Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The coalition strongly supports the cashless debit card for welfare payments to working-age recipients where alcohol and drugs are a problem. Research from the University of Adelaide showed that the cashless debit card led to a 21 per cent decrease in gambling and 45 per cent of people believed it had improved their lives. Prime Minister, to please the inner-city, woke audience you've abolished the card. As Jacinta Price points out, it will result in higher incidences of domestic violence and assault in Indigenous communities. Why make a bad situation worse?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and I will also ask the minister to supplement my answer. We went into the election with the very clear position of abolishing the cashless debit card, and we did so because of the impact that it had in privatising part of the welfare system, whereby for the first time we had a welfare system that was paying a private company to engage in activity with profit motive, which was resulting as well in issues being imposed on communities and on individuals without their having any say in that. One of the things that we have done is make sure that we're about empowering communities, not taking power away from them. That is an important distinction between our attitude and the attitude of those opposite—not a patronising position that says, 'We know best,' not one that extended the cashless debit card into communities. It wasn't just in Indigenous communities; it was imposed on other communities as well, and that is why we went to the election with a very clear position. We stand by that, and that's why we'll be legislating to achieve our objective. I'd ask the minister to also comment.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, the Leader of the Opposition hasn't quite got his correlation and his causation right. He just said that the University of Adelaide report led to a change. I'm going to quote from the University of Adelaide report.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order. The minister has been going for eight seconds.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, Speaker, I'm not interested in causation; I'm interested in reducing domestic—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no point of order. The minister was referring to the report when you took the point of order.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will answer the question. Those opposite have insisted the University of Adelaide report in January supported the cashless debit card. What they have failed to point out is that the evidence was inconclusive. The study found that any reduction in alcohol and drug use could not be directly attributed to the effect of the card. They failed to acknowledge that the report found that the cashless debit card introduced 'widely felt and costly hurdles to many participants in relation to financial planning and money management' and:

A large proportion of CDC participant… respondents reported that their quality of life had been affected in a negative way…

That was the University of Adelaide report. Of course, we have this ANAO report which the minister failed to listen to either, and I will go to the conclusion of the most recent ANAO report, which said that it 'has not demonstrated that the CDC program is meeting its intended objectives'. Need I say more?