Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're seeing now the outcome of Labor's ideological decision to abolish the cashless debit card. Last year we warned of the consequences. We foreshadowed the horror that is now the reality for so many vulnerable communities.

By abolishing the cashless debit card, we knew that there would be a flood of alcohol and drugs into the communities of Ceduna, the East Kimberley and the Goldfields in Western Australia as well as Bundaberg and Harvey Bay in Queensland. At the time, in this place, I referred to it as a tsunami of trauma, and we are now seeing that unfold in those communities. There are few times when you can say with so much certainty that, unleashing alcohol into a vulnerable community will have such devastation.

On the weekend, a journalist from TheAustralian, Ellen Whinnett, reported on her recent visit to Ceduna, where, since the government's decision to abolish the cashless debit card, there has been a spike in alcohol abuse, child neglect and reports on the ground—and I quote—of the 'absolute bedlam'. The article went on to say that 'drinking on the foreshore has escalated, and tourists were being driven away by people fighting, yelling and aggressively asking for money and cigarettes, ' and that locals were being exposed to 'defecating in the streets around the business areas and on the lawns on the seafront, fighting in the streets, smashing bottles' and general antisocial behaviour.

Labor should feel ashamed for abolishing the cashless debit card, and we will continue to fight for it. (Time expired)