Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that it is the wish of the House to consider the amendments together.

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

RISHWORTH (—) (): I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

I welcome the message from the Senate that they've considered the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023 today and passed it with amendments. This bill builds on the changes made by the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Repeal of Cashless Debit Card and Other Measures) Bill 2022, which establishes the enhanced income management program and the repeal of the cashless debit card program. I've followed the debate in the Senate closely, and I thank all senators for their contribution. The amendments made to this bill by the Senate were supported by the government, and I'll briefly summarise these for the benefit of my colleagues in the House.

The first amendment requires me as minister to regularly provide an estimate of the costs to the Commonwealth of the enhanced income management scheme. While I note the details of the SmartCard contracts, including their total value, are already available on AusTender, the government welcomes the opportunity to provide more clarity on this issue.

The second amendment requires the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to conduct a review of compulsory income management within 12 months and every three years thereafter. The PJCHR regularly engages with this matter. I acknowledge my colleague the member for Macnamara, as chair of this committee, and the committee for the important work they do. The PJCHR's Human rights scrutiny report: report 4 of 2023 includes scrutiny of the income management reform bill. It sought my advice on a number of provisions. I was pleased to provide a response to the committee on 18 April 2023.

The third and final amendment requires the Senate Community Affairs References Committee to review each legislative instrument made by me, as the minister, within three months of the day the instrument is tabled in the Senate. I welcome that oversight, and I further note instruments to be made under the bill will be disallowable in the parliament, providing much opportunity for debate and scrutiny.

With the passage of this bill we will take another step towards reforming income management in Australia. More than 25,000 Australians will have access to enhanced income management and the SmartCard, increasing choice over where and how they spend their money. But we know there's still a way to go. As I've said on a number of occasions, we will continue consulting and listening to a wide range of stakeholders, including First Nations leaders, women's groups, service providers, communities, people receiving welfare payments and our state and territory counterparts. These diverse perspectives on local needs will strongly inform the future of income management and what it looks like.

Consultation is central to everything we do as a government. We want to ensure changes or measures we implement are helping those in need. Our focus and our objective as a government remains clear: to empower people and communities and to provide individuals and communities with a range of supports, and they can choose to use which suits them best.

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

The coalition will be supporting these amendments. These amendments, thankfully, provide greater transparency and help hold the government to account as it dismantles the former very successful cashless debit card program. It is disappointing to note that, in the other place, the government didn't see fit to support a range of other commonsense amendments to publish details of key metrics, sadly, of social harm that we are now seeing as a result of the cashless debit card being abolished: rates of violent crime; presentations to hospital emergency departments; ambulance callouts; drug or alcohol related callouts; reportable incidents of domestic violence—sadly, all of which we're seeing now rise as a result of this government's decision to abolish the cashless debit card. As I've said all along, the coalition will always work to strengthen income management, and we've committed, and today I'll recommit, to reinstate the cashless debit card in communities who seek to have it, so that payments that taxpayers make can be spent on food for children—not on alcohol, gambling and drugs, which is being allowed by the actions of this government.

Question agreed to.