Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting these amendments. They don't go far enough for us however. We moved a second reading amendment that said we should get rid of income management and the cashless welfare card. The cashless welfare card, as I articulated in my second reading contribution, demonises people and stigmatises people, and it is not the way that we address the very serious issues that we know communities are facing. I've gone through the details of that extensively in this place on many occasions. So we think this is a step in the right direction, which is why we're supporting it. We should make the cashless welfare card voluntary.

I'm very sceptical about testing community support because the experience at the moment is that it is a flawed approach. The government keeps tells us it's supporting communities; however, when I go into those communities, I don't see a whole lot of support for the people who are stuck on the card, who are suffering the effects of the card, whose lives have been made harder by the card. I've articulated those experiences in this place on many occasions—in particular, yesterday in my second reading contribution and the night before in my adjournment speech. There are a lot of people whose lives have not been made better by this card; they've been made significantly worse in terms of not only their capacity to manage their finances but also their physical and, in particular, mental health.

Having said that, this is a step in the right direction. I know that what the Greens expect from the amendments around community support and testing is an independent process, not one that is driven by government. Quite frankly, we simply cannot trust them to do the job properly. We've seen flawed consultation processes in the past; we've seen flawed evaluation processes, and, again, I've spoken about those flaws on many occasions. So we say that this consultation process needs to be carried out independently and needs to be clear, transparent and accountable. Having said that, these amendments are a step in the right direction, so we will be supporting them.