you're mad. This is a government that cut funding for financial advice from people in my community. They could go and get a financial adviser to assist them to do their budget across the next six months so that they could get some relief from the stress of poverty and get their heads above water so that every night they weren't feeling so crushed, every night they weren't feeling so desperate and every night they weren't wondering how on earth their life was ever going to change. Putting the cashless debit card into these communities doesn't change that feeling; it entrenches that feeling. It entrenches a feeling of worthlessness.

This card does not support an addict getting off a drug. All of the studies have told you this, but you persist, and you leave me absolutely distraught. As my friend and as my other colleagues have pointed out, there are lots of ways that we can help and support people, but, when someone willingly comes to the table to seek that support, we know the outcomes are almost guaranteed to be effective. And in the communities that this is being rolled out into, this legislation suggests all you're going to do is increase stigma.

The member for Bass mentioned something that I hadn't read yet, and that was the notion that there were different queues happening at supermarkets for those with one card and another. We've all had that, haven't we? Haven't we all been in a supermarket where you've forgotten your PIN and you're standing there with a basket of groceries? What's the first thing you think? You don't think: oh, the whole supermarket will know I've forgotten my PIN. What you think is: the whole supermarket thinks I've got no money. That's what you're fearful of. So, if the studies had supported this, you might have convinced some of us over here. But it hasn't. The minister conceded that he hadn't even read the report, hadn't even read the review, that cost millions of dollars.

We sat here earlier in the year on Close the Gap Day, and I was appalled listening to the Prime Minister, because I thought that he was very close—in fact, he was suggesting that we should reduce the targets, because we hadn't reached them. I'm from a place in education where we work on targets; we work on data. And the last thing you do is go, 'Oh, that looks a bit too hard; let's make it a bit easier on ourselves.' Imagine if our schools did that. Imagine if our schools did that, member for Bowman. You'd be in here yelling at them every day if they did that—if a school said, 'We've set these targets. They're way too high. We need to make them a bit easier.' But that's what the Prime Minister was suggesting in here on Close the Gap Day: 'It's all too hard. Let's reduce the target. Let's make it easier on ourselves.' Or, worse: 'Let's scrap them.'

Then there was a bit of a change of heart and a different tone. The Prime Minister came in here and made a speech about not doing 'to'—remember?—but about doing 'with'. Let me tell you, the communities that this is focused on, they tell me—here it is again—'It's about us, and it's done without us. It's going to be done to us.' It is, under no circumstances, something that should be happening in this country—in the country that we all love. It just shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't be in here debating this.

This program should not be being expanded. The trials, where they have evidence that they are working, should be reviewed again to see if they're still working. Because, fundamentally, this creates a system where some Australians are different to others—different in economic terms, different in social terms and seen differently by their government. There is no way around this, guys. There's only one way this is perceived anywhere in Australia. They see the discrimination in this. They are appalled by the discrimination in this. And even those who thought, 'Let's give it a go and see how it goes' are saying, 'Where's the evidence to say it's working?' Well, the evidence is not there to say it's working, but we're going to expand it. We're going to increase the number of people who are included and the number of people who are being seen as separate, different and other by the Australian government. So what's the point of any constitutional conversation about who's Australian; who isn't Australian? Why do we bother with Closing the Gap when, with the other hand, we bring in discriminatory legislation that clearly discriminates on geography and discriminates on race just purely on numbers?

I'd close my remarks to say that it's another situation where, on this side of the House, we continue to stand up for people. I'm pleased to see the member for Bass has come in here tonight and spoken from her conscience and stood up for Australians across the country. I'm disappointed that the member for Bass said that she wasn't actually going to vote against this bill, because I think it would have been symbolic—and I think there are others on that side who would have stood beside her, if she'd chosen to do it. I wonder—and I'm being very cynical—if this is not the moment that the pairing arrangements that we have in place for COVID do not shine a light on the fact that members opposite may be outside when we vote on this tonight because they've asked to vote on it tonight when the member for Bass is paired out of this room. Sorry, but you need to know that that's what's happening. Because if you didn't know in your party room, then you need to know now. We're going to vote on this tonight, and the member for Bass is going to be paired out of this chamber. For all of the people who think that the COVID regulations can't be used this way and that it's still representative, this shines a light on that as well.

6:15 pm

Photo of Ged KearneyGed Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Skills) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important bill, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill. I want to add my voice to the support for the amendment that my esteemed colleague the member for Barton has circulated. It's worth noting once again, in the middle of this debate, what the amendment is. It calls on the House to note:

(a) thirteen years after the Howard Government's so-called Intervention in the Northern Territory, there is no evidence that compulsory, broad-based income management works;

(b) the Minister decided to make the Cashless Debit Card trial permanent before reading the independent review by Adelaide University; and

(c) this proposal is racially discriminatory, as approximately 68 per cent of the people impacted are First Nations Australians …

And it calls on the government to:

(a) not roll out the Cashless Debit Card nationally; and

(b) invest in evidence-based policies, job creation and services, rather than ideological policies like the Cashless Debit Card.

The member for Bass outlined a number of such policies that could be used in her own electorate instead of the cashless debit card, and we've heard from many previous speakers on the problems with this card.

Labor does not support this bill. In essence it is a racist bill, an ideological bill, a bill developed without an evidential base and a bill that impinges upon human rights and freedoms under the guise of fixing serious social issues. In fact, it is a bill that creates more problems than it purports to fix. It's a typical Liberal Party response; it is punitive and taps into negative populism, entrenching bias and disadvantage. We on this side of the House were profoundly disappointed to see that the government brought this bill forward for debate in NAIDOC Week, a week when we celebrate the achievements of First Nations peoples, appreciate their resilience and recognise their struggle.

As a non-Indigenous woman, I take my cues and I learn from my esteemed colleagues—the member for Barton, and Senators Dodson and McCarthy—when it comes to First Nations policy and legislation in this place. I listen to the people in the First Nations communities in my electorate, and there are many. And I hear the voices of First Nations people nationally, particularly through that seminal communique, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a statement that Labor is committed to enacting. What they've taught me is that listening and talking is important but that, in truth, it is only part of what must be done. What is equally important, and harder to do, is taking action—actually doing the hard work of reconciliation. The Liberals talk a big game when it comes to reconciliation, but when push comes to shove they are not there to do the hard work. It's just like what we saw last month in the Senate, where the Liberal Party voted against a motion to hang the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. Again, they voted against that during NAIDOC Week.

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

Minister, are you rising on a point of order?

Photo of Luke HowarthLuke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) Share this | | Hansard source

Yes, this is on relevance. This bill has absolutely nothing to do with race.

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

Your point of order is not upheld. Continue, please.

Photo of Ged KearneyGed Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Skills) Share this | | Hansard source

As we know, this bill, as has been stated time and time again by members from this side of the House, does actually affect more Aboriginal people. It is discriminatory because, as a percentage of people that this affects, First Nations people are disproportionately represented. Now the government is pushing through this legislation, which is an incredibly clear example of policy being done to First Nations people and not with them.

This bill will make the cashless debit card permanent in the existing trial sites of Ceduna, East Kimberley, the Goldfields, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. It will permanently replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card in the Northern Territory. The bill will also replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card in Cape York and extend income management in Cape York to 31 December 2021.

I acknowledge that the community of Cape York is in a unique situation with community management at its heart. It's a system that is not replicated across the country with the use of this card. We have long stated very clearly that, if people want to be on the card, that is their right, and it is not up to Labor to stand in the way, but it has to be done with full and informed consent. As far as I can see, there has not been full and informed consent in any of the other communities in terms of what the government is intending to do with this card. As the member for Barton said, the agenda is very clear. It is a continuation of the disdain that this government holds in relation to people who need to rely on social security payments.

It is true that the bill will make it easier for people to volunteer to be placed on the cashless debit card or allow a person to remain on the card when they move outside one of the prescribed areas if they want to, but it also enables the secretary to make value judgements about people far from their view and in another world, disconnected from anyone they know, to revoke the cashless debit card exit provisions. They can decide that they no longer believe that the person who exited the card is reasonably and responsibly managing their affairs.

We hear time and time again that applications to come off the card fail. It's almost impossible to be allowed to come off the card, despite people showing that they are managing their own affairs and that they are reasonable people. They should be allowed to come off the card. We know that it is virtually impossible. So few people are allowed to come off the card. In a fairer world than that run by the Liberal government, of course, coming off the card wouldn't be necessary, as you wouldn't be on one in the first place.

You might assume that a bill this far reaching would have an incredible weight of evidence backing it in. Well, you'd be wrong. The University of Adelaide has undertaken a review of the cashless debit card—an independent review by a reputable institution—yet in Senate estimates the minister was forced to admit that she had not read the review by Adelaide university before she and this government decided to make the cashless debit card trials permanent. It's unbelievable. It just says so much about this government's callous disregard for people's lives that it could press ahead with this without paying attention to the facts, without paying attention to the evidence and without paying attention to what is actually going on in people's lives. Just yesterday I was speaking about the Family Court bill. The government has done a similar thing here. They put together a whole piece of legislation that ignores all the evidence. The result is that we have legislation that does exactly the opposite of what this country needs.

Given the government doesn't seem to be aware, let me outline what some of the relevant research has found. Researchers from four universities said in a report released in February this year that they had uncovered an overwhelming number of negative experiences stemming from the card, ranging from feelings of stigma, shame and frustration to practical issues, such as the cardholder simply not having enough cash for essential items or important things like paying for their child to go to school camp or buying the little things that they need.

It's no wonder the community has been incredibly vocal on the issue of the cashless debit card. They know that it is in its essence a racist program—one that disproportionately targets First Nations peoples and takes away their agency and their control over their own money, their lives and their families' lives. Sixty-eight per cent of those affected by this bill are First Nations people. I've had hundreds of emails on this issue, with people describing it as blatant discrimination, harking back to paternalistic colonial policies, which we had all hoped our country had moved beyond.

I'm lucky to represent an electorate that is home to 12 First Nations peak bodies. Their position has been united and clear on this issue. They have told me that no-one should have this program forced on them, that this program so clearly represents the colonial attitudes that they struggle against every day and that it is yet another example of the government telling them that they aren't equals, that they don't deserve to have control over their own lives and that they need the oversight and patronising paternalism of the government to survive.

I'm humbled to be here today in my position of privilege to be able to amplify in this chamber the voices of the people who have come to me as their elected representative. They're asking not to be forced into this program, not to have it forced onto their communities that simply don't want it. Rather than blame and punish people in Australia, the government should be putting all its energy into reinvestment opportunities to close the gap. Many of those, as I said earlier, were described by the member for Bass. She was absolutely right when she said that.

The overwhelming message from this year's Closing the Gap report is that, 12 years on, the statistics, the numbers, the human outcomes are getting worse, not better. Labor knows that closing the gap depends on all Australians acknowledging the continuing trauma of colonisation and the stolen generations. This is what Prime Minister Keating acknowledged when he spoke at Redfern 26 years ago and declared:

… the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.

It begins, I think, with that act of recognition.

Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.

We need to listen, learn and take direction from our First Nations people. So we need to commit to no longer making decisions about them and for them. We cannot ignore the lessons nor ignore the way forward. We need constitutional recognition. We need to keep the process of reconciliation alive. We need to work towards a makarrata commission of truth telling and healing. And ultimately we need treaty, because I honestly believe that, if we had treaty, bills like this would never exist.

6:26 pm

Photo of Andrew LamingAndrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is a delight to join this very impassioned and important debate about the cashless welfare card. The case from the opposition is very much that this policy is racist, punitive, shameful and costly. I will try and address those four key points, but I will focus on the evidence. Many of us have visited Indigenous communities. You will hear both sides of the cashless welfare card debate there, so it's inevitable that we would listening to the voices that suit our line of reasoning. That is only natural. But it's very important that all of us don't just fly in like seagulls, spend a day and talk to our chosen spokespeople.

I have a particular interest in speaking to members in this chamber who've lived in a remote Indigenous community, paid the rates, paid the rent, lived locally and seen it for themselves. I'm not one who has done that. In 1993 and 1994, in that very, very difficult time pre welfare controls and welfare cards, I was spending a lot of time in Lajamanu, a semidesert Warlpiri community in the Northern Territory. That work in 1993 and 1994 gave me the time to spend night after night and week after week in this community and see the ravages of petrol sniffing at the time. The Warlpiri people, speaking their language, would meet in large groups and mourn the inability of traditional Indigenous structures to deal with petrol and how they could communicate with the youth that they felt that they'd lost. These kinds of problems, when you've seen them firsthand—I couldn't understand the Warlpiri conversations, except the term 'petrol sniffing', because they didn't have a word for the very thing that the traditional culture was attempting to control and deal with.

The card is not perfect, of course. The card is in many ways the best way that a Western system can deal with its own limitations, which is the payment of cash as a form of income replacement. Even the payment of cash itself creates problems, a point this debate seems to have almost neglected, because before the card we paid cash, and we had terrible problems. Were I to be introducing cash I would make all these same arguments about cash. This is a relative debate about the change between the payment of cash and the introduction of a portion of that payment not being cash. It is a very subtle argument that I feel is being lost.

There is nothing racist about the policy. It is true that some of these types of social malaise are higher in Indigenous communities. It is true we went first to the parts of this great nation where these concerns were greatest, but we got Indigenous community support for it, and the first thing we said was that this card will apply to everyone here, not just to Indigenous Australians. It is a great disappointment for me that the Labor Party continues to muddy the waters there. It is true it has been introduced in areas of predominant Indigenous population. It was done with community agreement and it applied to every Australian. It's a shame that that gets liquid papered away.

The elements of punitive and shame around these cards are very hard to avoid. It's quite right that there can be significant shame about being placed on a card; I don't deny that. There's significant stress and trauma about sitting a NAPLAN test; I can't help that either. But it is a shame if elected representatives kick that shame along and promote it, and fan the flames of shame by continuing to vocalise it. I can appreciate some people will not like a government policy, but, to be honest, everything has been done in this policy to make it applicable and acceptable. Honestly, we are both cultures that now live on credit cards. We live with cashless payments, whether they come from an employer or the government. My entire life is cashless now. To simply claim and poke people and say, 'Your card's a different colour,' is to overly aggravate this debate in a negative way.

We could see self-evidently that gambling and alcohol were causing a problem. And it's not that we say nothing else works. To the members on the other side, I say that the pedal is on the floor with every other program money can afford and we still can't fix the problem. I think it's a very high bar to say: 'You know what? You introduced the card and the problems didn't go away.' That's not a failure of the card any more than it's a failure of the social worker who's delivering social services or the OT who's delivering occupational therapy services; they don't fail because the problem wasn't fixed. This is one of a range in this causal web of dysfunction that exists in every corner of Australia—black and white, and everything in between—and we need to work in every corner to do our very best. The card is just one extra element of it. It deserves to be studied, it deserves to be evaluated and it deserves to be excoriated if people find that that, in fact, is what's happening.

In reality, this is one intervention sitting alongside a range of other reforms. I think the government's done a good job over time to technologically make this card almost indistinguishable from a credit card. You'd need a PhD to work out the difference when you're using those two cards—a cashless debit card and a credit card—going through a tiny supermarket or your local store.

Let's be honest here: where it's been introduced, virtually everyone in those communities is on the card. We've now moved to Bundaberg in doing a mainstream trial. I think it's repugnant to say, 'In Bundaberg 95 per cent of the people on the card are white, so this is racist against whites.' That's the absolute counterargument to what's being put to us today. It's nothing to do with the colour of your skin. Thank you so much to the member for Petrie for standing up and saying that this has got nothing to do with race. This is a great country that's trying to pull itself together and close gaps. It's wrong to characterise this card in such a way.

There have been multiple independent evaluations. Not all of them have been positive; we accept that. What I want to do is go through the incontrovertible evidence that there is less drinking reported, fewer drugs reported and less gambling reported—and that was the goal of the card. It didn't say those things would go away with the card; anyone who's lived in a community would understand they don't go away. We're only quarantining 80 per cent anyway, so there's still 20 per cent there. I'm speaking for Australians in every other corner of this country who would say it's only reasonable that 80 per cent of a taxpayer transfer to someone on income replacement should be spent on their kids, on food and on basic household expenses. Twenty per cent is still there for all the gambling and alcohol that you want. That point seems lost on the Labor Party.

Today I come into this great place to say that I stand for the 25 per cent of people in these areas who report that they drink less alcohol. Very few say that they drink more alcohol because of the card. I stand with those 25 per cent. I'm not going to have that ripped away from them. I stand for the 22 per cent who reported reducing the number of times that they drink and the number of episodes of heavy drinking. I'm not going to have that ripped away from them. I will stand with those 22 per cent. It doesn't mean that the other 78 per cent are drinking more and more frequently. That's not the case at all; they're not.

We know that there's a positive change in gambling behaviours. Twenty-one per cent of addicted gamblers have said that the card has created a positive change, and 35 per cent of that 21 per cent said it helped in gambling for themselves. More importantly, 43 per cent said it helped in relation to their extended family, 38 per cent in relation to their friends and 60 per cent in relation to what gambling is going on in their community. I won't have that ripped away from them. There's no-one gambling more because of this card. I'm not going to let those people down. Over 40 per cent of CDC participants say they feel safer. I'm not going to have that ripped away from them. Twenty per cent of cashless debit card recipients say that they've been able to reduce illicit drugs use, one of the most addictive things there is, and they report that it's reducing. I can't find any other program around the country that does that. If it exists, I'll roll it out next to the card, complementary, as a partnership approach. Fundamentally, we needed a way to stop the fanning of the fire and the supply of the cash that was creating this problem.

Forty-five per cent of respondents reported that the cashless debit card improved things for them in general terms most of the time. That's about half the community. And the other half reported that things didn't change much. I'm not going to rip that away from that 45 per cent. When we look at the initial evaluation—that was two years ago—41 per cent reported drinking less alcohol, with 37 per cent bingeing less frequently. These are extraordinary numbers and they need to be recognised in this place. Forty-eight per cent were gambling less back in 2017. Forty per cent of parents said they could look after their children better. I'm not going to rip that away from that 40 per cent. Forty-five per cent said they were saving money for the first time or better able to save money. There's no doubt the card does that. A family can find more money than they can dream of on the card because the money isn't being spent in some of these other restricted areas.

Merchants themselves reinforce this, saying that there are increased purchases of baby items, food, clothing, shoes, toys and other goods. I will never stop the card when it means a child won't be locked in the bathroom in faeces covered nappies while their parents do drugs or alcohol; I can certainly help these parents who report these massive changes. There's increased motivation to find employment. Our culture has had millennia to get used to alcohol and to realise that you can consume it so long as you can turn up to work the next day. The moment you can't, there's a problem and there has to be some kind of intervention. Those sorts of practises haven't had time to permeate through every corner of the nation. One day they will, but in the meantime we need to ensure that government transfers for income replacement aren't spent on unlimited grog. We're just saying that grog can't be more than a fifth of the household expenditure.

Most close to my heart is the Australian Early Development Census. We do it every year; prep teachers all around the country do it. These figures are extraordinary. Up in Kununurra, in the western desert, we saw very few solutions to heavy alcohol consumption. The number of vulnerable kids reported lacking two domains of progress fell significantly in Kununurra at the time of introducing the card. There were significant improvements in social competence, emotional maturity, language, cognition, communication skills and general knowledge. I've lived in a community where there was endemic petrol sniffing and foetal alcohol syndrome, and we knew of nothing that could make any difference to foetal alcohol syndrome. We had no solution. We couldn't even stop mums we could see were pregnant drinking alcohol all day, every day with their other child strapped in a stroller. There are no pubs in the communities I'm talking about. Children were strapped in strollers all day under a tree. We're trying to reduce the amount of money spent on alcohol, and the card has done that absolutely and obviously.

We've reviewed emergency food relief vouchers and the use of parcels in Ceduna. Within 18 months of being placed on the card, around one-sixth of participants no longer needed or needed way less assistance in that area. I will not rip that away from those parents. From 16 March through to 19 March, the three-year period, the unemployment rate across all four sites had fallen by at least one per cent in the context of nothing ever having reduced unemployment before. We can see when we look at merchant data that these cards have a stabilising force and they assist participants in paying for essential items. The Labor Party says that this card is a shame, when the reality shows that participants can actually pay for what they need. The card is a source of not shame but pride. Administrative data shows us that over $2.8 million worth of alcohol would have been purchased but hasn't been thanks to the card, and that includes gambling products. That's a significant reduction in alcohol sales. Obviously, those sales would have gone ahead without the card.

Since the COVID supplement in March this year, it was a very interesting natural experiment. Around $10 million has been spent within supermarkets and grocery stores—a huge jump—but the question is: what has it been spent on?

About $1.2 million of that has been spent on clothes and shoes, and a lot of that was for children. I will not rip it away from those families. But before you can suggest that this is just about more cash flowing through a community, there's evidence also of an increased spending on recreational goods and appliances. Examples would include TVs, PlayStations and other recreational equipment. But, for the first time, families that could barely live, as the previous speaker said, between payment fortnights are in a position now to buy recreational and other retail elements that could never be afforded before. What I am saying will infuriate urban Labor MPs, who are utterly out of touch with the conditions in remote Australia. They flew in in a Cessna, flew out that afternoon, spoke to the two people who were annoyed by the cashless debit card and were reinforced and brought it back here.

The Labor Party's arguments in this chamber about shame and about the punitive nature of the card, characterising it as racist and calling it shameful and costly, is one of the most disappointing elements of this debate. We can have this debate, and the card is not everything—but the card is something. The card has done its job clearly, by evaluation. And, in the context of remote Australia, where these are some of the hardest and most perennial and ingrained problems, maybe these solutions will be intergenerational. But I finish where I started: with these massive numbers of people who have ameliorated behaviour—reduced gambling; reduced drinking; are able to feed, support and educate their children for the first time. I will not walk away from you.

6:41 pm

Photo of Tony ZappiaTony 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.

            6:56 pm

            Photo of Graham PerrettGraham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | | Hansard source

            I am happy to follow the member for Makin in speaking on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. He always makes a fine and considered contribution. I'm now in my 14th year of speaking after him, and I'm happy to do so. Labor opposes the extension of the existing cashless debit card trial sites unless there is clear evidence of local community support. That is crucial. What this bill will do is make permanent the cashless debit card trial sites of Ceduna, in South Australia, an area that I've visited for this; the East Kimberley; the Goldfields, which is Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie and surrounding areas; and the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region in Queensland. It makes those trial sites permanent, irrespective of the views of locals. The bill will permanently replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card in the Northern Territory, and it will replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card in Queensland's Cape York and extend income management in Cape York until the end of next year. This legislation will also make it easier for a person to volunteer to be placed on a cashless debit card and allow a person to remain on a cashless debit card when they move outside one of the prescribed areas. It will enable the secretary to review and revoke cashless debit card exit provisions if the secretary no longer believes a person who exited the card is reasonably and responsibly managing their own affairs.

            The cashless debit card trial sites in Ceduna, the East Kimberley, the Goldfields and the Bundaberg-Hervey Bay region were just that, trial sites. The reason governments have trials or pilots for some policy initiatives is to review how they work and see whether they are worth refining and rolling out further or should be pulled back because they're not working. Remember, the residents in these areas were actually conscripted guinea pigs when it comes to this government policy. But, with these trials, the Morrison government was not interested in finding out whether or not they were actually successful. It took longstanding criticisms about the lack of evidence available on the trials before the Morrison government eventually committed to an independent review. But before even receiving the review, the Morrison government announced that the trials would be made permanent. The review conducted by the University of South Australia concluded:

            We have shown the CDC … to have had no substantive effect on the available measures for the targeted behaviours of gambling or intoxicant abuse.

            I stress that: 'no substantive effect'. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists said in their submission to the Senate inquiry:

            … we are concerned at the continued pursuit of this policy against the advice of addiction specialists.

            …   …   …

            More than 50 years of psychological research shows that positive reinforcement strategies are more effective than punitive strategies in bringing about behavioural change.

            It's almost like society has moved on a little bit since they wrote the Old Testament a couple of thousand years ago!

            There's a clear pattern with this Morrison government, and we've seen it time and time again. Almost every policy that Prime Minister Morrison tries to ram through this parliament—I think that, fundamentally, he'd rather just run things through without that nasty inconvenience of democracy—is against the recognised expert advice. Prime Minister Morrison proudly gets out his stamp and stamps it on every bill: 'Ignored my experts.' That's what he stamps on the document.

            Just this week, we've seen the Family Court merger bills being rammed through the House—bills that will abolish the specialist standalone Family Court of Australia. Liberal and National Party members were the only ones who voted for it. Not Labor, not the Greens and not one crossbencher. You managed to unite Bob Katter and the member for Mayo on a unity ticket! Not one crossbencher voted for it. Do you know why? Because all of the expert evidence says it is a really bad idea—hundreds of stakeholder groups. Still, the Prime Minister got out his stamp that said: 'Ignored my experts.' He's proud of it.

            Today, the House has debated a bill that effectively returns unemployment payments to the old Newstart rate after 31 March next year. Who thinks that's a good idea? Well, not the Australian Council of Social Services, not the Council on the Ageing Australia, not the Australian Human Rights Commission, nor a range of other community sector organisations, peak bodies and groups representing social security payment recipients and economists, who all made submissions to the Senate committee inquiry raising concerns. Even the Australian Retailers Association, not exactly a cabal of lefties, I would suggest, has said:

            Providing a three-month extension is a Band-Aid on a social and economic wound that we need to address as a nation.

            Again, the Morrison government has not listened to the experts, but has pigheadedly followed its own ideology to the detriment of all Australians. Prime Minister Morrison again pulled out his stamp that he sits up there next to his 'World's Cruellest Immigration Minister Trophy' and, bam, again puts on the stamp: 'Ignored my experts.'

            This bill in front of the chamber is no different. Again, the Morrison government is actually ignoring its own independent analysis. In fact, it didn't even bother reading the report before committing to making the current trial sites permanent. Even worse than not listening to the experts is not listening to the First Nations communities who will be impacted the hardest by this legislation. Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory told a Senate inquiry into the bill:

            … our perspective on the cashless debit card, from the enormous consultation we’ve had with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, is that they don’t want it, hence why we’re calling on the Senate not to support this bill.

            First Nations communities, the people who have the oldest words on earth, should have words that are listened to by this parliament. They should be listened to. 'Nothing about us without us.' That's a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to First Nations people.

            This legislation will disproportionately impact First Nations people: 68 per cent of the people who will be forced onto the cashless debit card are First Nations Australians. That's 23,000 out of the 34,000 people impacted by this card who will be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, and 18,000 people will be in the Northern Territory. We suspected what the Morrison government's real agenda was, but this bill has finally exposed that this government's real agenda is a big, permanent rollout of the card. With all of the problems associated with it that have been detailed by previous speakers, one that I would particularly touch on was called out by the member for Makin. I think he belled the cat: if you remove people's ability to have pride when they go about living their life, you crush their souls. For a government that professes to care about mental health, that is a dangerous road to go down. Labor is opposed to income management programs that may catch and disempower the wrong people, such as this type of broad-based, compulsory income management program.

            But some income management programs can be justified—programs that are targeted. In Cape York, the local community is applying income management based on individual circumstances, and it supports the families and monitors the outcomes. That type of income management is appropriate where community support continues as that rule, 'Nothing about us without us.' This rule is being applied in the Cape York area. The Cape York Welfare Reform project commenced more than 12 years ago. It arose from a partnership with four Cape York communities, the Queensland government, the Commonwealth government and the Cape York Institute. The Cape York Welfare Reform was grounded by the establishment of the Family Responsibilities Commission, the FRC, which was legislated by Premier Anna Bligh back in 2008.

            The FRC is an example of Indigenous empowerment. Its structure was designed by Cape York people for Cape York families. It shifts power and responsibility from government, distant government—remember, Brisbane is as close to Cape York as it is to Melbourne—to the community itself, to respected local elders and leaders acting as local family responsibility commissioners. The FRC commissioners have the power to call people in and conference with them if they fail to send their children to school or if they've been the subject of a child safety notice, or if they've committed an offence or failed to pay their rent. Income management orders are part of a number of measures available under the conditional welfare approach in the Cape York model, but only after restorative justice conferencing from local FRC commissioners. Clients are also linked to extra support services to motivate and build capacity for change—'Nothing about us without us.'

            Under the Cape York model, income management is not a blanket restriction imposed on all, and it is not permanent. It has the hope of rehabilitation and change. The order can be removed by the local FRC commissioners where a person has shown that they've taken steps to change and to fulfil their obligations—the ability to have pride and a job et cetera, all of those things that humans are built for. There is overwhelming community support for the Cape York Welfare Reform: 'Nothing about us without us.' Cape York communities do not want distant governments deciding their futures for them. When I say 'distant governments' I mean Brisbane not Canberra.

            The Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory, in their submission to the Senate inquiry, said the bill:

            … is expensive, paternalistic, not based on the evidence and is a top-down blanket approach that will not address the real needs, or complex systemic issues, impacting Aboriginal people living in the Northern Territory (NT).

            They went on to say:

            … compulsory and conditional income management is a vehicle for disempowerment and continuing the stigmatisation and trauma of Aboriginal people.

            The St Vincent de Paul Society, in its submission to the committee, talked about its concern of unintended consequences and circumvention behaviours that may arise when people with serious addiction are left without adequate support. They said that cutting off access to cash may cause addicts to seek out other means to access alcohol and drugs, often bringing detrimental consequences to those around them. The National Council of Single Mothers and their Children told the Senate committee:

            The distress, shame and hardship it causes to people (disproportionately, women, mothers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in all current trial sites) is based on a false assumption that stripping people of autonomy and dignity will solve serious health and social issues.

            We know that this bill is just the beginning of a brutal government's plan to roll out the cashless debit card. We know some in the Morrison government have been calling for a national rollout. We know the Morrison government has established a technology working group with the big banks, the supermarkets and Australia Post, and a few other people connected with the government, to look at how this can be rolled out through the payment system. All of the actions of this government point toward a national rollout. That would allow Prime Minister Morrison to track and control what people on social security do with their money, money that they as Australian citizens are entitled to. Pensioners are already scared that they could be compulsorily put on a cashless debit card. What will the government do then? Will they roll the program out to those receiving franking credits? Just kidding.

            Obviously Labor does not support this bill. There is absolutely zero evidence that the trials have been successful. This bill is punitive. This bill racially discriminates. It will detrimentally affect the most disenfranchised people in Australia. It is a backward policy that harks of the Howard government's so-called Intervention in the Northern Territory that was a whitefella failure, irrespective of whatever motivated it. This bill won't create a single job. It won't improve anyone's living conditions and it won't close the gap. Labor does not support this bill but it does support the amendment, and I support the amendment moved by the shadow minister.

            7:09 pm

            Photo of Libby CokerLibby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

            I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill. I will always respect this House, but my message on this proposed legislation is plain and simple: it is trash. More than a decade ago, former Prime Minister John Howard launched his intervention into the Northern Territory. This policy was retrograde. It took away First Nations people's freedoms, it was discriminatory and it did nothing to help. Sadly, nothing much has changed. We still see leaders of the Liberal Party pretending to be concerned for our country's First Nations people. Despite the rhetoric of partnership and respect, this legislation is not about self-determination. It is the opposite. It entrenches a sense of powerlessness and ignores the wisdom of the Uluru statement. The draft legislation before us will make the cashless debit card permanent in existing trial sites of Ceduna, East Kimberley, the Goldfields, Bundaberg-Hervey Bay. It also seeks to permanently replace the BasicsCard with the cashless debit card across the Northern Territory even if recipients move to other locations. In short, this bill would enact a widespread rollout of the government's compulsory income management program—a program that doesn't respect people's rights to make choices about how they spend their money.

            The bill is proposed despite the fact that First Nations people have wholly rejected it. The Morrison government has conducted trials, evidence has been gathered and the answer is simple—the program doesn't work. But brazen disregard for evidence based policy continues to be an operational imperative for this government. My constituents have been absolutely stunned to learn that the minister responsible for this program did not even read the independent review conducted by the University of Adelaide before making the decision to roll out this horribly flawed program. What is the point of a trial if the government is determined to be led by racial prejudice regarding the trial results? I proudly stand with the shadow minister for families and social services, who is calling on the government to bin this rubbish bill. The Labor Party opposes this program because it is yet another example of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government reaching into the lives of Australians without reason. The Labor Party opposes this program because it is based on prejudice rather than evidence. And the Labor Party opposes this program because it will not help our First Nations people achieve self-determination.

            This bill has also brought to light the gravest fears of many Australians. This government has an agenda to roll out the cashless card regardless of its impact. We've watched on as this government feigned an interest in testing the card. But now we know with certainty that the government does not care and never cared about getting the program right. This was laid bare for all to see when the minister admitted that she had not consulted, considered, or read the much awaited independent review by the University of Adelaide. On 6 October, the government announced its intention to make the cashless debit card a permanent restrictive feature in the lives of so many. Then, on 8 October, the government introduced enacting legislation to this parliament. And then, on 29 October, the senator representing the Northern Territory Malarndirri McCarthy asked the minister a very simple question: 'Minister, have you read the report?' The minister's reply: 'No.' The minister had not even bothered to read the relevant report. This fact says it all. This flagrant disrespect of the evidence is mind-boggling. And, what's worse, this government is playing with the lives of so many. The senator and minister for social services takes home about $400,000 Australian tax dollars a year, plus allowances, and can't find the time to read the report. It's not good enough, plain and simple.

            What is more, this bill is racist. It's discriminatory. The rollout of the cashless debit card, as proposed by the Morrison government, will impact First Nations people disproportionately. About 70 per cent of the people this government is forcing onto the card are First Nations people. Of the 34,000 people directly impacted, 23,000 are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Eighteen thousand live in the Northern Territory. This government said it was attentive to the review. This government said it was listening to the feedback. Then this government didn't even read the report. Such actions reveal this government believes in action without consultation and the government believes in driving our communities apart.

            But that is not what Labor believes. We believe that Australia is made up of powerful, capable communities that are better united than divided. We also believe that income management will sometimes be necessary—just not this income management, because this income management is a sledgehammer. Instead, Labor believes in the careful, thoughtful use of income management as a targeted tool in specific cases. One example of this, as some of my colleagues have already mentioned, is child protection. We acknowledge that there will be times when government intervention is required. When the circumstances of individuals receiving the payments are taken into account, we can support families and improve outcomes. That's a very good thing. This bill is not.

            This bill isn't a good thing, because this compulsory income-management program doesn't drive better results. That's what we should all want in this House: to drive better results. The program entrenches both dependency on the state and a sense of hopelessness, with little opportunity for a path to employment. We know the government knows this, because it wrote it in a report to the UN. This government wrote of income management:

            While there are more positive results associated with people who volunteer, as they have made a choice to change their behaviour and receive assistance, positive findings have been found for people who have been referred for Income Management by a social worker or a child protection officer.

            The evidence provided by submissions to this bill carry the same overwhelming position: the program doesn't work. The Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory submitted:

            The continuation of compulsory income management through the transfer to the CDC is being rushed forward despite the lack of any strong or positive evidence drawn from either the 2014 Social Policy Research Centre evaluation of New Income Management in the NT, the 2017 Orima Research evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card Trials.

            The submission went on to say:

            Income management cannot provide a transition to employment in locations where few employment opportunities exist and those that exist are largely done by outsiders. Instead, for many Aboriginal residents of the NT, particularly those living remotely, compulsory income management is long term and, regardless of a person ' s lifestyle and financial management capacity, almost impossible to get off.

            Compulsory income management is not enabling. It is not a path to self-determination. Instead, it locks them into a life of dependency. The 2014 independent Evaluating new income management in the Northern Territory, conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre, found that 90 per cent of those on income management were Indigenous and 77 per cent of those were on compulsory income management. More than 60 per cent of this group were on income management for more than six years. Of those Indigenous people on compulsory income management, a mere five per cent gained an exemption, compared to 36 per cent of non-Indigenous people. Even when First Nations people apply to remove themselves from compulsory income management because they seek self-determination, only one in 20 have been granted an exemption, compared to more than one in three for non-Indigenous people. This is discriminatory and it is racist. This government has undertaken a process showing clear contempt for the coalitions of peaks and makes a mockery of the government's new Closing the Gap Partnership Agreement.

            I don't support this bill. Labor doesn't support this bill. This bill is trash. It is time the Morrison government listened to its people: to all First Nations people, to all Australians who believe in fairness, democracy and in people being able to make choices about their own lives—to self-determination. Let's bin this bill. May it never see the light of day again.

            7:19 pm

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

            I am very pleased to rise to speak tonight in opposition to this government's deeply flawed, punitive and, frankly, racist bill to impose a permanent and compulsory income management system in the form of a cashless debit card. This bill, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020, will make the cashless debit card a permanent feature in all of the trial sites—Ceduna, the East Kimberley, the Goldfields and the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area—and permanently replace the BasicsCard in the Northern Territory with the cashless debit card, effectively extending the cashless debit card system to the entire Northern Territory.

            There are many other components of this bill, some of which I might get time to discuss, but what I really want to draw the attention of this House to tonight is the fact that this bill highlights what is a fundamental problem for this government, and that is the continuation of failed approaches. I say this based on much of the evidence that has come before numerous inquiries into the cashless debit card. It is based on historical experience, on our 13 years of the Intervention into the Northern Territory and the drastic consequences for First Nations people in the Territory as a result of 13 years of an income management system that has been a vehicle for nothing but disempowerment and the continuation of stigmatisation and, indeed, trauma for many of those First Nations peoples and communities.

            It infuriates me that this government lacks the imagination to make an effort to understand the systemic issues around poverty and disenfranchisement and, indeed, the marginalisation that many First Nations peoples and communities feel. Legislation like this, which is before this House this evening, is some of the laziest policymaking I have seen. I say this because this government appears to have learnt nothing when it comes to looking at the history of policymaking in First Nations affairs. This legislation runs completely counter to the commitment that the Prime Minister made back in July in this very chamber, where he was praising a new approach from the government. He said that there would be a new partnership formed, and this was in light of an ongoing failure to make any inroads into the Closing the Gap targets. The Prime Minister said that we were going to remedy this by having a new partnership with First Nations people and that First Nations people would not only have a say in how something is delivered but would also be part of a co-design process in order to determine those service deliveries in their communities. I'm sorry, but there's nothing in this legislation that stands up to that promise the Prime Minister gave in this House to First Nations people in Australia.

            As I said, this is a shocking continuation of the failed approaches to consultation, engagement and public policy making. I said earlier that this is lazy policymaking. I say that because the government perceives a crisis—and this is exactly what happened in the intervention period as well—and introduces a range of measures that are purported to be temporary. They are to manage a situation now. Remedies are to be put in place and eventually people will be able to resume control of their lives once communities are stabilised, people's health improves, housing is provided and all of those things. Of course, none of those underlying issues have been addressed in these communities. None of those things have been improved.

            What is the exit strategy from this income support management program? What is the pathway to get people off income management and for them to be able to live autonomous lives, control their own income and make the decisions about themselves and their families that you, I and non-Indigenous people in this country take for granted? Well, there isn't a plan. Indeed, when we have examined this, the research has shown how demonstrably—

            Mr Stephen Jones interjecting

            Mr Katter interjecting

            Other people will have an opportunity to speak. When they get the microphone they can knock themselves out. At the moment I am pointing to the profound lack of evidence based policymaking that is taking place in this country. I am pointing to the evidence that has been made available to the government. Let's not forget that this government actually commissioned, at a cost of $2½ million, Adelaide university to evaluate the cashless debit card trial. Yet did the government wait to hear what that important piece of research, that important evaluation of this program, had to say? No. It was pretty clear that the government was going to make a decision about the permanent rollout of this cashless debit card without any evidence. Indeed, Minister Ruston made clear in Senate estimates that she had not read the report. Fancy paying $2½ million for a report and not bothering to read it. They wonder why we on this side of the House dare ask questions about the fundamental lack of evidence that is informing the government's policy position tonight.

            I'll wind up my contribution. I will end by saying that this is a shameful, shoddy and lazy piece of legislation before this House. As I said at the start, this bill continues to highlight the fundamental flaws and failed approaches that this government has taken in relation to any policy in First Nations communities in Australia. This has been the most interrupted speech I've delivered in this parliament for some time.

            Photo of Lucy WicksLucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

            Thank you, member for Newcastle, and I'll just note that I was listening intently to you.

            Debate interrupted.